Focus Marking and Prosodic Boundary Strength in French.

IF 1.1 3区文学 Q3 ACOUSTICS

Phonetica Pub Date : 2020-01-01 Epub Date: 2019-07-01 DOI:10.1159/000499071

Amandine Michelas, James S German

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引用次数: 5

Abstract

Background/aims: In French, the size of a focus constituent is not reliably marked through pitch accent assignment as in many stress accent languages. While it has been argued that the distribution of lower-level prosodic boundaries plays a role, this is at best a weak cue to focus, leaving open the question of whether other marking strategies are available. In this study, we assess whether the right edge of a contrastive focus constituent is marked by differences in prosodic boundary strength.

Methods: We elicited utterances with target words in six combinations of focus and syntactic contexts using an interactive production task.

Results: The results show that if a given location is realized as an accentual phrase boundary in an all-focus context, then it is realized as an intermediate phrase boundary when it coincides with the right edge of a narrow-focus constituent. A location that is an intermediate phrase boundary in an all-focus context, however, remains unchanged under narrow focus.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that focus constituents are constrained to align with a minimum prosodic domain size in French (i.e., the intermediate phrase), and that French does not rely on a general strategy of prosodic enhancement for marking focus.

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法语焦点标记与韵律边界强度。

背景/目的:在法语中，焦点成分的大小不像在许多重音语言中那样通过音高重音分配来可靠地标记。虽然有人认为低层次韵律边界的分布起了作用，但这充其量是一个微弱的集中注意力的线索，这就留下了是否有其他标记策略可用的问题。在这项研究中，我们评估对比焦点成分的右边缘是否被韵律边界强度的差异所标记。方法:通过交互式生成任务，在六种焦点和句法语境组合中引出目标词的话语。结果:结果表明，如果给定位置在全焦点上下文中被实现为重音短语边界，那么当它与窄焦点组成部分的右边缘重合时，它将被实现为中间短语边界。在全焦点上下文中，作为中间短语边界的位置在窄焦点上下文中保持不变。结论:这些发现表明，法语中的焦点成分受制于最小韵律域大小(即中间短语)，法语不依赖于韵律增强的一般策略来标记焦点。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Phonetica 物理-声学

CiteScore

1.90

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

>12 weeks

期刊介绍： Contemporary research into spoken language employs a wide range of approaches, from instrumental measures to perceptual and neurocognitive measures, to computational models, for investigating the properties and principles of speech in communicative settings across the world’s languages. ''Phonetica'' is an international interdisciplinary forum for phonetic science that covers all aspects of the subject matter, from phonetic and phonological descriptions of segments and prosodies to speech physiology, articulation, acoustics, perception, acquisition, and phonetic variation and change. ''Phonetica'' thus provides a platform for a comprehensive understanding of speaker-hearer interaction across languages and dialects, and of learning contexts throughout the lifespan. Papers published in this journal report expert original work that deals both with theoretical issues and with new empirical data, as well as with innovative methods and applications that will help to advance the field.