The interplay of information structure, semantics, prosody, and word ordering in Spanish intransitives

Abstract

A production experiment was run to examine how information structure and verbal semantics affect word ordering and nuclear stress placement in intransitive sentences in Venezuelan Spanish. Unaccusative verbs in Spanish are said to be more likely to be subject final (VS order) than unergative verbs, while in languages like English, this is marked with stress shift (i.e., Sv, caps show the nuclear stress). It has long been contended, however, that the semantic factors underlying split intransitivity actually affect information structure, rather than syntax directly. If so, then the effect of verbal semantics on word ordering/nuclear stress placement should be able to be overridden by information structure. Venezuelan Spanish speakers described pictures using a printed unaccusative or unergative verb in response to a question manipulating the information structure type of the subject, i.e., broad focus, theme, QUD-focus, or contrastive focus. Results showed that QUD-and contrastively focused subjects were more likely to carry nuclear stress. Subject stress was also more likely for unaccusatives, but this effect was weaker. Overall stress shift was much more frequent than subject final placement, with neither information structure type nor verb type affecting the likelihood of either response type. These results raise challenges for standard assumptions about the relationship between information structure and unaccusativity, and between final subject placement and stress shift.

Nuclear accent placement in broad focus intransitives in native and non-native English: an investigation of syntactic and pragmatic factors

“…Oral production studies have corroborated these findings, showing that speakers are able to prosodically augment an element in narrow focus even when it occurs non-finally. Such findings have been found across various dialects, including Mexican Spanish (Kim 2016), Venezuelan Spanish (Calhoun et al 2018), Castilian Spanish (Vanrell Bosch & Soriano 2013 and Argentinean Spanish (Gabriel 2010).…”

“…While much of the experimental research on narrow focus in Spanish has contradicted previous theoretical approaches about lack of prosodic plasticity in Spanish, less experimental work has been conducted to examine NA placement in broad focus contexts. One exception is Calhoun et al (2018), who conducted an oral production task to test the effects of verb type (unaccusative versus unergative) and information status on word order and NA placement in Venezuelan Spanish intransitives. This study found that SV order occurred more frequently in Spanish intransitives than predicted.…”

“…However, the importance of including prosodic phenomena in theories of L2 phonological acquisition has not gone unnoticed, and in recent years the work on L2 prosody has grown considerably (e.g. Mennen 2004;2015;Hirsch & Wagner 2011;Zubizarreta & Nava 2011;Albin 2015;Calhoun & La Cruz & Olssen 2018; among others). There is as of yet no model that fully predicts all aspects of L2 prosodic development, due in part to the complexity of the structures under study: in addition to learning the phonetic and phonological form of a prosodic structure, learners must also understand its function.…”

“…In Spanish, on the other hand, broad focus intransitives are often marked by variation in SV versus VS word order, as in (3)-(4). NA placement remains invariant, occurring on the rightmost content word (Calhoun et al 2018;Landblom 2020).…”

Contrasting a phenomenon at the syntax-discourse interface

“…It has been noted (e.g. Calhoun at al. 2018;Schwarz 2010) that crosslinguistically presentational constructions are prosodically and syntactically marked.…”