Abstract
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. This article is part of the Special Collection: Prosody and constituent structure
Highlights
As this special issue shows, there is currently renewed interest in the forms and functions of prosodic phrasing across languages, and a recognition that our knowledge of this area should be informed by studies of prosodic phrasing in diverse languages
In Section 4.5.3, the proposed information structure/phonological phrasing correspondence developed in Section 2.3 is expanded to account for L- phrase tones, found for the first time in these data
4.6 Equative sentences: Results and discussion The structure of this section follows that for the section above, first the overall prosodic patterns of the equative sentences are laid out, these are discussed in terms of the extent to which they support the proposed information structure marking function for phonological phrases, and case marking for H- tones
Summary
As this special issue shows, there is currently renewed interest in the forms and functions of prosodic phrasing across languages, and a recognition that our knowledge of this area should be informed by studies of prosodic phrasing in diverse languages (e.g. see Szendrői 2003; Elfner 2012; Wagner 2015). The study was sparked by interest in the function of H- phrase tones in Samoan These have been found to have an interesting distribution: they are found in reasonably expected positions such as the end of the clause in an initial cleft, and, intriguingly, before the absolutive following the verb (Orfitelli & Yu 2009; Yu 2009). In the latter case Yu (2009) claims that they are tonal markers of absolutive case. This study looks directly at prosodic phrasing in two types of sentences in Samoan which looked likely to test key aspects of the function of these tones
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