Interaction of word stress, focus, and sentence type in English

Abstract

This study investigates prosodic differences between statements and declarative questions in American English by examining their interaction with focus, as manifested in the local and global pitch range variations, and in the underlying pitch targets of the stressed syllables in the pre-, post-, and on-focus content words. Five native speakers read 24 sentences eight times. Results of F0 analyses indicate that focus has no effect on the prefocus region for either statements or questions. In the on-focus region, the pitch range of the stressed syllable is raised in statements, but lowered in questions. The postfocus pitch range is compressed and lowered in statements, but compressed and raised in questions. Furthermore, the pitch target of the stressed syllable in a content word is high or falling in statements and low or rising in questions, depending on the focus condition and on the word’s stress and syllabic pattern. Comparisons of duration and spectral balance in each statement-question pair yielded no significant difference. These results suggest that a particular combination of word stress, focus, and sentence type in an English utterance largely determines its local and global pitch contours. Only after these communicative functions are identified can the associated forms be explained.