Prosodic boundaries can be used to disambiguate the syntactic structure of coordinated name sequences (coordinates). To answer the question whether disambiguating prosody is produced in a situationally dependent or independent manner and to contribute to our understanding of the nature of the prosody-syntax link, we systematically explored variability in the prosody of boundary productions of coordinates evoked by different contextual settings in a referential communication task. Our analysis focused on prosodic boundaries produced to distinguish sequences with different syntactic structures (i.e., with or without internal grouping of the constituents). In German, these prosodic boundaries are indicated by three major prosodic cues: f0-range, final lengthening, and pause. In line with the Proximity/Anti-Proximity principle of the syntax-prosody model by Kentner and Féry (2013), speakers clearly use all three cues for constituent grouping and prosodically mark groups within and at their right boundary, indicating that prosodic phrasing is not a local phenomenon. Intra-individually, we found a rather stable prosodic pattern across contexts. However, inter-individually speakers differed from each other with respect to the prosodic cue combinations that they (consistently) used to mark the boundaries. Overall, our data speak in favour of a close link between syntax and prosody and for situational independence of disambiguating prosody.

In Romance languages, neutral echo wh-questions and counterexpectational (i.e., non-neutral or incredulous) echo wh-questions are usually distinguished by tonal differences in the nuclear contour. In this study, we show that Ecuadorian Spanish does not differentiate between those question types in terms of tonal targets, but by expanding the pitch range in the nuclear region. Results drawn from a production experiment based on semi-spontaneous speech with nine native speakers show that neutral as well as non-neutral echo wh-questions are realized with the same nuclear configurations, typically a rising one (L* H%). However, counterexpectational whquestions are realized with a significantly larger pitch range than their neutral counterparts (with a difference of 2.03 semitones). From a diatopic point of view, our data indicate that there are prosodic differences in the realization of questions between the Andean and the coastal region. Speakers from the latter region realize rising as well as low and falling nuclear configurations (L* H%, L* L% and H* L%) and use a lower mean pitch. We hereby provide intonational support for the well-known division between tierras bajas 'lowlands' and tierras altas 'highlands' used for capturing the dialectal phonological variation on the segmental level of Latin-American Spanish.

The question of whether intonation contours directly signal meaning is an old one. We revisit this question using vocatives in Colombian Spanish (Bogotá). We recorded speakers' productions in three pragmatic conditions -greeting, confirmation-seeking, and reprimand -and compared proper names (vocatives) to situation-specific one-word utterances, such as ¡Hola! 'Hello' (non-vocatives). Intonational analyses showed no direct one-to-one correspondence between the pragmatic conditions and intonation contours: (a) for vocatives, e.g. a rising-falling contour occurred in both greetings and reprimands; and (b) for nonvocatives, e.g. a step-down contour (a.k.a. calling contour) occurred in both greeting and confirmation-seeking conditions. Looking beyond intonation to consider other phonetic variables -spectral tilt, duration, alignment of tonal targets, f0-range, f0-slope -the results showed that the intonation contours that occurred in more than one pragmatic condition differed in phonetic realisation, e.g. rising-falling vocatives showed differences in f0-range of the rise and spectral tilt. However, the corresponding non-vocatives did not show the same differences. Furthermore, vocatives in greeting contexts were realised differently from non-vocatives in greeting contexts. In sum, the pragmatic condition affects the prosodic realisation of (non-)vocatives, but the relationship is complex. The results are discussed in the light of prosodic constructions, leading to the conclusion that the prosodic realisation of vocatives and non-vocatives in Bogotá Colombian Spanish cannot be easily modelled by prosodic constructions.Intonation can convey linguistic information (e.g. syntactic constituency, reference resolution, illocution type), paralinguistic meaning (e.g. speakers' attitudes towards the propositions or

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In the JIPA article 'The purpose shapes the vocative: Prosodic realisation of Colombian Spanish vocatives', in the list of references, on page 56, the citation of GREGORY Ward and Julia Hirschberg's (1985) article has been mistakenly attributed to NIGEL Ward and Julia Hirschberg. The correct entry is: 'Ward, Gregory & Julia Hirschberg. 1985. Implicating uncertainty: The pragmatics of the fall-rise intonation. Language 61, 747-776.'