Focus, Contrast, and Stress in Russian

Neeleman, Ad; Titov, Elena

doi:10.1162/ling.2009.40.3.514

Cited by 44 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…A number of studies on discourse-driven word order variability in Russian (Slioussar 2010(Slioussar , 2011Jasinskaja 2013) draw attention to qualitatively different processes in discourse that call for fronting or post-posing an argument. Traditionally, in Russian, the sentence-initial position is associated with topics and contrastively focused arguments (Ionin and Luchikina, under review;Neeleman and Titov, 2009), whereas non-contrastive new information is considered to favor the sentence-final, nuclear pitch accented position. The apparent interrelatedness of referent information status and ex-situ position confirms that word order variability in Russian is discourse-motivated.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Russian has been shown to exhibit prosodic effects of referent information status in patterns of pitch-accenting, with accenting of novel information and deaccenting of given information (Neeleman and Titov, 2009;Jasinskaja, 2013). In addition, information status is reliably associated with the clausal positioning of a word (King, 1995;Brun, 2001).…”

Section: Referent-based Effects On Prosody In Russianmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Structural and Referent-Based Effects on Prosodic Expression in Russian

Luchkina

Cole

2017

Phonetica

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This study examines prosody in read productions of two published narratives by 15 Russian speakers. Two distinct sources of variation in acoustic-prosodic expression are considered: structural and referent-based. Structural effects refer to the particular linearization of words in a sentence or phrase. Referent-based effects relate to the semantic and pragmatic characteristics of the discourse referent of a word, and to grammatical roles that are partially dependent on referent characteristics. Here, we examine referent animacy and the related grammatical function of subjecthood, and the relative accessibility or information status of a word. We document patterns of prosodic augmentation and prosodic reduction due to structural and referent-based factors, as evident from change in values of acoustic-prosodic measures mean intensity, duration and f0 range. Prosodic augmentation due to structural effects is observed for words positioned ex-situ, independent of their semantic, grammatical or pragmatic features. Prosodic augmentation due to referent-based effects is observed for words that are grammatical subjects with animate referents. Prosodic expression is further affected by referent information status. Discourse-given and discourse-new information show greater prosodic augmentation than inferable information. A closer look at individual speakers' production styles reveals that structural and referent-based variations occur in combination and interact.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Referent-based Effects On Prosody In Russianmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural and Referent-Based Effects on Prosodic Expression in Russian

Luchkina

Cole

2017

Phonetica

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“…(26) provides a context for them. An elaborate context is essential because Russian speakers have a very strong preference for overt scope (see Ionin, 2001;Neeleman and Titov, 2009;Slioussar, 2011 Neeleman and Reinhart, 1998;Neeleman and van de Koot, 2008;Reinhart, 2006;Szendrői, 2001;Slioussar, 2007). In these models, there are no dedicated IS features like Top or F and no fixed syntactic positions targeted by topics and foci.…”

Section: Scope and Binding Argumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Russian and the EPP requirement in the Tense domain

Slioussar

2011

Lingua

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“…In this section, I consider the distribution of [−presupposed] material and propose a mapping principle that captures the observation that non-contrastive focus in Russian consistently surfaces in clause-final position. As a null hypothesis, I propose that Russian is subject to the generalization introduced by Neeleman & Titov (2009). A slightly modified version of it is given in (6).…”

Section: The Distribution Of Non-contrastive Focus In Russianmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…What the hypothesis put forward here amounts to, then, is that the launching site for the movement of CF and CT is the position in which NIF must surface (Titov 2007, Neeleman & Titov 2009). This follows if CF and CT are a composite of the features [−presupposed] and [+contrastive].…”

Section: Contrast17mentioning

confidence: 99%

Do contrastive topics exist?

Titov

2012

J. Ling.

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This paper investigates a phenomenon that has been referred to in the linguistic literature as contrastive topic. Traditionally, contrastive topic is analyzed as an independent information-structural notion that is linked to a particular interpretation and intonation. The paper, however, argues that the information-structural notion of contrastive topic is redundant and can be reduced to that of contrastive focus. The apparent dissimilarity between contrastive topics and contrastive foci is attributed to a difference in the structures that contain them rather than any particular difference between the associated information-structural notions themselves. The structures that host contrastive topics and contrastive foci are claimed to be distinct due to the nature of an additional focused element obligatorily present in the sentence. Contrastive topics and contrastive foci themselves, in contrast, are shown to be associated with identical interpretations, which results in their identical syntactic distribution, strongly suggesting that they in fact represent one and the same information-structural phenomenon in two different types of construction.

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Focus, Contrast, and Stress in Russian

Cited by 44 publications

References 12 publications

Structural and Referent-Based Effects on Prosodic Expression in Russian

Structural and Referent-Based Effects on Prosodic Expression in Russian

Russian and the EPP requirement in the Tense domain

Do contrastive topics exist?

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