The interaction of prosody and syntax in Samoan focus marking

Calhoun, Sasha

doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2014.11.007

Cited by 20 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…In their data, Into-national Phrases matched sentences. My study, Calhoun (2015), involving seven native Samoan speakers aged 18-50, found the same basic prosodic patterns, proposing mainly notational differences to Orfitelli & Yu's 2009 description (see further Section 4.4).…”

Section: Samoan Prosodysupporting

confidence: 51%

“…However, as Calhoun (2015) shows, the 'absolutive' H-tones appear to have exactly the same phonetic and phonological properties as other H-tones. There are no systematic differences in their realisation, and they both appear to trigger a reduction in pitch scaling in the following phrase (see further in Calhoun 2015). Calhoun (2015) therefore proposes, on the basis of simplicity, that in all cases these tones mark the edges of phonological phrases.…”

Section: Do H-tones Mark Absolutive Case?mentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Mosel & Hovdhaugen (1992: 448-451) state that VAO ordering alternates relatively freely with VOA ordering, and "the argument on which the speaker wants to focus as an essential part of the new formation directly follows the verb" (except for nonclitic pronouns which always follow the verb). However, in my production study of focus marking in Samoan (Calhoun 2015), VOA ordering was rarely used. It remains an open question, therefore, what the functional uses of VOA order are.…”

Section: Samoan Syntaxmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, as was discussed in Calhoun (2015), there are a number of issues with this analysis. As Yu (2009) acknowledges, a tonal case marker would be highly unexpected in a from Calhoun (2015: 215).…”

Section: Do H-tones Mark Absolutive Case?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the latter case Yu (2009) claims that they are tonal markers of absolutive case. In Calhoun (2015) some issues are raised with this analysis, and it is instead claimed that H-tones mark the ends of phonological phrases. However, that study was not directly concerned with the distribution and function of the H-tones, being rather about the realisation of (rhematic) focus in Samoan.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exclusives, equatives and prosodic phrases in Samoan

Calhoun

2017

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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This paper investigates the functions of prosodic phrasing in the Austronesian VSO language Samoan. Two types of sentences are investigated, exclusives (involving the particle na'o 'only') and equatives. Two complementary methodologies were used, a production study and an acceptability judgment study, to examine the prosodic realisation and relative naturalness of different word orderings of the two sentence types. The particle na'o has an unusual distribution: preceding the initial constituent, be it the verb or a fronted noun phrase; or following the verb, but only modifying the absolutive (object). It was found that post-verbal absolutives modified by na'o are usually not preceded by a phrase boundary, unlike unmodified absolutives which are consistently preceded by a high phrase tone (H-) (cf. Yu 2009). Equatives in Samoan involve clauses which are the juxtaposition of two noun phrases, one the rheme (focus) and the other the theme (topic). It was found that rhemes are usually followed by a phrase break, while for themes this is optional. Rheme-theme order was strongly preferred to theme-rheme order. These findings are argued to show a close relationship between information structure, constituent ordering and prosodic phrasing in Samoan. The preferred order of constituents in Samoan is rheme-theme, with a high phrase tone marking the end of the rheme. The absolutive argument is strongly preferred to be at the start of the theme.

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Section: Samoan Prosodysupporting

confidence: 51%

Section: Do H-tones Mark Absolutive Case?mentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Samoan Syntaxmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Do H-tones Mark Absolutive Case?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exclusives, equatives and prosodic phrases in Samoan

Calhoun

2017

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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Samoan predicate initial word order and object positions

Collins

2016

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

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Tonal marking of absolutive case in Samoan

2020

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

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Samoan is an ergative-marking, (reportedly) non-tonal Polynesian language in which ergative case is marked segmentally, but absolutive case has been said to be unmarked. This paper shows that in fact, a high edge tone co-occurs with absolutive arguments, based on converging evidence from the phonetic and phonological analysis of intonational patterns in the spoken utterances of a systematically varied set of syntactic structures. This empirical observation raises puzzles that probe the nature of the syntax-prosody interface and the relation between tone and intonation: what is the relation between this absolutive high edge tone and: (i) other case markers in Samoan, which are all segmental?, and (ii) other high edge tones in Samoan that co-occur with fronted expressions and coordination? I propose that: (i) the absolutive high edge tone is a tonal case marker that may be related to an apparently moribund stressed, segmental absolutive particle ["ia], (ii) the high tones that co-occur with absolutives, fronting, and coordination are all syntactically determined and each inserted in the spellout of distinct syntactic configurations, and (iii) there is another class of edge tones which reliably co-occur with pauses-intonational phrase boundary tones-that are not inserted in spellout but by the phonological grammar. While my proposal may seem surprising at first, I show that it fits the current data better than any alternative.

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The interaction of prosody and syntax in Samoan focus marking

Cited by 20 publications

References 39 publications

Exclusives, equatives and prosodic phrases in Samoan

Exclusives, equatives and prosodic phrases in Samoan

Samoan predicate initial word order and object positions

Tonal marking of absolutive case in Samoan

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