The prosody of broad and narrow focus within noun phrases

Abstract

Linguistic focus is an important factor in determining nuclear and prenuclear accents, according to current phonological theories [E. O. Selkirk, Phonology and Syntax (MIT, Cambridge, MA, 1984); E. O. Selkirk, ‘‘Sentence prosody: Intonation, stress, and phrasing,’’ in Handbook of Phonological Theory, edited by J. Goldsmith (Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 1995), pp. 550–569]. In some cases, one prosodic realization of a sentence may correspond to more than one focus [E. O. Selkirk, Phonology and Syntax (MIT, Cambridge, MA, 1984); E. O. Selkirk, ‘‘Sentence prosody: Intonation, stress, and phrasing,’’ in Handbook of Phonological Theory, edited by J. Goldsmith (Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 1995), pp. 550–569]. There is little experimental data that directly bear on this issue, however. This study presents a speech production experiment on broad and narrow focus within one structure predicted to allow prosodic ambiguity: noun phrases (NPs) with an adjectival modifier. Sentences were read by 15 subjects under three focus conditions: (1) broad (on NP); (2) narrow-final (on noun); (3) narrow-early (on adjective). Speech and electroglottographic (EGG) data were recorded and analyzed. Acoustic measurements (duration, f0, rms amplitude) and a prosodic transcription revealed the following results: (1) Accents were more likely to be present on prenuclear adjectives under broad focus; (2) broad and narrow focus were often distinguished by the nuclear accent type. [Work supported by NIDRR Grant No. H133E30010.]