[lingtalks] Timothy Face Colloquium: Feb 9, 2009

[Karma Dolma]

The Department of Linguistics at USC and the Hispanic Linguistics Student
Association proudly present, in collaboration with the USC Department of
Spanish and Portuguese and the American Association of Teachers of Spanish
and Portuguese:


Intonation and the Perception of Focus in Castilian Spanish:
Two Studies and their Implications for Intonational Phonology

Timothy L. Face,
University of Minnesota

Monday, February 9, 2009 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm
Grace Ford Salvatori 118

Following the talk, dinner will be served in the Linguistics Conference Room


Abstract:
Within the Autosegmental-Metrical theory of intonational phonology, the
temporal alignment of tonal events - such as the location of an F0 valley or
an F0 rise with respect to the edges of a stressed syllable - is commonly
considered to be of phonological importance.  In Castilian Spanish, the F0
valley is aligned at or near the onset of the stressed syllable in words in
both broad focus and narrow focus, but the alignment of the F0 peak
distinguishes these focus types, with an F0 peak within the stressed
syllable marking narrow focus and an F0 peak following the stressed syllable
marking broad focus.  As a result of this and other similar findings, the
temporal alignment of tonal events has been a point of considerable
discussion in phonological analyses of Spanish intonation.
 
While there is a considerable amount of speech production data on the
temporal alignment of F0 rises in broad focus and narrow focus contexts in
Castilian Spanish, there has been no perceptual research to verify that the
alignment of these rises actually communicates to listeners the pragmatic
meanings (i.e. the focus types) that they have been claimed to communicate
based on speech production data.  In this talk I will present the results of
two perceptual studies that investigate the communicative importance of the
temporal alignment of F0 peaks as well as that of other potential
intonational cues to focus type in Castilian Spanish: the position of the
following F0 valley, the depth of the following F0 valley, and the scaling
of following portion of the F0 contour.
 
The results challenge the status of peak alignment as the primary
intonational marker of focus type.  The results of the first study show that
peak height is a stronger cue to focus type than is peak alignment.  The
results of the second study show that the strongest intonational cue to
narrow focus in Castilian Spanish is the scaling of the F0 contour after the
word in focus.  Having discussed the results, I will then discuss their
theoretical implications, including the challenges posed for current
analyses within the Autosegmental-Metrical theory as well as for the theory
itself.



Email inquiries to: lingtalk at college.usc.edu 
http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/ling/newsevents/colloquia.shtml

This event was also made possible with funding from the Graduate and
Professional Student Senate (GPSS)


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