Search

Remarks on the diachronic reconstruction of intonational patterns in Romacne with special attention to Occitan as a bridge language

REA Auditado

This paper approaches Romance intonation from a diachronic point of view. The position that is
adopted is that this is an area open to investigation. Comparative techniques can be fruitfully
employed for investigating the evolution and diversification of the intonational patterns of the
Romance languages. The focus of the paper is on Occitan. This is an important bridge language
whose study may elucidate how French diverged prosodically from the systems found in Ibero
and Italo-Romance.

Tema: general: 

• Lengua y Literatura›Filología y Lingüística

Map tasks in Italian: asking questions about given, accessible and new information

REA Auditado

This paper confirms that in Bari Italian an intonational distinction is made between polar questions
asking about new information (QUERY-YN moves in the HCRC Map Task coding scheme) and
those asking about given information (prototypical CHECK moves in the same coding scheme).
The former, where the speaker believes that the information is not shared and therefore mutually
inactive, employ a rising pitch accent (L+H*). The latter, where the speaker believes that the
information is mutually active, are expressed with a falling accent (H*+L or H+L*).

Tema: general: 

• Lengua y Literatura›Filología y Lingüística

The phonological status of initial peaks in Eurpean Portuguese

REA Auditado

This paper investigates the phonology of initial peaks in European Portuguese intonation. Evidence
is presented for two types of peaks: an accentual peak, that is consistently aligned relative to the
first stressed syllable; and a phrasal peak, that is aligned relative to the left-edge of the intonational
phrase and within the limits of the first prosodic word. The former is best represented as an
H* accent, whereas the latter is a phrasal H tone with a peripheral association to the left-edge of
the I-phrase and a secondary association with the first ù.

Tema: general: 

• Lengua y Literatura›Filología y Lingüística

Intonation in Spanish declaratives: differences between lab speech and spontaneous speech

REA Auditado

The present study compares the intonation of Spanish declarative utterances in lab speech and
spontaneous speech. Most studies of Spanish intonation have used lab speech, collected in an
experimental setting and often scripted. This allows the researcher to control many factors, but
the results cannot be assumed to be representative of spontaneous speech. The present study takes
the most characteristic traits of the intonation of declarative sentences in Spanish lab speech and
examines whether the same traits exist in spontaneous speech.

Tema: general: 

• Lengua y Literatura›Filología y Lingüística

The modelling of prenuclear accents in Central Catalan declaratives

REA Auditado

The aim of this paper is to examine the phonetic and phonological properties of prenuclear accents
in Central Catalan declaratives within the Autosegmental-Metrical approach of intonational analysis.
Prenuclear accents show a rising movement whose peak tends to be aligned after the accented
syllable. Three possible interpretations for the modelling of such rises are considered: 1) an
H* with peak delay, 2) a bitonal accent (L*+H), and 3) the combination of two different tones,
namely, a pitch accent (L*) and a word edge tone (H).

Tema: general: 

• Lengua y Literatura›Filología y Lingüística

The Spanish intonation of speakers of a Basque pitch-accent dialect

REA Auditado

In this paper the main aspects of the intonation of broad focus declaratives in Lekeitio Spanish are
described and analyzed. In this variety, accents are realized as pitch rises rather than falls, similarly
to Standard Peninsular Spanish and unlike in Lekeitio Basque, the other native language of
these speakers. Accentual valleys are aligned before the onset of the stressed syllable, except in
final position in the utterance. Accentual peaks are aligned before the offset of the accented syllable,
with an earlier alignment in accents in the object phrase.

Tema: general: 

• Lengua y Literatura›Filología y Lingüística

Tonal structure and pitch targets in Italian focus constituents

REA Auditado

This work investigates the tonal structure of the focal accent in narrow focus statements of
Neapolitan Italian. The formal properties of this accent lend themselves to two competing analyses.
Specifically, this accent could equally be described as a HL accentual fall or as a LH rise.
The two analyses were evaluated on the basis of a set of utterances containing focus constituents
with varying number of words. Long narrow focus constituents present in fact a medial F0 minimum
that appears to be an actual tonal target. Such a target might be part of either a HL or of a
LH accent.

Tema: general: 

• Lengua y Literatura›Filología y Lingüística

The manifestation of intonational focus in Castilian Spanish

REA Auditado

In this paper we study the phonological manifestation of various intonational focus domains in
Castilian Spanish. We propose that downstep is one of the intonational signallers of focus in this
language. The phonological problems of accounting for this phenomenon in Pierrehumbertian
models are explored. Alternative solutions are offered following the single-tone model put forward
by Cabrera Abreu (2000) within the Government Phonology framework, taking into account
other proposals by the author and her co-workers.

Tema: general: 

• Lengua y Literatura›Filología y Lingüística

Sentence external elements in Catalan

REA Auditado

This paper deals with the intonation of sentence external elements in Catalan. Its main purpose is
to investigate the claim that there is a correspondence between prosodic form and grammatical
function, so that syntactic independence is paralleled by prosodic independency. A related goal is
to identify the mechanisms for signalling prosodic independency and/or dependency. To that end,
a production experiment was devised eliciting the same sentences in different pitch ranges.

Tema: general: 

• Lengua y Literatura›Filología y Lingüística

Romance Intonation. Introduction

REA Auditado

Tema: general: 

• Lengua y Literatura›Filología y Lingüística