Evidence for Phonological Constraints on Nuclear Accent Placement

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. The distribution of pitch accents in speech is a topic of longstanding importance because it reflects the relationships among different levels of representation: phonology, syntax, semantics, and information structure. The broad tendency for accents to be located on new information is a classic observation, but formalizing the principles that govern accent placement in all cases has proven to be a difficult challenge. In this discussion note, we use experimental data to explore in depth the accent patterns on constructions with stranded prepositions. We extend the model of Schwarzschild 1999 to account for our findings.Function words are prosodically weaker than content words and do not ordinarily carry accents. However, Ladd (1980) notes an interesting class of exceptions. These are cases in which a preposition has been stranded at the end of an infinitival clause in which all other words are given. Ladd's dialogue (1) provides an example.(1) A: Why don't you have some French toast?B: There's nothing to make French toast OUT of.In 1B, the noun French toast is the default location for the nuclear pitch accent by virtue of being prosodically stronger than its neighbors. However, the prosodic prominence of the noun is weak because of its recent mention in the discourse, and the nuclear accent appears on the preposition.Our study concerns a closely related but more tractable set of examples such as 2, in which contextual effects are more carefully controlled.(2) A: Are the children playing their game? B: Paul took down the tent that they play their game in.

Evidence for Prosody in Silent Reading

“…Consider the question, “Why don't you have some French toast?” The narrowly focused response, “There's nothing to make French toast OUT of,” de‐emphasizes what is known (French toast) and prosodically emphasizes the contextually important pronoun. Using similar sentences, German, Pierrehumbert, and Kaufmann () asked participants to play the role of speaker B in a conversation by naturally reading a scripted response. After hearing speaker A's prerecorded sentence, which established the context of “Are the children playing their game?” participants read, “Paul took down the tent that they play their game in.” Linguistic theories of focus marking (Schwarzschild, ; Selkirk, , ) predict that the preposition in should be pitch‐accented.…”

“…Yet, even in this narrowly focused condition in which the preposition in does not have an antecedent in the discourse that is salient or implied, the preposition received pitch‐accenting only 32% of the time. Participants preferred (64% of the time) to place focal stress on the entire noun phrase, “their game in.” Across all the conditions, speakers preferred to accent nouns and verbs rather than prepositions, suggesting that these novel prepositions embedded in larger noun phrases are poor candidates for focal stress (German et al., ).…”

Keep it local (and final): Remnant preferences in “let alone” ellipsis

“…That is, objects are more likely than subjects to be focused (either narrowly or broadly, indicating focus on the entire VP), and focused items are natural correlates for a contrastive phrase like a let alon e remnant (see Carlson et al, 2009 for such an explanation regarding sluicing preferences). But the corpus results show Locality and Finality preferences across a wide range of different syntactic categories, not only NPs, including function words (which are rarely focused or accented; see German et al, 2006, for example). We have concentrated on providing evidence that let alone coordination is guided by a structural bias for local correlates, as well as a preference for appearing in clause-final position.…”

The centrality of metrical structure in signaling information structure: A probabilistic perspective

“…It has usually been assumed that the relationship between prosody and information structure is directly determined from a limited number of rules or principles (possibly OT constraints; see German et al 2006, however, for a different approach). I conceptualize the mapping between words and prosodic structure as determined by multiple probabilistic constraints, including information structure.…”