This dissertation studies the prosodic structure of the variety of Jordanian Arabic that is spoken in the rural areas of the Governorate of Irbid (IA) by investigating the role of syntactic structure in the formation of prosodic domains. It empirically explores the word-level, phrase-level and clause-level prosody of IA and attempts to account for these empirical results in a framework based on the standard syntactic-prosodic interface principles developed in Match Theory (Selkirk 2011) and formulated as OT constraints (Prince & Smolensky 1993). The basic hypotheses in this dissertation are that the prosodic word (ω), phonological phrase (Φ) and intonational phrase (ι) are present in IA, and that they are anchored in syntactic constituents. Relying on hypotheses derived from the MATCH constraints (Selkirk 2011) that ensure the syntactic-prosodic correspondence, ω, Φ and ι should respectively match the grammatical word, syntactic phrase and clause and should recursively match embedded syntactic constituents. A series of experiments was designed to test the hypotheses. Twenty native speakers (ten males and ten females) of Jordanian Arabic living in Irbid participated in the tasks. Each pair of participants performed several tasks in one session. Two game-based tasks were designed to explore intonational and temporal cues to Φ and ι boundaries and examine their relation to XPs and clauses, respectively. Two additional reading tasks were designed to determine the application domain of post-lexical segmental processes in IA (the coarticulation of pharyngealization and vowel hiatus resolution). The collected tokens were submitted to acoustic and statistical analyses. Based on the results of these experiments, the existence of the ω, Φ and ι is confirmed and our understanding of their segmental and suprasegmental cues is refined. ω’s match grammatical words and are the domain of stress, realization of the feminine -t suffix and coarticulation of pharyngealization. Φ`s match syntactic phrases and are cued suprasegmentally: their right boundaries are marked by low phrase accents (L-) and pre-boundary syllable lengthening. As for ι`s, they match clauses and are cued by additional final lengthening, boundary tones (H% or L%) and resistance to vowel reduction. There is also ample evidence that syntactic nesting motivates prosodic recursion. At the ω level, the primary/secondary status of genitive constructs of stress mirrors syntactic nesting. At the Φ level, recursion is evidenced by gradient pre-boundary syllable lengthening, which is greater at the right boundaries of higher prosodic subcategories that match larger syntactic domains. As for recursion at the ι level, it is not only cued by gradient pre-boundary syllable lengthening, but also by boundary tones: continuative H% are used at sentence-internal ι boundaries, but L% tones are cues to boundaries of larger ι’s. However, prosodic recursion is not unconstrained in IA: prosodic domains can only consist of two subcategories, i.e. a minimal and maximal layers. In this way, prosodic recursion is neither prohibited as proposed in the early version of Strict Layer Hypothesis (Nespor &Vogel 1986, Selkirk 1986), nor free to perfectly mirror syntactic nesting. As in most previous case studies, it is proposed that the one-to-one correspondence constraints of Match Theory (Selkirk 2011) account for the prosodic patterns in IA, but have to be complemented with language-specific markedness constraints on phonological weight, exhaustivity and recursion. It is also shown that these explanatory principles can, with minor reorganization, account for the prosodic patterns described in other Arabic dialects.

This thesis develops the phonological model for the Stockholm Swedish intonation system. Though previous research provides a general model of this system, many phonological aspects of it have remained understudied. The intonational options that are available to speakers of Stockholm Swedish are discussed, and it is argued that Stockholm Swedish provides evidence for complex branching of phonological domains. Specifically, it is argued that so called focal accents, which are referred to as (H)LH-accents in the present work, have essentially two different functions. First, they signal information structural categories such as focus. Second, they signal left edges of Intonation Phrases (IP). It is also argued that a wide range of options exist in the post-nuclear area. Six types of contours for such areas are distinguished, plus one additional rising contour when there are no post-nuclear accents. Based on these findings, I present an account of the branching options for the phonological categories in the Stockholm Swedish prosodic hierarchy. I argue that there is evidence for recursive phonological structures in Stockholm Swedish, i.e. that a mother node and a daughter node can belong to the same phonological category. Also, Stockholm Swedish provides evidence for a distinction between prosodic coordination (equal sister nodes) and prosodic adjunction (unequal sister nodes). Prosodic structure is mapped onto syntactic structure via a set of variably ranked Optimality Theoretic constraints. The relation between phonological and syntactic structure shows that the phonology prefers prosodic coordination (equal sisters) over adjunction (unequal sisters). The material for the study comprises a corpus of approximately 420 read sentences, which were specifically designed to test various phonological hypotheses, and approximately 17 minutes of uncontrolled speech.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-10-11T12:07:56Z No. of bitstreams: 1 carolinagarciadecarvalhosilva.pdf: 963240 bytes, checksum: 73b376e7be1b22197666cbad3e5ccb77 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-10-11T15:58:23Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 carolinagarciadecarvalhosilva.pdf: 963240 bytes, checksum: 73b376e7be1b22197666cbad3e5ccb77 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-11T15:58:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 carolinagarciadecarvalhosilva.pdf: 963240 bytes, checksum: 73b376e7be1b22197666cbad3e5ccb77 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-07-03 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este estudo tem como objetivo investigar a influência de fronteiras de sintagmas fonológicos () na identificação das categorias lexicais no PB. Parte-se da idéia de que as categorias lexicais são identificadas a partir da estrutura sintática (BAKER, 2003). Esta, por sua vez, é mapeada pela estrutura prosódica. Assim, a hipótese de trabalho adotada é a de que a estrutura prosódica, ao restringir o processamento sintático, permite a identificação das categorias lexicais de termos ambíguos. Assume-se como perspectiva teórica a integração entre o Programa Minimalista (CHOMSKY, 1995; 1999) e o modelo do Bootstrapping Fonológico (MORGAN e DEMUTH, 1996; CHRISTOPHE et al., 1997), nos termos de Corrêa (2006), assim como com um modelo de processamento (Modelo Integrado da Competência Linguística, MICL: Corrêa e Augusto, 2006). Toma-se ainda a Fonologia Prosódica (NESPOR e VOGEL, 1986) que sustenta que as unidades fonológicas são organizadas hierarquicamente e que há uma relação, ainda que não obrigatória, entre constituintes prosódicos e sintáticos. Foram desenvolvidas duas atividades experimentais, tendo como base os estudos de Millotte et al. (2007) no francês, a fim de verificar como a sensibilidade às pistas prosódicas pode restringir o processamento sintático de sentenças, e consequentemente permitir a identificação das categorias lexicais Adjetivo e Verbo. Ambos os experimentos utilizaram sentenças com palavras ambíguas na condição Verbo – [a menina] [LIMPA...] – e na condição Adjetivo – [a menina LIMPA]. No Experimento 1, buscou-se verificar diferenças acústicas entre as duas condições nas fronteiras de sintagma fonológico. Mediramse os valores da duração, da frequência fundamental e da intensidade nos finais das fronteiras prosódicas. A análise destes valores revelou que: (i) há diferenças prosódicas que sinalizam a existência de fronteira de sintagma fonológico; (ii) as categorias lexicais N, V e Adj têm comportamentos distintos na estrutura prosódica. O Experimento 2 testou se, dependendo apenas do contexto prosódico, os participantes seriam capazes de identificar as categorias sintáticas dos elementos ambíguos. Os resultados encontrados sustentam a hipótese de que as pistas prosódicas existentes nas fronteiras de sintagma fonológico auxiliam na restrição do processamento sintático e na identificação das categorias lexicais. / This study investigates the influence of phonological phrase boundaries () on the identification of lexical categories in Brazilian Portuguese. The start point assumption is that lexical categories are identified based on the syntactic structure (BAKER, 2003). On the other hand, the syntactic structure is mapped by the prosodic structure. Thus, the working hypothesis adopted is that, since the prosodic structure constrains the syntactic structure, it allows, in consequence, the identification of lexical categories of ambiguous terms. We assume the integration between the Minimalist Program (CHOMSKY, 1995; 1999) and the Phonological Bootstrapping Model (MORGAN and DEMUTH, 1996; CHRISTOPHE et al., 1997), in terms of Corrêa (2006), as well as a Processing Model (Integrated Model of Linguistic Competence, MICL: CORRÊA and AUGUSTO, 2006). We also assume the Prosodic Phonology (NESPOR and VOGEL, 1986) which argues that the phonological units are hierarchically organized and that there is a relation between the prosodic e the syntactic constituents, even though that relation may not be obligatory. Based on the studies of Millotte et al. (2007) in French, two experimental activities were devolved in order to verify how the sensibility to prosodic cues may constrain the syntactic processing of sentences and allow the identification of lexical categories ADJ and V. Both experiments used sentences containing ambiguous words in the condition Verb – [a menina] [LIMPA...] (the girl CLEANS) – and in the condition Adjective – [a menina LIMPA] (the CLEAN girl). In Experiment 1, we tried to verify the acoustic differences between the two conditions in the phonological phrase boundaries. We measured the values of duration, fundamental frequency and intensity at the end of the prosodic boundaries. The analysis of those values revealed that (i) there are prosodic differences that signalize the existence of phonological phrase boundaries; (ii) the lexical categories N, V and ADJ have different behaviors in the prosodic structure. The Experiment 2 tested if, depending exclusively on the prosodic context, the participants were capable of identifying the syntactic categories of the ambiguous elements. The results support the hypothesis that prosodic cues present on the phonological phrase boundaries help constraining the syntactic processing and, in consequence, the identification of the lexical categories.