Abstract
This paper presents an analysis of Dimasa focus intonation. The acoustic analysis shows that narrow focus sentences undergo a jump in the pitch range irrespective of the underlying tonal value of the morpheme it attaches to. In addition to f0 expansion, the prosodic property of focus in Dimasa was found to have different (tense) phonation in morphologically marked narrow focus sentences when compared to the broad focus context. Thus, the tense phonation property of sentences bearing morphological focus is not only an acoustic property of a higher pitch range but may also be an acoustic cue of discourse-level intonation.
Highlights
In this paper, we analyze sentences bearing morphological focus in Dimasa
We show in this paper that pitch range expansion is accompanied by tense phonation, and we claim that the morphological focus marker leads to a voice quality change in Dimasa in discourse-level intonation
Since tense and lax phonation represent the continuum between the breathy and modal and creaky and modal ranges, it is expected that lax phonation will be associated with higher spectral values when compared to its tense phonation counterparts
Summary
We show that the prosodic cues for focus marking in a language such as Dimasa rest heavily on pitch range modification. Focus marking is morpho-syntactically indicated using a morphological focus marker which triggers a rise in the pitch range of the sentence. We show in this paper that pitch range expansion is accompanied by tense phonation, and we claim that the morphological focus marker leads to a voice quality change in Dimasa in discourse-level intonation. Previous studies (Kuang and Keating 2014; Kuang and Liberman 2016; Kuang et al 2016; Kuang and Liberman 2018) have shown that voice quality plays a role in pitch range perception. This study shows from the perspective of production that pitch range differences at the level of intonation are accompanied by additional phonation differences. Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
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