„Geh ruhig“: Die Rolle der Prosodie bei der Auflösung von Ambiguitäten

Abstract

Abstract Vocal pitch (also known as F0), pause and positioning of the sentence accent are closely related to the meaning of a statement. Although other elements of prosody can also be related to the meaning of the statement (e. g. timbre, speaking rate), in this paper only the three mentioned elements of prosody are considered in connection with the semantic interpretation. These three parameters are analyzed here individually or in connection with the meaning of potentially ambiguous statements in writing. In this way, the role of prosody in resolving ambiguities in written formulations is demonstrated, ambiguities that may lead to incorrect translations. The approach used for this research is „Analysis-by-introspection.” For better illustration of the differences in the meaning depending on the prosody, the translation method is used. Some translations come from the author of this paper; other translations are taken from some published books. For one or the other prosodic contour, semantic explanations are formulated. It is shown that prosodic topics play a major role in courses for foreign language learning, translation lessons and post-editing.