The incremental processing of focus, givenness and prosodic prominence
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22130718 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Stefan Baumann (0000-0002-7302-7103, University of Cologne), Petra B Schumacher (0000-0003-0263-8502, University of Cologne) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2020-01-10 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Glossa a journal of general linguistics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2397-1835 • E-ISSN: 2397-1835 |
| Publisher | Open Library of the Humanities (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.5334/gjgl.914 |
| OpenAlex | W2998783972 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 63 |
This study on German investigates the real-time comprehension of items in First Occurrence Focus (focused and new), Second Occurrence Focus (focused and given), Quasi Second Occurrence Focus (derogatory expressions that are referentially given and lexically new) and Background (non-focused and given), which are marked by different levels of prosodic prominence. While previous electrophysiological research tested mismatches between prosody and information structure, the present study assessed contextually licensed, appropriate prosodic realizations of stimuli. Our EEG experiment revealed distinct topographic profiles for information structure and prosody. As to prosody, we found a biphasic pattern over anterior brain regions for (secondarily prominent) phrase accents (marking Second Occurrence Focus) and deaccentuation (marking Background) but not for pitch accents (marking First Occurrence Focus), indicating an inverse relation between processing effort and the level of perceived prominence. The event-related potentials for Quasi Second Occurrence Focus items resembled First Occurrence Focus items although the former were deaccented. As to information structural contrasts, First Occurrence Focus engendered a pronounced negativity over posterior sites relative to Second Occurrence Focus and Background. Quasi Second Occurrence Focus showed an intermediate negativity. These differences can probably be accounted for by (lexically) new rather than focused information. In general, the data indicate that both prosodic cues and information structural categories influence the incremental processing of spoken language and that pitch accents and newness fulfill independent prominence-lending functions
Cognitive psychology · Comprehension · Electroencephalography · Event-related potential · Information Structure · Linguistics · Mismatch negativity · Negativity effect · P600 · Prosody · Speech recognition · Computer Science · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development · Artificial Intelligence
Design and analysis
Stress and Non-Stress Accent
Intonational Phonology
Sense and Sensitivity
The Phonology of Tone and Intonation
Noun-phrase anaphora and focus
Using prosody to avoid ambiguity
Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain
Thirty Years and Counting
Spectral balance as an acoustic correlate of linguistic stress
Loudness predicts prominence
Duration and Intensity as Physical Correlates of Linguistic Stress
The free-energy principle
The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces
The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure
Semantic Interpretation In Generative Grammar
Interfaces and Interface Conditions
Prosodic Systems and Intonation in English
Prosody in the Comprehension of Spoken Language
On the place of phrase accents in intonational phonology
Experiments in the Perception of Stress
(De-)Accentuation and the Processing of Information Status
The phonology of Second Occurrence Focus
Focus, Accent, and Argument Structure
"Contrastive focus, givenness and the unmarked status of "discourse-new
What makes a word prominent? Predicting untrained German listeners' perceptual judgments
A theory of focus interpretation
Coreference, lexical givenness and prosody in German
The communicative significance of primary and secondary accents
Focus
The intonation of accessibility
When Semantics Meets Phonetics
| Citations per year | 1.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |