Correlates of prosodic phrasing are examined in a comparative study between two languages, German and French. The material was elicited in a production experiment with 30 speakers of German and 20 speakers of French, who were asked to describe orally the spatial arrangement of toy animals on a table. Prosodic phrasing clearly correlates to syntactic structure in both languages, but tonal excursions correspond to pitch accents plus boundaries in German, and have a demarcative function in French. This difference is explained by the presence vs. absence of lexical stresses in the two languages. It is reflected in the position of tones, which are peripheral in the French prosodic phrases, but are associated with metrical heads in German, and also with final lengthening, which is systematic in French, but not in German. A final difference between the two languages is deaccenting, used in German, but not in French.
Accounts of French prosody have traditionally held that the grouping of words in an utterance, the distribution of accents within those groups, and the intonation contours that can be realized are closely intertwined. Recent proposals claim that these connections can be successfully formalized in the grammar. Prosodic variation provides an excellent testing ground for this claim, since one of the crucial predictions is that the same grammar underlies any variation in prosodic surface forms that can be observed at, for instance, different speaking rates. The results of a production experiment confirm that, as expected, rate has an effect on the frequency distribution and phonetic implementation of prosodic structures, but not on the underlying system of phonological forms.
In this paper, we analyze data from Neapolitan Italian showing that register level downstep across prosodic phrases can be a function of information structure and specific discourse strategies. Specifically, we hypothesized that in NP VP sentences, Partial (and thus contrastive) Topic NP phrases are followed by a phrase break and by a downstepped register level in the VP phrase, while this is not true in non-contrastive constructions. We also show that this type of register level downstep is not to be confused with the extreme register compression effect caused by early, contrastive focus (on the sentence-initial NP), though both Partial Topic and Contrastive Focus on a Subject NP appear to induce a phrase break between the NP and the VP phrase.
This article has three aims. First, to find out whether the Spanish influence on Catalan found at the segmental level (Lleó, Benet & Cortés 2009) is also to be observed in prosody, specifically with regard to phrasing. More sustained pitch and less continuation rise has been found in a Spanish dominant neighbourhood of Barcelona as compared to a Catalan dominant area. The second aim is to compare the findings from studies based on read speech with those from our spontaneous corpus. Two phenomena have shown different results: sustained pitch and declination. Finally, to contribute to the determination of the relevant levels of phrasing in Catalan. There is no doubt about the domain of the intonational phrase. Below this, pauses seem to establish the border between intermediate and phonological phrases. Perception tests of spontaneous data will be necessary to confirm this hierarchy.
The aim of this paper is to present a research project on the effects language contact has had on the intonation of Occitan and French, and especially on Southern varieties of the latter, which differ substantially from the Northern standard. The main hypothesis sees Occitan as a link between the Southern Romance languages on the one hand, which display lexical accents, and French on the other, which has replaced this type of prosodic marking by phrase-final prominences and optional phrase-initial rises. After analyzing preliminary recordings of an Occitan/French bilingual, we first report on the difficulties involved in working with spontaneous speech and then suggest similarities and differences in the prosodic organization of these two languages.
This paper deals with prosodic phrasing in Porteño Spanish, the urban vernacular of Buenos Aires. Concerning its prosody, Porteño is often described as more closely resembling Italian than other Spanish dialects. While recent work largely focuses on Italian’ features in the domain of pitch accents, the present study shows that phrasing patterns also tend to follow the Italian model. Based on recordings made with 25 speakers from Buenos Aires, we concentrate on broad-focus SVO declaratives, taking different phrasing conditions such as syntactic and prosodic complexity into account. Two main aspects are considered: first, the presence or absence of prosodic breaks, and second, their surface realization, including tonal shape and durational aspects.
This paper revisits the hypothesis that Buenos Aires Spanish (BAS) early peak-alignment and downstep are the result of contact with Italian. In order to support the hypothesis, I compared BAS to other contact (Spanish-Guarani) and non-contact varieties. Overall results confirmed previous findings and crucially showed that BAS differs from other Argentine non-contact varieties in the shape of prenuclear and nuclear accents and in the relative duration of the stressed syllable. Additionally, BAS, as opposed to the Spanish-Guarani contact variety studied here, shows early peak alignment in prenuclear accents and a nuclear fall. As such, the patterns observed in BAS are specific to this variety and, for the time being, is reasonable to attribute them to contact with Italian.
The present study compares the production of phonetic cues signaling phrasing boundaries by three monolingual Spanish, three monolingual German and three German-Spanish bilingual children at age 3;0, in broad-focus declaratives. The phonetic cues analyzed are F0-reset, intonation contours (falling vs. rising), pauses, final lengthening and glottal stop insertion (Peters 2006, for German; and Frota et al. 2007, for Spanish). Results show that both monolinguals and bilinguals signal prosodic phrase boundaries in ways that can be considered adult-like. However, bilinguals exhibit more individual differences. Whereas two bilingual children show differences between their two prosodic systems, which correspond to the values of the two adult languages, a third bilingual child signals cues by means of German values in both languages, German and Spanish.
Correlates of prosodic phrasing are examined in a comparative study between two languages, German and French. The material was elicited in a production experiment with 30 speakers of German and 20 speakers of French, who were asked to describe orally the spatial arrangement of toy animals on a table. Prosodic phrasing clearly correlates to syntactic structure in both languages, but tonal excursions correspond to pitch accents plus boundaries in German, and have a demarcative function in French. This difference is explained by the presence vs. absence of lexical stresses in the two languages. It is reflected in the position of tones, which are peripheral in the French prosodic phrases, but are associated with metrical heads in German, and also with final lengthening, which is systematic in French, but not in German. A final difference between the two languages is deaccenting, used in German, but not in French.
Accounts of French prosody have traditionally held that the grouping of words in an utterance, the distribution of accents within those groups, and the intonation contours that can be realized are closely intertwined. Recent proposals claim that these connections can be successfully formalized in the grammar. Prosodic variation provides an excellent testing ground for this claim, since one of the crucial predictions is that the same grammar underlies any variation in prosodic surface forms that can be observed at, for instance, different speaking rates. The results of a production experiment confirm that, as expected, rate has an effect on the frequency distribution and phonetic implementation of prosodic structures, but not on the underlying system of phonological forms.
In this paper, we analyze data from Neapolitan Italian showing that register level downstep across prosodic phrases can be a function of information structure and specific discourse strategies. Specifically, we hypothesized that in NP VP sentences, Partial (and thus contrastive) Topic NP phrases are followed by a phrase break and by a downstepped register level in the VP phrase, while this is not true in non-contrastive constructions. We also show that this type of register level downstep is not to be confused with the extreme register compression effect caused by early, contrastive focus (on the sentence-initial NP), though both Partial Topic and Contrastive Focus on a Subject NP appear to induce a phrase break between the NP and the VP phrase.
This article has three aims. First, to find out whether the Spanish influence on Catalan found at the segmental level (Lleó, Benet & Cortés 2009) is also to be observed in prosody, specifically with regard to phrasing. More sustained pitch and less continuation rise has been found in a Spanish dominant neighbourhood of Barcelona as compared to a Catalan dominant area. The second aim is to compare the findings from studies based on read speech with those from our spontaneous corpus. Two phenomena have shown different results: sustained pitch and declination. Finally, to contribute to the determination of the relevant levels of phrasing in Catalan. There is no doubt about the domain of the intonational phrase. Below this, pauses seem to establish the border between intermediate and phonological phrases. Perception tests of spontaneous data will be necessary to confirm this hierarchy.
The aim of this paper is to present a research project on the effects language contact has had on the intonation of Occitan and French, and especially on Southern varieties of the latter, which differ substantially from the Northern standard. The main hypothesis sees Occitan as a link between the Southern Romance languages on the one hand, which display lexical accents, and French on the other, which has replaced this type of prosodic marking by phrase-final prominences and optional phrase-initial rises. After analyzing preliminary recordings of an Occitan/French bilingual, we first report on the difficulties involved in working with spontaneous speech and then suggest similarities and differences in the prosodic organization of these two languages.
This paper deals with prosodic phrasing in Porteño Spanish, the urban vernacular of Buenos Aires. Concerning its prosody, Porteño is often described as more closely resembling Italian than other Spanish dialects. While recent work largely focuses on Italian’ features in the domain of pitch accents, the present study shows that phrasing patterns also tend to follow the Italian model. Based on recordings made with 25 speakers from Buenos Aires, we concentrate on broad-focus SVO declaratives, taking different phrasing conditions such as syntactic and prosodic complexity into account. Two main aspects are considered: first, the presence or absence of prosodic breaks, and second, their surface realization, including tonal shape and durational aspects.
This paper revisits the hypothesis that Buenos Aires Spanish (BAS) early peak-alignment and downstep are the result of contact with Italian. In order to support the hypothesis, I compared BAS to other contact (Spanish-Guarani) and non-contact varieties. Overall results confirmed previous findings and crucially showed that BAS differs from other Argentine non-contact varieties in the shape of prenuclear and nuclear accents and in the relative duration of the stressed syllable. Additionally, BAS, as opposed to the Spanish-Guarani contact variety studied here, shows early peak alignment in prenuclear accents and a nuclear fall. As such, the patterns observed in BAS are specific to this variety and, for the time being, is reasonable to attribute them to contact with Italian.
The present study compares the production of phonetic cues signaling phrasing boundaries by three monolingual Spanish, three monolingual German and three German-Spanish bilingual children at age 3;0, in broad-focus declaratives. The phonetic cues analyzed are F0-reset, intonation contours (falling vs. rising), pauses, final lengthening and glottal stop insertion (Peters 2006, for German; and Frota et al. 2007, for Spanish). Results show that both monolinguals and bilinguals signal prosodic phrase boundaries in ways that can be considered adult-like. However, bilinguals exhibit more individual differences. Whereas two bilingual children show differences between their two prosodic systems, which correspond to the values of the two adult languages, a third bilingual child signals cues by means of German values in both languages, German and Spanish.