Cover not available
Part of
Hispanic Linguistics: Current issues and new directions
Edited by Alfonso Morales-Front, Michael J. Ferreira, Ronald P. Leow and Cristina Sanz
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 26] 2020
► pp. 183–204

Syntactic and prosodic marking of subject focus in American English and Peninsular Spanish

| University of Massachusetts Amherst

The aim of the present study is to provide an account of the different strategies, both syntactic and prosodic, employed by American English and Peninsular Spanish speakers in subject focus marking. Data obtained through parallel experimental designs revealed that prosodic marking of focus in-situ is possible in both languages both for informational and contrastive focus. Nonetheless, in the expression of contrastive focus Peninsular Spanish speakers increase the use of clefting while American English speakers exploit prosodic strategies like creaky voice. Differences in the pitch range implemented on focalized subjects were against the posed prediction. This study, nonetheless, contributes to the lacking cross-linguistic comparisons of these two languages and explores the interconnections between syntax and prosody.

Keywords: information structure, syntax, prosody, pragmatics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Information structure and the different types of focus
    • 1.2The realization of focus in English and in Spanish
  • 2.Present study
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Experimental materials
    • 3.2Procedures
    • 3.3Participants
    • 3.4Coding and analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Syntactic strategies
    • 4.2Prosodic marking in-situ
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusions
  • References
Published online: 13 May 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.26.09san
References
Aguilar, L., De-la-Mota, C., & Prieto, P.
(coords) (2009) Sp_ToBI Training Materials. Retrieved from [URL] (6 November, 2019).
Beckman, M. E., & Hirschberg, J.
(1994) The ToBI annotation conventions. Retrieved from [URL] (6 November, 2019).
Beckman, M. E., Díaz-Campos, M., McGory, J. T., & Morgan, T. A.
(2002) Intonation across Spanish, in the Tones and Break Indices framework. Probus, 14(1), 9–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beckman, M. E., Hirschberg, J., & Shattuck-Hufnagel, S.
(2005) The original ToBI system and the evolution of the ToBI framework. In S.-A. Jun (Ed.), Prosodic typology: The phonology of intonation and phrasing (pp. 9–54). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beckman, M. E., & Pierrehumbert, J. B.
(1988) Japanese tone structure. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D.
(2015) Praat: Doing phonetics by computer. Retrieved from [URL] (6 November, 2019).Google Scholar
Breen, M., Fedorenko, E., Wagner, M., & Gibson, E.
(2010) Acoustic correlates of information structure. Language and Cognitive Processes, 25(7–9), 1044–1098. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Büring, D.
(2010) Towards a typology of focus realization. In M. Zimmermann & C. Féry (Eds.), Information structure: Theoretical, typological, and experimental perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dufter, A., & Gabriel, C.
(2016) Information structure, prosody, and word order. In S. Fisher & C. Gabriel (Eds.), Manual of grammatical interfaces in Romance (pp. 419–456). Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Estebas-Vilaplana, E., & Prieto, P.
(2009) La notación prosódica del español: una revisión del Sp_ToBI. Estudios de Fonética Experimental, 17, 264–283.Google Scholar
Face, T. L.
(2001) Intonational marking of contrastive focus in Madrid Spanish (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.
(2002) Local intonational marking of Spanish contrastive focus. Probus, 14, 71–92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Feldhausen, I., & Vanrell, M.
(2014) Prosody, focus and word order in Catalan and Spanish: An optimality theoretic approach. In S. Fuchs, M. Grice, A. Hermes, L. Lancia, & D. Mücke (Eds.). Proceedings of the 10th International Seminar on Speech Production (pp. 122–125). Cologne: University of Cologne. Retrieved from [URL] (6 November, 2019).Google Scholar
Féry, C.
(2013) Focus as prosodic alignment. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 31(3), 683–734. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gabriel, C.
(2010) On focus, prosody, and word order in Argentinean Spanish: A Minimalist OT account. Revista Virtual de Estudos da Linguagem, 4, 183–222.Google Scholar
García-Lecumberri, M. L.
(1995) Intonational signalling of information structure in English and Spanish: A comparative study (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of London, London, UK.
Gussenhoven, C.
(2004) The phonology of tone and intonation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008) Notions and subnotions in information structure. Acta Linguistica Hungarica, 55(3), 381–395. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R.
(1967) Cohesion in English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Hualde, J. I., & Prieto, P.
(2015) Intonational variation in Spanish: European and American varieties. In S. Frota & P. Prieto (Eds.), Intonational variation in Romance (pp. 350–391). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, R.
(1972) Semantic interpretation in generative grammar. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, K.
(2004) Acoustic and auditory phonetics. Phonetica, 61(1), 56–58. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Katz, J., & Selkirk, E.
(2011) Contrastive focus vs. discourse-new: Evidence from phonetic prominence in English. Language, 87(4), 771–816. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keating, P., Garellek, M., & Kreiman, J.
(2015) Acoustic properties of different kinds of creaky voice. In The Scottish Consortium for ICPhS (Ed.), Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Glasgow, Scotland: University of Glasgow. Retrieved from [URL] (6 November, 2019).Google Scholar
Kiss, K. E.
(2008) Identificational focus versus information focus. Language, 74(2), 245–273. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krifka, M.
(2008) Basic notions of information structure. Acta Linguistica Hungarica, 55(3), 243–276. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuznetsova, A., Brockhoff, P. B., & Christensen, R. H. B.
(2017) lmerTest: Tests in linear mixed effects models. Journal of Statistical Software, 82(13). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ladd, R.
(1996) Intonational phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, K.
(2001) A framework for the analysis of cleft constructions. Linguistics, 39(3), 463–516. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lindblom, B.
(2009) F0 lowering, creaky voice, and glottal stop: Jan Gauffin’s account of how the larynx works in speech. In P. Branderud & H. Traunmüller (Eds.), Proceedings FONETIK 2009. The XXIIth Swedish Phonetics Conference (pp. 8–11). Stockholm, Sweden: University of Stockholm.Google Scholar
Moreno Cabrera, J. C.
(1999) Las funciones informativas: Las perífrasis de relativo. In I. Bosque & V. Demonte (Eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española (pp. 4245–4304). Madrid: Espasa Calpe.Google Scholar
Nadeu, M., & Vanrell, M.
(2015) Postfocal material in sentences with contrastive focus in Catalan and Spanish. Poster presentation at B. Post, K. McDougall, F. Nolan (Orgs.), Phonetics and Phonology in Europe, 29–30 June 2015. Cambridge: University of Cambridge. Abstract retrieved from [URL] (6 November, 2019).
Nolan, F.
(2003) Intonational equivalence: An experimental evaluation of pitch scales. In M. J. Solé, D. Recasens, & J. Romero (Eds.), Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 771–774). Barcelona 3–9 August 2003. Barcelona, Spain: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.Google Scholar
Ortega-Llebaria, M.
(2011) Acoustic correlates of stress in central Catalan and Castilian Spanish. Language and Speech, 54(1), 73–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ortega-Llebaria, M., & Colantoni, L.
(2014) L2 English intonation. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 36(2), 331–353. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pierrehumbert, J.
(1980) The phonetics and phonology of English intonation (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). MIT, Cambridge, MA.
Pierrehumbert, J., & Hirschberg, J.
(1990) The meaning of intonational contours in the interpretation of discourse. In P. R. Cohen, J. L. Morgan, & Pollack, M. E. (Eds.) Intentions in communication (pp. 271–311). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Prieto, P. & Roseano, P.
(2010) Transcription of Intonation of the Spanish Language. Munich: Lincom.Google Scholar
Prince, E. F.
(1981) Toward a taxonomy of given-new information. In P. Cole (Ed.) Radical pragmatics (pp. 223–255). New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
R Core Team
(2014) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved from [URL] (6 November, 2019).Google Scholar
Ramírez Verdugo, D.
(2006) Prosodic realization of focus in the discourse of Spanish learners and English native speakers. Estudios Ingleses de La Universidad Complutense, 14, 9–32.Google Scholar
Roberts, C.
(1996) Information structure in discourse: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. In J.-H. Toon & A. Kathol (Eds.), Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 49. Papers in Semantics (pp. 91–136). Columbus, OH: Ohio State University, Department of Linguistics.Google Scholar
Rooth, M.
(1985) Association with focus (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.
Selkirk, E.
(1984) Phonology and syntax: The relation between sound and structure. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Vanrell, M. del M., & Fernández-Soriano, O.
(2013) Variation at the interfaces in Ibero-Romance. Catalan and Spanish prosody and word order. Catalan Journal of Linguistics, 12, 1–30.Google Scholar
(2018) Language variation at the prosody-syntax interface: Focus in European Spanish. In M. Uth & M. García (Eds.), Focus realization and interpretation in Romance and beyond (pp. 33–70). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vanrell, M. del M., Stella, A., Fivela, B. G., & Prieto, P.
(2013) Prosodic manifestations of the Effort Code in Catalan, Italian and Spanish contrastive focus. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43(2), 195–220. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Watson, D. G., Tanenhaus, M. K., & Gunlogson, C. A.
(2008) Interpreting pitch accents in online comprehension: H* vs. L+H*. Cognitive Science, 32(7), 1232–1244. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zimmermann, M., & Onea, E.
(2011) Focus marking and focus interpretation. Lingua, 121(11), 1651–1670. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zubizarreta, M. L.
(1998) Prosody, focus, and word order. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Blything, Liam P., Juhani Järvikivi, Abigail G. Toth & Anja Arnhold
2021. The Influence of Focus Marking on Pronoun Resolution in Dialogue Context. Frontiers in Psychology 12 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.