Focus and intonation in japanese : does focus trigger pitch reset?

  • This paper discusses how focus change s prosodic structure in Tokyo Japanese. It is generally believed that focus blocks the intonational process of downstep and causes a pitch reset. This paper presents experimental evidence against this traditional view by looking at the prosodic behavior of Wh words, which receive focus lexically in Japanese as in other languages. It is demonstrated, specifically, that the focused Wh element does not block downstep although it receives a much higher pitch than its preceding element. This suggests that presence of lexical focus does not trigger pitch reset in Japanese.

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Metadaten
Author:Haruo Kubozono
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30-1112258
URL:http://www.sfb632.uni-potsdam.de/publications/isis09_1kubozono.pdf
Parent Title (German):Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Prosody, Syntax, and Information Structure (WPSI 2) / Ishihara, Shinichiro (ed.) ; Working Papers of the SFB 632, Interdisciplinary studies on information structure (ISIS) ; Vol. 9
Publisher:Univ.-Verl.
Place of publication:Potsdam
Document Type:Part of a Book
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2008/11/06
Year of first Publication:2007
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2008/11/06
Tag:Downstep; Focus; Intonation; Japanese; Pitch Reset
Page Number:27
First Page:1
Last Page:27
Source:Working Papers of the SFB632, Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure (ISIS), 9, 2007, S. 1-27 ; http://www.sfb632.uni-potsdam.de/publications/isis09_1kubozono.pdf
HeBIS-PPN:207614229
Dewey Decimal Classification:4 Sprache / 40 Sprache / 400 Sprache
Sammlungen:Linguistik
Licence (German):License LogoDeutsches Urheberrecht

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