Taha, M. (2024). Does Syntactic Markedness Override the Prosodic Prominence of Focus?. CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 85(1), 245-288. doi: 10.21608/opde.2024.349216
Mustafa Ibrahim Taha. "Does Syntactic Markedness Override the Prosodic Prominence of Focus?". CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 85, 1, 2024, 245-288. doi: 10.21608/opde.2024.349216
Taha, M. (2024). 'Does Syntactic Markedness Override the Prosodic Prominence of Focus?', CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 85(1), pp. 245-288. doi: 10.21608/opde.2024.349216
Taha, M. Does Syntactic Markedness Override the Prosodic Prominence of Focus?. CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education, 2024; 85(1): 245-288. doi: 10.21608/opde.2024.349216
Does Syntactic Markedness Override the Prosodic Prominence of Focus?
An assistant Lecturer at the Department of English- Faculty of Education- Ain Shams University
Abstract
Given that prosody is the principal cue of marking information structure in English, there is a vast body of research that attempts to get a window into the information structure-prosody interface. Most of these studies advocate one-to-one mapping such that each information category, particularly focus, is assigned specific prosodic properties. These accounts take a simplistic view and examine the prosody of information structure divorced from syntax. The current study attempts to circumvent this problem and postulates that the prosodic encoding of information structure is constrained by some syntactic factors. More specifically, it investigates how syntactic markedness of the focus constituent has bearing on its prosodic prominence. The basic hypothesis of the study is that syntactic markedness, as an independent syntactic variable, contributes to the eventual prosodic encoding of focus, particularly its prosodic prominence. Given that marked focus constituents basically manipulate syntax such that they stand out syntagmatically, the study hypothesizes that syntactically unmarked focus constituents are predicted to be more prosodically prominent than marked constituents and, as a corollary, are predicted to be realized with higher maximum pitch, higher scaling of the H tonal target of the focus accent compared to the H of the preceding and following accents, and lower scaling of the L target. To test these hypotheses, the study provides a prosodic investigation of selected marked focus constructions and unmarked ones. The corpus consists of three audiobooks of three novels written by Trenton Lee Stewart: The Mysterious Benedict Society, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey, and The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma. The results of the study show that syntactic markedness is a highly significant predictor for focus prosody. Specifically, unmarked focus constituents could be successfully predicted to be realized with more prosodic prominence than marked ones .
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