Chapter 4
French additive particle aussi
Does prosody matter?
The goal of this study is to determine whether prosody contributes to the discrimination of meaning in sentences with the French additive particle aussi (‘also’). Previous research has highlighted the frequent use of this particle in structurally ambiguous positions, especially in spoken data, while authors diverge on their views as to the possible contribution of prosody to their disambiguation. In order to verify the role of prosody, we have run an experimental study based on a reading task: 20 native speakers were recorded while reading a set of contextualized sentences with aussi placed in both structurally ambiguous and non-ambiguous positions. The results show the presence of different types of prosodic correlates associated with aussi, but also that they are not exploited in a systematic way.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Additive particles in French
- 2.1
Syntactic mobility and semantic scope of aussi
- 2.2Preferences in language use
- 2.3Prosody with additive particles
- 2.3.1Prosody and information structure
- 2.3.2Prosodic marking with aussi?
- 3.
An experimental approach to the prosody of aussi
- 3.1A pilot study
- 3.2Methodology
- 3.3
Aussi in an ambiguous position
- 3.3.1The aussi-accent
- 3.3.2Other prosodic parameters
- 3.3.3
The prosody of the object as the domain of application of aussi
- 3.4
Aussi in the post-subject position
- 4.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
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Cited by (3)
Cited by 3 other publications
Dimroth, Christine & Sandra Benazzo
Patin, Cédric & Sandra Benazzo
2018.
La prosodie joue-t-elle un rôle dans la détermination de la portée ? Le cas d’ également.
Revue française de linguistique appliquée Vol. XXIII:1
► pp. 89 ff.
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