Phonology of Pitch Change Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing

Peter Makarov

T¨ ubingen University

November 25, 2009

Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Phonology of Pitch Change

Pitch as a perception correlate of fundamental frequency (F0) – the frequency at which vocal folds oscillate. Pitch change is phonological: (1) a lexical means (also referred to as tone); (2) a syntactic / information structure means (pitch contour and sentence stress, pitch accent).

(Based on Clark & Yallop (1995)) Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Phonology of Pitch Change (2)

Phonology of pitch change for English (Pierrehumbert (1980)). Units

• f analysis:

◮ pitch accents associated with a stressed syllable in a

phonological word;

◮ boundary tones (marked with %); ◮ intonational phrases and intermediate phrases.

Conjecture: pitch contour expresses information structuring.

Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

GB Analysis of Focus in English

Selkirk defines Focus with the help of the constituent-question test. Focus is a syntactic notion – a feature associated with a constituent at the level of S-Structure (F-marking). Following Jackendoff (1972), Focus is conjectured to induce a set of alternatives to its value. Existential closure over the free variables of the p-skeleton (obtained by substituting variables for the focus expressions) gives rise to a presupposition. Application of the semantic value of the p-skeleton to the focus value yields an assertion. Focus is associated with a pitch accent. Focus is understood in terms of givenness and discourse anchoring. Pragmatic and semantic effects (in terms of Krifka (2006)) are subsumed under one notion of Focus.

Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Focus Projection: Problem

What is the relation between F-marking and pitch accent? We say that Focus is projected from the phonological word carrying pitch accent onto other constituents.

Examples:

Mary bought a book about BATS.

◮ Mary bought a book about [FBATS]. – (What did Mary buy a

book about?)

◮ Mary bought [Fa book about BATS]. – (What did Mary buy?) ◮ [FMary bought a book about BATS]. – (What’s been happening?)

Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Focus Projection: Phonological Explanation

Chomsky (1971), Jackendoff (1972) link pitch accent within an F-marked constituent to the main phrase stress within this

• constituent. The latter is associated – according to the Nuclear Stress

Rule (Chomsky and Halle (1968)) – with the rightmost word-level stress of a constituent. However, this does not predict the right location of pitch accent within a focused constituent.

Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Focus Projection: Syntactic Explanation

Gussenhoven (1984), Selkirk (1984), Rochemont (1986) – building on insights in Schmerling (1976) – define focus projection in purely syntactic terms and relate it to the argument structure of the sentence. Selkirk’s theory of focus projection stipulates a set of principles for the licensing of F-marking.

XP ZP X′ X YP internal argument

(1) Basic Focus Rule: An accented word is F-marked. (2) Focus Projection:

◮ (a) F-marking of the head of a phrase licenses the F-marking of the

phrase;

◮ (b) F-marking of an internal argument of a head licenses the F-marking of

the head.

Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Focus: Definition

The Focus of a sentence (FOC) is defined as an F-marked constituent not dominated by any other F-marked constituent.

Examples:

Mary bought a book about BATS.

◮ Mary bought a book about [FOC[FBATS]]. – (What did Mary buy a

book about?)

◮ Mary bought [FOCa [Fbook] [F[Fabout] [FBATS]]]. – (What did

Mary buy?)

◮ [FOCMary [Ft [F[Fbought] [Fa [Fbook] [F[Fabout] [FBATS]]]]]]. –

(What’s been happening?)

Note that apparently, Selkirk does not assume the DP hypothesis: the determiner a is in SpecNP, otherwise it would be F-marked as a head. Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Mary [FOC[Fbought] [Fa [Fbook] [F[Fabout] [FBATS]]]]. – (What did Mary do?)

IP NP Mary I′ I t1 (7) VP [F+] V′ (6) V [F+] bought (=buy-ed1) (5) NP [F+] DP a N′ (4) N [F+] book (3) PP [F+] P′ (2) P [F+] about (1) NP [F+] bats Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Phonological vs Syntactic Theories of Focus Projection

Key differences in predictive power between the phonological and syntactic approaches to focus projection:

• 1. the relation of pitch accent and givenness;
• 2. the lack of focus projection from accent in non-argument

positions;

• 3. the projection of focus from accent in positions that the

phonological theory would not define as positions of main phrase stress.

Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

F-marking and Givenness

◮ F-marked constituents which are not themselves a Focus are interpreted

as new in the discourse;

◮ constituents without F-marking are interpreted as given; ◮ a Focus constituent (X0) may be interpreted as either given or new.

Examples:

◮ [FOC[FMARy]] bought a book about bats. – Mary is either given or new,

everything else is given.

◮ [FOCMary [Ft [F[Fbought] [Fa [Fbook] [F[Fabout] [FBATS]]]]]]. – Mary is

given, everything else is new.

◮ [FOC[FMARy] [Ft [F[Fbought] [Fa [Fbook] [F[Fabout] [FBATS]]]]]]. –

Everything is new (Neither Mary nor bats are themselves a Focus).

Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

De-accenting

The phonological theory of focus projection crashes on examples of de-accenting: given material is allowed to appear in the Focus (as defined with the constituent-question test). Selkirk’s analysis successfully handles such cases.

Example:

◮ (I only thought that) MARy bought a BOOK about bats.

[FOC[FMARy] [Ft [F[Fbought] [Fa [FBOOK] [[about] [bats]]]]]].

◮ Sentence Focus projected from the accented Infl:

[FOC[Mary] [F[FDID] [[buy] [a [book] [[about] [bats]]]]]]. – Everything is given. The phonological theory of focus projection is also unable to express givenness contrasts – due to different pitch accent placements within one Focus constituent.

Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Non-arguments, Unaccusatives

Non-arguments: Focus does not project from a non-argument (e.g. *He only [FOCsmoked in the TENT]) Unaccusatives: Focus projects from the Subject onto the entire sentence. One more Focus Projection principle needs to be added: the NP- or WH-movement chain (i.e. the antecedent and all its traces) shares F-marking. [FOC[FJOHNsonj] [F[Ftj] [Fdied]]].

(6) IP [F+] (1) NP [F+] JOHNsonj I′ (5) I [F+] ti (4) VP [F+] V′ (3) V [F+] died (=die+edi) (2) NP [F+] tj Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Small Clauses vs Object Control (1)

Small Clauses and Object Control: Focus projects from the embedded Subject onto the entire small clause (a), but not the embedded CP (b). (a)

IP NP I I′ I VP V heard (6) FP [F+] (1) NP [F+] a CLOCKk F′ (5) F [F+] (4) VP [F+] V′ (3) V [F+] tick (2) NP [F+] tk Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Small Clauses vs Object Control (2)

(b)

IP NP I I′ I VP V forced NP [F+] the CLOCKi CP IP NP PROk,i I′ I to VP V′ V tick NP tk

Note that Selkirk argues for sentence Focus in (a) but not (b).

Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Generic vs Existential Reading

Diesing (1992) attempts to relate the VP-Internal Subject Hypothesis and the Kamp-Heim approach to the semantics of NPs. She argues for the mapping

• f IP material into a restrictive clause of the logical representation and VP

material into the nuclear scope. Consider bare plural Subjects: Firemen are available. (a) Existential reading: ∃x x is a fireman & x is available (b) Generic reading: Gen x, t [x is a fireman & t is a time] x is available at t Stage-level predicates allow both readings whereas individual-level predicates (e.g. altruistic) – only a generic one. Diesing assumes different predicates in Infl: a stage-level Infl as a raising predicate, an individual-level Infl as a control predicate. An existential reading of bare plurals is associated with the SpecVP position where the Subject can move at LF.

Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Focus and Readings (1)

(a) FIREMEN are AVAILABLE. or FIREMEN are available. (b) FIREMEN are ALTRUISTIC. not *FIREMEN are altruistic. Altruistic is an individual-level predicate: there’s a PRO in SpecVP of the control be which cannot project focus this is why pitch accent on the altruistic is obligatory for sentence Focus (there’s no other way it can get F-marked).

Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Focus and Readings (2)

(a) TREspassers will be prosecuted. – Existential reading only. (b) TREspassers will be PROsecuted. – Both existential and generic readings. The matrix Subject is raised out of the Object position in the V-bar of

• prosecuted. According to Diesing, focus only projects from a phrase

that is base-generated within a VP; the lowering into the VP licenses focus projection. Selkirk wants to show that the pitch accent on prosecuted is required for a generic reading coupled with sentence Focus. However, there’s no control structure in the above example which means the trace can always set off focus projection and so the pitch accent on prosecuted is redundant.

Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Focus and WH-Movement

What BOOKS has Helen reviewed? – Helen is given and reviewed is new.

CP (1) NP [F+] what BOOKSi C′ C hasj IP NP Helen I′ I tj (2) VP [F+] reviewed ti Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University

Focus Projection (Reviewed)

Focus Projection:

◮ (a) F-marking of the head of a phrase licenses the F-marking of the

phrase;

◮ (b) F-marking of an internal argument of a head licenses the F-marking of

the head.

◮ (c) F-marking of the antecedent of a trace left by NP- or WH-Movement

licenses the F-marking of the trace. Combined with the language-specific Basic Focus Rule (“A word with a pitch accent is F-marked”), Selkirk defines the relation between pitch accent and Focus in intonational languages (English, German, Dutch).

Elizabeth Selkirk (1995) Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and Phrasing T¨ ubingen University