Correction by Focus: Cleft Constructions and the Cross-Linguistic Variation in Phonological Form.

Markus Greif,Stavros Skopeteas

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.648478

Markus Greif, Stavros Skopeteas

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.648478

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Abstract

A challenging issue of cross-linguistic variation is that the same syntactic construction may appear in different arrays of contexts depending on language. For instance, cleft constructions appear with contrastive focus in English, but in a larger array of contexts in French. A part of the cross-linguistic variation may be due to prosodic differences, since prosodic possibilities determine the array of focus structures that can be mapped onto one and the same syntactic configuration. In the present study, we compare languages with flexible nuclear-accent placement (English, German), with languages that do not use this prosodic strategy (French, Mandarin Chinese). In a speech production experiment, we examine the prosodic realization of contrastive focus and identify prosodic reflexes of focus in all languages. The presence of different phonetic reflexes of focus suggests that – anything else being equal – the same syntactic constructions should be possible in the same array of contexts. In an acceptability study with written questionnaires, we examined the felicity of cleft constructions in contexts licensing a focus within the cleft clause. This focus structure is orthogonal to the preferred focus structure of cleft constructions and can appear in cases of second-occurrence foci (in contexts of correction). The obtained judgments reveal a distinction between languages with flexible nuclear-accent placement (English, German) and languages with other types of reflexes of focus (French, Chinese): languages of the former type have an advantage in using cleft constructions with a focus within the cleft clause, which shows that the array of contexts of using clefts in English and German is not a proper subset of the array of contexts applying to the same constructions in French and Chinese. The obtained differences can be explained by the role of prosodic devices and corroborate the view that prosodic reflexes of focus have different semantic-pragmatic import: it is easier to establish a focus structure that is orthogonal to the syntax in a language with flexible nuclear-accent placement (English, German); this does not hold for prosodic correlates of focus that reinforce the articulation of prosodic constituents (French) or the articulation of lexical tones (Chinese).

Highlights

Discourse notions such as topic and focus are reflected in different grammatical layers, notably in syntax and prosody
Annotations indicate the tonal events that are relevant for our discussion on the prosodic reflexes of focus, assuming the ToBI conventions (Veilleux et al, 2006)
When the subject is focused (Figure 1A) it is realized with a bitonal accent L + H∗, which stands for a substantial rising pitch movement that reaches a high target within the stressed syllable; this realization is characteristic of contrastive foci in English (Ladd, 2008: 96; Watson et al, 2008; Gotzner, 2015: 130–136)

Summary

Introduction

Discourse notions such as topic and focus are reflected in different grammatical layers, notably in syntax and prosody. In English, German, and French, clause-initial non-contrastive foci are realized with prosodic prominence followed by deaccenting In contrast to these languages, Spanish and Italian have a default prosodic prominence on the rightmost prosodic constituent that is not modulated by focus; in order to maintain this prosodic pattern, these languages employ deviations from the canonical word order such that non-contrastive foci surface rightmost in the clause. These approaches share the reasoning that syntactic movement is a last resort, employed for discourse functions that cannot be expressed by prosodic means in the language at issue. The core question is how different prosodic means of expressing prominence (e.g., nuclear-accent placement in English, pitch range expansion of tonal events in Chinese) can account for the possibility of using the same construction in different contexts depending on language

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