<OT> New Posting: ROA-774

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 774-0905

The Prosody of Topicalization

Caroline Fery <fery at rz.uni-potsdam.de>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=774


Abstract:
Because of the elusive nature of pitch accents and prosodic
phrasing, the role of prosody has been neglected too often
in the description of the syntax-phonology interface. This
paper shows that the syntactic structure of German sentences
is shaped by the formation of prosodic phrases, and that
many puzzles are solved if prosodic phrasing and accents
are systematically considered in formal grammar. Some types
of topicalization, like contrastive topicalization and split
constituents, are motivated by the need to separate two
accents which would be adjacent in an unmarked word order.
The sentence has now two different intonation phrases, with
the fronted constituent bearing an accent equal in strength
to the preverbal focus one. The proposal is couched in an
optimality theoretic framework, allowing direct interactions
between prosody and syntax.

Comments: to appear in Schwabe, Kerstin & Susanne Winkler (eds.)  On Information Structure, Meaning and Form. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Keywords: Prosody, syntax, topicalization
Areas: Phonology,Syntax
Type: Book Chapter

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=774