This paper discusses how focus changes prosodic structure in Tokyo Japanese. It is generally believed that focus blocks the intonational process of downstep and causes a pitch reset. This paper presents experimental evidence against this traditional view by looking at the prosodic behavior of Wh words, which receive focus lexically in Japanese as in other languages. It is demonstrated, specifically, that the focused Wh element does not block downstep although it receives a much higher pitch than its preceding element. This suggests that presence of lexical focus does not trigger pitch reset in Japanese.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:Potsdam/oai:kobv.de-opus-ubp:2447 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Kubozono, Haruo |
| Contributors | Ishihara, Shinichiro (ed.), Petrova, Svetlana (ed.), Schwarz, Anne (ed.) |
| Publisher | Universität Potsdam, Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät. Institut für Linguistik / Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Extern. Extern |
| Source Sets | Potsdam University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Prosody, Syntax, and Information Structure (WPSI 2). - Potsdam : Univ.-Verl., 2007. - S. 1 - 28. - (Interdisciplinary studies on information structure ; 9) |
| Rights | http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/doku/urheberrecht.php |
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