Phonology of Pitch Change Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Phonology of Pitch Change Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing Pitch as a perception correlate of fundamental frequency ( F 0 ) – the frequency at which vocal folds oscillate. Peter Makarov Pitch change is phonological: (1) a lexical means (also referred to as tone ); (2) a syntactic / information structure means ( pitch contour and sentence stress, pitch accent ). T¨ ubingen University (Based on Clark & Yallop (1995)) November 25, 2009 Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University Phonology of Pitch Change (2) GB Analysis of Focus in English Selkirk defines Focus with the help of the constituent-question test. Focus is a syntactic notion – a feature associated with a constituent at the level of Phonology of pitch change for English (Pierrehumbert (1980)). Units S-Structure ( F-marking ). of analysis: Following Jackendoff (1972), Focus is conjectured to induce a set of ◮ pitch accents associated with a stressed syllable in a alternatives to its value. Existential closure over the free variables of the p-skeleton (obtained by substituting variables for the focus expressions) phonological word; gives rise to a presupposition. Application of the semantic value of the ◮ boundary tones (marked with %); p-skeleton to the focus value yields an assertion. ◮ intonational phrases and intermediate phrases. Focus is associated with a pitch accent. Conjecture: pitch contour expresses information structuring. Focus is understood in terms of givenness and discourse anchoring. Pragmatic and semantic effects (in terms of Krifka (2006)) are subsumed under one notion of Focus. Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Focus Projection: Problem Focus Projection: Phonological Explanation What is the relation between F-marking and pitch accent? We say that Focus is projected from the phonological word carrying pitch accent onto other constituents. Chomsky (1971), Jackendoff (1972) link pitch accent within an F-marked constituent to the main phrase stress within this constituent. The latter is associated – according to the Nuclear Stress Examples: Rule (Chomsky and Halle (1968)) – with the rightmost word-level Mary bought a book about BATS . stress of a constituent. However, this does not predict the right location of pitch accent ◮ Mary bought a book about [ F BATS ]. – (What did Mary buy a within a focused constituent. book about?) ◮ Mary bought [ F a book about BATS ]. – (What did Mary buy?) ◮ [ F Mary bought a book about BATS ]. – (What’s been happening?) Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University Focus Projection: Syntactic Explanation Focus: Definition Gussenhoven (1984), Selkirk (1984), Rochemont (1986) – building on insights The Focus of a sentence ( FOC ) is defined as an F-marked constituent in Schmerling (1976) – define focus projection in purely syntactic terms and not dominated by any other F-marked constituent. relate it to the argument structure of the sentence. Selkirk’s theory of focus projection stipulates a set of principles for the licensing of F-marking. Examples: (1) Basic Focus Rule: XP Mary bought a book about BATS . An accented word is F-marked. ZP X ′ ◮ Mary bought a book about [ FOC [ F BATS ]]. – (What did Mary buy a X YP book about?) internal argument ◮ Mary bought [ FOC a [ F book] [ F [ F about] [ F BATS ]]]. – (What did (2) Focus Projection: Mary buy?) ◮ (a) F-marking of the head of a phrase licenses the F-marking of the ◮ [ FOC Mary [ F t [ F [ F bought] [ F a [ F book] [ F [ F about] [ F BATS ]]]]]]. – phrase; (What’s been happening?) ◮ (b) F-marking of an internal argument of a head licenses the F-marking of Note that apparently, Selkirk does not assume the DP hypothesis: the determiner a is in SpecNP, otherwise it would be F-marked as a head. the head. Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Phonological vs Syntactic Theories of Focus Projection Mary [ FOC [ F bought] [ F a [ F book] [ F [ F about] [ F BATS ]]]]. – (What did Mary do?) IP I ′ NP Mary Key differences in predictive power between the phonological and syntactic approaches to focus projection: I (7) VP [ F +] V ′ t 1 1. the relation of pitch accent and givenness; 2. the lack of focus projection from accent in non-argument (6) V [ F +] (5) NP [ F +] positions; bought (=buy-ed1) DP N ′ 3. the projection of focus from accent in positions that the a phonological theory would not define as positions of main (4) N [ F +] (3) PP [ F +] phrase stress. P ′ book (2) P [ F +] (1) NP [ F +] bats about Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University F-marking and Givenness De-accenting The phonological theory of focus projection crashes on examples of ◮ F-marked constituents which are not themselves a Focus are interpreted de-accenting : given material is allowed to appear in the Focus (as defined with as new in the discourse; the constituent-question test). Selkirk’s analysis successfully handles such cases. ◮ constituents without F-marking are interpreted as given; ◮ a Focus constituent (X 0 ) may be interpreted as either given or new. Example: Examples: ◮ (I only thought that) M AR y bought a BOOK about bats. [ FOC [ F M AR y] [ F t [ F [ F bought] [ F a [ F BOOK ] [[about] [bats]]]]]]. ◮ [ FOC [ F M AR y]] bought a book about bats. – Mary is either given or new, ◮ Sentence Focus projected from the accented Infl: everything else is given. [ FOC [Mary] [ F [ F DID ] [[buy] [a [book] [[about] [bats]]]]]]. – Everything is ◮ [ FOC Mary [ F t [ F [ F bought] [ F a [ F book] [ F [ F about] [ F BATS ]]]]]]. – Mary is given. given, everything else is new. The phonological theory of focus projection is also unable to express ◮ [ FOC [ F M AR y] [ F t [ F [ F bought] [ F a [ F book] [ F [ F about] [ F BATS ]]]]]]. – givenness contrasts – due to different pitch accent placements within one Everything is new (Neither Mary nor bats are themselves a Focus). Focus constituent. Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Non-arguments, Unaccusatives Small Clauses vs Object Control (1) Small Clauses and Object Control: Focus projects from the embedded Subject onto the entire small clause (a), but not the embedded CP (b). Non-arguments: Focus does not project from a non-argument (e.g. *He only [ FOC smoked in the TENT ]) (a) IP Unaccusatives: Focus projects from the Subject onto the entire sentence. One I ′ NP more Focus Projection principle needs to be added: the NP- or I WH-movement chain (i.e. the antecedent and all its traces) shares F-marking. I VP [ FOC [ F J OHN son j ] [ F [ F t j ] [ F died]]]. (6) IP [ F +] FP [ F +] V (6) heard NP [ F +] I ′ (1) J OHN son j NP [ F +] F ′ (1) a CLOCK k (5) I [ F +] (4) VP [ F +] V ′ (5) F [ F +] (4) VP [ F +] t i V ′ (3) V [ F +] (2) NP [ F +] (3) V [ F +] (2) NP [ F +] died (=die+ed i ) t j tick t k Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University Small Clauses vs Object Control (2) Generic vs Existential Reading (b) IP Diesing (1992) attempts to relate the VP-Internal Subject Hypothesis and the NP I ′ Kamp-Heim approach to the semantics of NPs. She argues for the mapping I of IP material into a restrictive clause of the logical representation and VP I VP material into the nuclear scope. Consider bare plural Subjects: Firemen are available. NP [ F +] (a) Existential reading : ∃ x x is a fireman & x is available V CP forced the CLOCK i IP (b) Generic reading : Gen x, t [x is a fireman & t is a time] x is available at t I ′ NP Stage-level predicates allow both readings whereas individual-level predicates PRO k , i (e.g. altruistic) – only a generic one. Diesing assumes different predicates in I VP Infl: a stage-level Infl as a raising predicate, an individual-level Infl as a to V ′ control predicate. An existential reading of bare plurals is associated with the V NP SpecVP position where the Subject can move at LF. tick t k Note that Selkirk argues for sentence Focus in (a) but not (b). Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University