Perception of “tonal focus” in Greek

Abstract

The present paper reports on the way tonal correlates of focus impact its identification in Greek simple declaratives. The material was based on 4 utterances with different focus placement. Manipulation of the F0 contour and duration of the original utterances resulted in a list of 18 utterances, repeated 10 times each, and presented randomly to each of 10 informants. The informants were asked to indicate what part of each utterance bore focus. The results showed that: (1) F0 is the most reliable parameter for focus perception, especially the rate of tonal rise/fall, (2) duration expansion is not sufficient for focus perception, and (3) combining F0 and duration affects successful focus identification.

Τonal and syntactic correlates of focus perception in Greek and Russian

“…Local tonal expansion accompanied by post-focal tonal compression is widely accepted as one of the main tonal correlates of focus (Botinis 2003, Nikolaenkova 2010, Xu 2011. Having a closer look at focus production data though we identify focus-marking through gradient means such as duration, F0 timing etc.…”