Christoph Gabriel / Ingo Feldhausen / Andrea Pešková
University of Hamburg, IRom
Collaborative Research Center 538 “Multilingualism”, Project H9
Structure of the Talk
1.
What is porteño Spanish?
2.
Focus Marking in Spanish and Italian:
Syntax and Prosody
3.
3.1
3.2
3.3
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Methods and Material
Results
Analysis
4.
Concluding remarks
Contrastive and neutral focus in porteño Spanish
Jahrestagung der DGfS
Osnabrück
1.
March 4, 2009
What is porteño Spanish?
● prestigious variety of Argentinean
Spanish
● term porteño derived from puerto
(‘harbor’)
● originally spoken in the capital
Buenos Aires
● nowadays spread along the coast
down to Patagonia and Tierra del
fuego (Fireland)
1.
What is porteño Spanish?
Porteño Spanish prosody
● is described as ‘sounding Italian’ in several descriptions (e.g.
Vidal de Battini 1964).
● Prenuclear pitch accents are generally realized as early peaks
(~ nuclear and focal pitch accent in Peninsular Spanish).
● No contrast early peak vs. late peak (as in Peninsular
Spanish), Analysis as H* (e.g. Colantoni/Gurlekian 2004).
● Nuclear pitch accent HL*, falling final contour: HL* L-L%
● Porteño presumably reproduces the corresponding shape of
Southern Italian pitch accents (e.g. Neapolitan, D’Imperio
2002).
References
1.
What is porteño Spanish?
● Strong Italian influence due to immigration from Central and Southern Italy (beginning 20th century)
● A third of the population of Buenos
Aires: Italians (some neighborhoods, e.g. San Telmo: 45%)
● Spanish-Italian bilingualism for a
long time
● Lexicon: laburo (< it. lavoro ‘work’)
Pronunciation:
Cipoletti [s] → [tS] (place name)
belladona [S] → [l] (plant)
1.
What is porteño Spanish?
Spanish
(Neapolitan) Italian
María miraba la LUna.
Maria mirava la LUna
|
|
|
|
|
|
L*H L*H
LH*
H*
H*
HL*
Porteño Spanish
María miraba a la LUna.
|
|
|
H*
H*
HL*
1.
What is porteño Spanish?
Porteño Spanish syntax
2.
● intensified use of subject pronouns in non-emphatic contexts:
(porteño)
Como vos querés.
vs.
(peninsular) Como º quieras.
‘as you like it’
● Subjects in neutral narrow focus appear clause-finally.
VOS is derived via special syntactic operations, e.g.
Zubizarreta’s (1998) p(rosodically motivated)-movement:
Spanish:
‘Who bought the newspaper?’→ Compró el diario María.
VO[F S]
● intensified use of doubling clitics and differential object
marking, even with [-anim] referents:
(porteño)
¿La viste a su computadora?
vs.
(peninsular) ¿º Has visto º su ordenador?
‘Did you see his/her computer?’
Italian:
‘Who wrote love letters?’ → Ha scritto lettere d’amore Beatrice
(Costa 2001: 188).
VO[F S]
● gradual differences concerning the use of different core
syntactic orderings (SVO, VOS, OVS; see sections 2 and 3.2)
2.
Focus Marking in Spanish and Italian:
Syntax and Prosody
● Spanish: The preverbal position is only available for XPs in
contrastive focus (Zubizarreta 1999)
‘Julia bought the newspaper.’ → (No), María compró el diario.
[F contr S]VO
2.
‘Who bought the newspaper? / ‘Julia bought the newspaper’
→
Compró el diario María.
VO[F neutr/contr S]
) María compró el diario.
[F neutr/contr S]VO
) Lo compró María.
Cl+V[F neutr/contr S]
María lo compró.
[F neutr/contr S]Cl+V
→ (No), un diario compró María.
[F contr O]VS
(focus preposing of object,
foco antepuesto)
2.
Focus Marking in Spanish and Italian:
Syntax and Prosody
Focus Marking in Spanish and Italian:
Syntax and Prosody
● Cross-dialectally, the position of a focused subject does not
depend on its neutral vs. contrastive interpretation, but rather
on the presence or absence of a full object DP (Gabriel 2007).
(focalized subject in situ)
‘Mary bought a book.’
Focus Marking in Spanish and Italian:
Syntax and Prosody
● Object preposing is not restricted to contrastive interpretation.
‘What did Mary buy?’ / ‘Mary bought a book.’
→
Un diario compró María.
[F contr/neutr O]VS
2.
Focus Marking in Spanish and Italian:
Syntax and Prosody
Focus is (prosodically) prominent
Peninsular Spanish (and other close-to-standard dialects)
● “Given two sister nodes Ci (marked [+F]) and Cj (marked [-F]),
Ci is more prominent than Cj” (Zubizarreta 1998: 88).
● Contrast late peak (L*H, pre-nuclear) vs.
early peak (LH*, nuclear) → focal pitch accent
● ~ “An accented word is F-marked” (Selkirk 1995: 555).
‘What happened?’
[F María miraba la LUna.]
|
|
|
L*H L*H
LH*
‘Who watched the moon?’
[F MaRÍa] ) miraba la luna.
|
|
LH* L- postfocal
deaccentuation
2.
Focus Marking in Spanish and Italian:
Syntax and Prosody
Spanish close-to-standard dialects (CTS)
● No tonal differentiation between broad focus and narrow
neutral/contrastive focus in clause-final position:
‘What happened?’ / ‘What did Mary buy?’ / ‘Mary bought a
puzzle magazine.’
→ María compró un DIArio.
|
LH*
● Focus domain is optionally be marked by prosodic phrasing:
‘What happened?’
→ [F María compró un diario]
‘What did Mary buy?’
→ (María compró ) ([F un diario])
|
H-
3.
3.1
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Methods and Material
Production Experiment (quasi-spontaneous speech)
2.
Focus Marking in Spanish and Italian:
Syntax and Prosody
(Neapolitan) Italian (D’Imperio 2002)
● Pre-nuclear and nuclear accents usually surface as early
peak pitch accents.
● Falling final contour: HL* L-L%
● Exception: final contrastive focus
● Non-final narrow focus is marked through syllable-internal
early peak alignment and post-focal de-accentuation.
Porteño Spanish?
3.
3.1
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Methods and Material
● 12 Subjects (6 female, 6 male)
- 17-23 years of age (scholar education in porteño Spanish)
- native speakers of porteño Spanish
- totally naïve to the purpose of the experiment
● Visual stimuli were presented as a PowerPoint file
- short context stories
- context questions inducing different information structural
readings in target answers, e. g.
- whole focus reading
- Subject (neutral / contrastive focus)
- Direct Object (neutral / contrastive focus)
● Recordings took place in a quiet room at the Universidad del
Museo Social Argentino (UMSA), Buenos Aires (Dec 2008)
● Subjects were told to read out the question first and then to
utter an appropriate answer (→ target sentence)
● part of a larger set of experiments conducted in Buenos Aires
and Patagonia in November/December 2008 (~ 50 speakers)
● Recorded as .wav-files (sample rate 48.000 Hz); Marantz
PMD 671; PRAAT
Blancanieves secuestra a Tarzán …
… y se lo entrega a los siete enanitos.
‘Snow White kidnaps Tarzan …’
‘… and hands him over to the Seven Dwarfs.’
¿Qué pasa acá?
Blancanieves secuestra a Mickey Mouse, ¿verdad?
‘What’s going on here?’ → whole focus
‘Snow White kidnaps Mickey Mouse, right?’ → [F contr Object]
3.
3.1
3.
3.1
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Methods and Material
● pitch accent realization
(phonetic description)
34-66%
0-33%
67-100% of σ*
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Methods and Material
● pitch accent realization
(phonetic description)
H*L
(H* in 1st part of σ*)
L*H1
σ*
Early
Peak
Late
Peak
H*
(H* in 2nd part of σ*)
Two aspects
1) Syntax: Orderings in target answers
2) Prosody: Pitch accent realization of focused constituents
L*H 2
HL*
σ*
σ
σ
σ*
σ*
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Results
σ
Falling accent
σ*
LH*
(H* in 3rd part of σ*)
3.
3.2
σ*
3.
3.2
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Results
1) Syntax
neutral narrow focus
9 context questions x 12 speakers = 108 target sentences
contrastive focus
12 context questions x 12 speakers = 144 target sentences
_____________
252 sentences
3.
3.2
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Results
3.
3.2
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Results
narrow focus (syntax)
1) Syntax
● unmarked word order (S - V- dO – iO / PP)
100%
● marked word order
80%
1. special constructions
- clefts
[F Es María] la que compra el diario.
- passive
El diario fue comprado [F por María].
- other strategies Que no. Te dije que era [F María].
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Results
40%
74,1
64,6
sentence internal
variation
special
constructions
unmarked
20%
0%
neutral
total: 108 sentences
3.
3.2
contrastive
total: 144 sentences
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Results
2) Prosody (pitch accent realization of focused constituents)
1) Syntax
● In situ focalization of subjects is possible with neutral focus
reading (along with Labastía 2006; contra Zubizarreta 1998)
‘Who bought the newspaper?’
[F neutr María] compra el diario en el kiosco. (e.g. Pers4_P2A3)
● Focus fronting (foco antepuesto) is possible with neutral focus
reading (contra Zubizarreta 1999).
‘What does Mary buy at the kiosk?’
[F neutr Un diario] está comprando María. (e.g. Pers4_P2A2)
3.
3.2
30,5
60%
2. sentence internal variation
- p-movement
María le da a su hermano [F el diario].
- focus fronting
[F El diario] compra María.
3.
3.2
4,9
13,9
12
- Nuclear pitch accents of sentence-final direct objects
(neutral vs. contrastive)
- Nuclear accents in all-new sentences
- Peak alignment of sentence-initial subjects
(pre-nuclear, neutral vs. contrastive)
● Analysis is based on four speakers (Person 5, 7, 9, and 10)
out of the 12 aforementioned subjects
● Altogether 64 sentences (4 speakers x 21 context questions)
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Results – Realization of Final Nuclear Accents
nuclear pitch accents
sentence-final position
Absolute Number
15
10
5
0
Early
Peak
HL*
HL*
Contrastive
Neutral
All-new
Early Peak
6
2
3
HL* (Long Fall)
2
7
7
H*, contrastive focus DO - Sentence: Pers3_P2A17
HL*, neutral focus DO - Sentence: Pers10_P2A2
HL* in all-new context - Sentence: Pers5_P2A26
3.
3.2
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Results – Peak Alignment (Subjects)
Position of pitch peaks in sentence-initial subject constituents
25% 50% 75%
Pre-nuclear accent: given or part
of focus domain
Position of pitch peak: 69%
(25 tokens)
Nuclear accent: neutral focus
Position of pitch peak: 73%
(8 tokens)
Ma .
HL* in all-new context - Sentence: Pers5_P2A1
Pre-nuclear pitch accent on subject - Sentence: Pers10_P2A2
CV.V
rí.a
Nuclear accent: contr. focus
Position of pitch peak: 50%
(7 tokens)
σ*
3.
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
3.2
Results – Subject Peak Alignment
Neutral focus on initial subject - Sentence Pers9_P2A13
Contrastive focus on initial subject - Sentence: Pers9_P2A6
3.
3.3
Contrastive focus on initial subject - Sentence: Pers5_P2A6
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Analysis
3.
3.3
FOC-CONTR (FC)
A constituent [F contr XP] is more salient than a constituent
without that specification.
● Distinction between different focus types:
~ formal features [Fneutr] and [Fcontr]
● Languages differ concerning the visibility of feature (sub-)
specifications for the syntactic and phonological components.
STAYOBJECT (SO)
No syntactic movement of object DP.
● Porteño Spanish
STRESSFOCUS (SF)
[F XP] is prosodically more prominent than [XP].
The prosodic system is sensitive to sub-specifications of
information structural features: Both [Fneutr] and [Fcontr] are
visible.
ALIGNFOCUS (AF)
[F XP] occurs at right edge of the intonational phrase (IP).
The syntactic component is not: Only [F] is visible.
39
3.
3.3
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Analysis
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Analysis
*STRUC (Prince/Smolensky 2004 [1993])
Avoid overt marking, i.e. least effort.
3.
3.3
40
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Analysis
Overlapping constraints
SO
AF
) [F MaRÍa] compró el diario.
AF
SO
*(!)
) proExpl Compró el diario [F MaRÍa]
*(!)
*(!)
SF
[F María] compró el DIArio.
*!
● High-ranking of
FOC-CONTR (FC) (A constituent [F contr XP] is more salient
than a constituent without that specification)
*(!)
forces a contrastively focused object in final position to be
marked with an early peak (H*L, H*, LH*) - instead of the
falling contour HL* (~ broad or neutral narrow focus).
*
Overlapping Constraints (Boersma/Hayes 2001):
● STAYOBJECT » ALIGNFOCUS
) [F MaRÍa] compró el diario. (high frequency)
[F S]VO
● ALIGNFOCUS » STAYOBJECT
) proExpl Compró el diario [F MaRÍa]. (low frequency) VO[F S]
41
● Early peak (H*L, H*, LH*) in final position: prosodic effort (as
compared to the regular falling contour)
→ prosodic salience
→ violation of *STRUC (Avoid overt marking, i.e. least effort)
42
3.
3.3
Focus Marking in porteño Spanish
Analysis
Overlapping constraints
SF
FC
*S
FCTRUC
*STRUC
*(!)
) María compró [F contr el DIArio].
H*
) María compró [F contr el DIArio].
HL*
MaRÍa compró [F contr el diario].
*!
SO AF
*(!)
● Focus fronting ([F O]VS) is possible with neutral and contrastive focus and is more frequent than in CTS Spanish.
*(!)
*(!)
!
!
● Cleft constructions are more often used to express contrastive
focus than neutral narrow focus.
● P-movement also occurs in contrastive focus constructions.
● FOC-CONTR » *STRUC
) María compró [F contr el DIArio]. (6 x)
H*
● *STRUC » FOC-CONTR
) María compró [F contr el DIArio]. (2 x)
HL*43
4.
4.
Concluding remarks
● In porteño Spanish neutral and contrastive narrow focus can
be signaled by prosodic prominence in situ (as in CTS
Spanish varieties, cf. Face 2002, Hualde 2003, Gabriel 2007).
Concluding remarks
● Contrastive focus in sentence final position is generally
signaled by early peak alignment (H*L, H*, LH*), while the
typical descending final contour HL* L% is predominant in
neutral focus and in all-new constructions.
● Thus, porteño Spanish differs from CTS varieties insofar as
this dialect allows for tonal marking of contrastive focus in
sentence-final position.
● Tendency: Peak alignment in preverbal subject constituents
suggests that contrastive focus is as well tonally marked in
non-final positions.
● No clear-cut distinction between syntactic position and focus
type (i.e. neutrally focused constituents do not obligatorily
appear at the right edge of the sentence ).
References
Boersma, Paul / Hayes, Bruce (2001): “Empirical Tests of the Gradual Learning
Algorithm.” In: Linguistic Inquiry 32, 45-86.
Colantoni, Laura / Gurlekian, Jorge (2004): “Convergence and intonation.
Historical evidence from Buenos Aires Spanish:” In: Bilingualism: Language
and Cognition 7, 107-119.
Costa, João (2001): “Emergence of Unmarked Word Order.” In: Legendre,
Géraldine et al. (eds.): Optimality-Theoretic Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 171-203.
D’Imperio, Mariapaola (2002): “Italian Intonation: An Overview and Some
Questions.” In: Probus 14, 37-69.
Face, Timothy L. (2002): Intonational Marking of Contrastive Focus in Madrid
Spanish. Frankfurt: Lang.
Gabriel, Christoph (2007): Fokus im Spannungsfeld von Phonologie und Syntax.
Frankfurt: Vervuert.
Hualde, José Ignacio (2003): “El modelo métrico y autosegmental.” In: Prieto,
Pilar (ed.): Teorías de la entonación. Barcelona: Ariel, 155-184.
Kaisse, Ellen (2001): “The long fall: An intonational melody of Argentinean
Spanish.” In: Herschensohn, Julia et al. (eds.): Features and Interfaces in
Romance. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 148-160.
Labastía, Leopoldo Omar (2006): “Prosodic Prominence in Argentinean Spanish.”
In: Journal of Pragmatics 38, 1677-1705.
Prince, Alan / Smolensky, Paul (2004 [1993]): Optimality Theory. Constraint
Interaction in Generative Grammar. Malden: Blackwell (originally: New
Brunswick: Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science).
Selkirk, Elizabeth O. (1995): “Sentence Prosody: Intonation, Stress, and
Phrasing.” In: Goldsmith, John A. (ed.): The Handbook of Phonological
Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, 550-569.
Vidal de Battini, Berta Elena. (1964): El español de la Argentina. Buenos Aires:
Consejo Nacional de Educación.
Zubizarreta, María Luisa (1998): Prosody, Focus, and Word Order. Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press.
— (1999): “Las funciones informativas: Tema y foco.” In: Bosque,
Ignacio / Demonte, Violeta (eds.): Gramática descriptiva de la lengua
47
española. Tomo 3. Madrid: Espasa, 4215-4244.
¡Gracias por su atención!
References
Thank you for your attention!
46
Buenos Aires, Dec 2008
Christoph Gabriel
Andrea Pešková
Ingo Feldhausen
48