MATTHEW GORDON
THE INTONATIONAL REALIZATION OF
CONTRASTIVE FOCUS IN CHICKASAW
1. INTRODUCTION
While the realization of focus in languages which express focus either syntactically
or prosodically or through a combination of both prosody and syntax has been
studied relatively extensively, e.g. English (Beckman and Pierrehumbert 1986),
Korean (Cho 1990, Jun 1993), Chichewa (Kanerva 1990), Bengali (Hayes and
Lahiri 1991, Lahiri and Fitzpatrick-Cole 1999), Shanghai Chinese (Selkirk and Shen
1990), Hungarian (Horvath 1986, Kiss 1998), Hausa (Inkelas and Leben 1990),
there is very little work on languages which mark focus morphologically through
affixes or particles attached to or adjacent to focused elements. Of particular
interest is the question of whether languages with morphological marking of focus
also utilize prosodic cues to signal focus, much as languages with special word
orders associated with focus may redundantly use prosody to cue focus. In their
study of Wolof, a language which marks focus morphologically, Rialland and
Robert (2001) claim that Wolof does not use intonation to signal focus redundantly.
Beyond this study of Wolof, however, there is little phonetic literature dealing with
the prosodic manifestation of focus in languages with morphological expression of
focus. It is thus unclear to what extent languages that mark focus morphologically
tend to also employ prosodic cues to focus.1
This study attempts to broaden our understanding of the phonetics of focus by
examining prosodic cues to focus in Chickasaw, a language like Wolof with
morphological marking of focus. A number of potential pitch and duration cues to
contrastive focus are examined to determine whether Chickasaw redundantly use
both prosody and morphology to mark focus.
2.BACKGROUND ON CHICKASAW
Chickasaw is a Western Muskogean language spoken by no more than a few
hundred predominantly elderly speakers in south-central Oklahoma. Chickasaw has
been the subject of extensive work by Pamela Munro and colleagues. Munro (to
appear) provides a grammatical overview of Chickasaw and includes an analyzed
text of a traditional Chickasaw story. Munro and Willmond (1994) is a dictionary
that also contains a thorough description of Chickasaw grammar. Gordon et al.
(2000) provides a quantitative phonetic description of Chickasaw and Gordon (1999,
65
Lee, Gordon, Büring (eds.), Topic and Focus: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective, 65—78.
© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
66
MATTHEW GORDON
to appear) are descriptions of various aspects of the intonational system, including
boundary tones, prosodic phrasing, and pitch accents.
2.1. Intonation
Chickasaw utterances may be divided into a hierarchically ordered set of prosodic
constituents (Gordon 1999, to appear). The largest clearly defined intonational unit
is the Intonation Phrase, which is marked by a f0 excursion at its right edge,
typically a f0 rise in statements and a f0 fall in questions. An Intonation Phrase
consists of one or more Accentual Phrases which are canonically associated with a
[LHHL] tone sequence when there is sufficient material in the phrase. The L tone is
aligned with the left edge of the Accentual Phrase, and the first H tone occurs early
in the Accentual Phrase, typically falling on or near the second sonorant mora, with
considerable gradience in its alignment. The final two tones usually associate with
the final syllable, yielding a f0 fall on the final syllable. Schematic examples
illustrating the realization of pitch accents. Stressed final syllables, those containing
a coda consonant or a long vowel (see Gordon 2002 on stress in Chickasaw) may
not realize the final low tone, however. A short Accentual Phrase, one with fewer
than three sonorant moras, may also not realize all the tones of a canonical AP, with
deletion of the initial of final L being the typical strategy for truncating the AP. An
AP with three sonorant moras is usually sufficient to realize all the tone though a
two syllable AP with three sonorant moras may not realize all its tones. Schematic
examples of the realization of tones in an AP appear in (1).
(1)
a. Monomoraic 1st Syllable
L
H
H L
[ µ µµ σ ]AP
n a S oÚ b a… t
b. Bimoraic first syllable c. Short AP
L H
H L
H
L
[ µµ σ σ σ ]AP [ µ µ ]AP
n am bi laÚma/
fala
Chickasaw strongly tends to align Accentual Phrase boundaries with word
boundaries; thus, it is most common for a single word to constitute an entire
Accentual Phrase. It is possible, however, for two relatively short words, i.e. words
of one or two syllalbles, to group together into a single Accentual Phrase.
2.2. Focus
Chickasaw has at least two types of focus markers described by Munro and
Willmond (1994) which are suffixed to focused nouns and differ according to
whether the focused element is a syntactic subject or an object. The first focus
suffix, -ho…t when attached to subjects and –ho when affixed to objects, is termed a
“focus/inferential case ending” by Munro and Willmond (1994:liv) and will not be
discussed further in this paper. The focus of this paper is the contrastive focus
CONTRASTIVE FOCUS IN CHICKASAW
67
suffix, which is realized as -akot with subjects and as –ako) with objects (Munro and
Willmond:liii). Although the precise semantic conditions that give rise to the
contrastive focus are not completely understood, one of its primary functions is to
attract narrow focus to the noun which it modifies. There is no comparable suffix
affixed to verbs to signal narrow focus on the verb. Sentences exemplifying the
contrastive focus suffixes and their counterparts lacking contrastive focus marking
appear in (2).
(2)
hat…ak-at koni(a)) pisa.
Man-subj skunk sees
The man sees the skunk.
hat…ak-akot koni(a)) pisa.
Man-cont.subj. skunk sees
THE MAN sees the skunk.
hat…ak-at koni-ako)… pisa.
Man-subj skunk-cont.obj. sees
The man sees THE SKUNK.
As the sentences in (2) indicate, non-focused subjects are marked with the suffix
–at, while non-focused objects may either have no overt suffix or be marked with
the suffix –a)…. The unmarked word order in Chickasaw is SOV, though other orders
are possible under certain as yet not well-understood semantic conditions, including
focus, which may be associated with fronting of the focused element. For example,
sentence (2c) could appear with a fronted object, i.e. koniako)… hat…akat pisa ‘The
man sees THE SKUNK’.
3. PRESENT STUDY
3.1. Methodology
The present study examines the prosodic realization of sentences involving
contrastive focus on subjects and verbs. Data were collected during elicitation
sessions with individual speakers. Subjects were presented with English sentences
containing a subject, object, and verb and instructed to give the Chickasaw
equivalent. Focus was elicited by offering English translations emphasizing the
focused element. Three different focus conditions were elicited: one involving
broad focus, i.e. no special focus on any particular element, one with narrow focus
on the subject and one with narrow focus on the object. Subjects repeated each
sentence between three and five times. The corpus used in the experiment appears
in Table 1.
68
MATTHEW GORDON
Table 1. Corpus recorded for the focus experiment
NO FOCUS
Speakers 1-4
hat…akat naSo…ba2 pisa
hat…akat ampaska pisa
hat…akat wa…ka/ pisa
hat…akat hopa…ji/ pisa
Speaker 5
na…hol…a…t naSo…ba pisa…tok
na…hol…a…t ampaska pisa…tok
na…hol…a…t wa…ka/ pisa…tok
na…hol…a…t hopa…ji/ pisa…tok
The man sees the wolf.
The man sees my bread.
The man sees the cow.
The man sees the fortune teller.
The white man saw the wolf.
The white man saw my bread.
The white man saw the cow.
The white man saw the fortune teller.
SUBJECT FOCUS
na…hol…a…kot a)…nampaka)…li/ pisa…tok
na…hol…a…kot minko/ pisa(…tok)
na…hol…a…kot ofo)…lo pisa…tok
THE WHITE MAN saw my flower.
THE WHITE MAN sees(saw) the chief.
THE WHITE MAN saw the owl.
OBJECT FOCUS
na…hol…a…t minka…ko)… pisa…tok
na…hol…a…t amofo)…la…ko)… pisa…tok
na…hol…a…t sat…iba…piSiako)… pisa…tok
The white man saw THE CHIEF.
The white man saw MY OWL.
The white man saw MY BROTHER.
Data was collected and analysed for a total of five female speakers. Four of the
speakers were recorded in Oklahoma in 1996 while the remaining speaker was
recorded in Los Angeles in 2002. Subjects were recorded on DAT tape while
wearing a high quality noise cancelling microphone on their heads. Data were then
digitised onto computer using Scicon Pc/MacQuirer at a sampling rate of 22.5 kHz.
Two measurements that could potentially distinguish different focus conditions
prosodically were made using the MacQuirer software. First, the average
fundamental frequency for each of the three words comprising each sentence was
calculated to determine whether focused words are produced with heightened pitch
relative to postfocus elements, a common prosodic realization of focus crosslinguistically. Second, the duration of the pause between the subject and object and
between the object and verb was measured to ascertain the degree of juncture
between different words under different focus conditions. Prosodic boundaries
between words in postfocus position in other languages are commonly eliminated,
reducing the level of temporal disjuncture between elements in postfocus position.
CONTRASTIVE FOCUS IN CHICKASAW
69
4. RESULTS
4.1. Fundamental Frequency
A two factor (focus condition and syntactic category) analysis of variance pooling
together results from all speakers failed to indicate a significant effect of either focus
condition or syntactic category on f0 values: for syntactic category (subject, object,
verb), F(2, 349) = 1.706, p=.1831; for focus condition (no focus, subject focus,
object focus), F(2, 349) = .664, p=.5153. There was, however, a significant
interaction between focus condition and syntactic category: F(4, 349) = 3.280,
p=.0117. This interaction was attributed primarily to an overall raising of f0 for
subjects in sentences involving any type of focus, either subject or object focus.
This effect was only observed for certain speakers but not others. Another effect
contributing to the interaction between focus and syntactic category was a lowering
of f0 on verbs in sentences with a narrow focused noun. Again this effect was
speaker dependent, however. Given the considerable interspeaker variation in the
expression of focus, it is thus instructive to consider results for individual speakers.
Speaker 1 displayed a significant raising of f0 for subjects in sentences with
either narrow focus on the subject or object. Unpaired t-tests for this speaker
revealed a significant difference between f0 values for subjects in broad focus
sentences and subjects in sentences with either narrow focus on the subject, t(2,13) =
2.824, p=.0144, or narrow focus on the object, t(2,14) = 3.146, p=.0072. F0 values
did not differ reliably between subjects in sentences with subject focus and those
with object focus. Nor was there any significant difference in f0 values for objects
or verbs under the three focus conditions.
Results for speaker 2 were similar to those for speaker 1: f0 values for subjects
were higher in sentences involving narrow focus than those with broad focus. This
difference was only a trend, however, and did not quite reach statistical significance
in unpaired t-tests: broad focus vs. narrow subject focus, t(2, 20)=1.899, p=.0721 ;
broad focus vs. narrow object focus, t(2, 9)=1.963, p=.0662. F0 values for objects
and verbs did not differ significantly under different focus conditions.
Speaker 3 also displayed an overall raising of f0 in subjects in sentences with
narrow focus either on the subject or the verb: broad focus vs. narrow subject focus,
t(2, 25)=4.588, p<.0001; broad focus vs. narrow object focus, t(2,22)=5.832,
p<.0001. In addition, f0 values were heightened for objects in sentences involving
narrow focus on either the subject or object: broad focus vs. narrow subject focus,
t(2,25)=2.340, p=.0275; broad focus vs. narrow object focus, t(2,22)=2.221,
p=.0369. Finally, verbs were found to have lower f0 values in sentences with
narrow subject focus than broad focus sentences: t(1,4)=3.033, p=.0387. The data
recorded from this speaker did not allow for measurement of f0 values for verbs in
sentences with narrow object focus. Interestingly, a tendency to lower f0 of verbs in
sentences with narrow focus also was observed in speaker 1, though this effect did
not reach significance for this speaker.
Speaker 4 also raised f0 values for subjects in narrow focus sentences:
t(2,21)=2.748, p=.0120. Sentences with narrow focus on the object were not
70
MATTHEW GORDON
recorded from this speaker. Focus did not impact f0 values for either objects or
verbs for speaker 4.
Speaker 5 was the only speaker for whom subject narrow focus and object
narrow focus were differentiated both from each other and from broad focus along
the f0 dimension. Interestingly, for this speaker, f0 values for subjects were highest
in object focus sentences (184Hz on average), and lowest in broad focus sentences
(158Hz on average), with intermediate values obtaining in subject focus sentences
(165Hz on average). Values differed significantly from each other between the
three focus conditions: broad focus vs. narrow subject focus, t(2,27)=2.056,
p=.0495; broad focus vs. narrow object focus, t(2,22)=3.919, p=.0007; narrow
subject focus vs. narrow object focus, t(2,21)=2.811, p=.0105. Speaker 5 also raised
f0 for objects under focus relative to unfocused objects in both broad focus
sentences, t(2,23)=3.176, p=.0042 and sentences with narrow focus on the subject,
t(2,23)=2.456, p=.0220. Objects did not differ reliably in f0 between broad focus
and narrow subject focus sentences. Differences in focus condition did not
significantly affect f0 values for verbs.
Figures 1-3 illustrate sentences uttered by speaker 5 with three different focus
conditions. Figure 1 is realized with broad focus, Figure 2 with narrow focus on the
subject, and figure 3 with narrow focus on the object. As the figures show, the
sentence with object focus (figure 3) is associated with a blanket rising of f0 for the
subject and object (and to a lesser extent, the verb, though this is not a consistent
property of object focus). Subject focus (figure 2) triggers a raising of f0 in the
subject relative to the subject in the broad focus sentence (figure 1) but not relative
to the subject in the object focus sentence. It may also be observed that the broad
focus sentence in figure 1 differs in prosodic constituency from the two sentences
with a narrow focused element. The subject and object together form a single
Accentual Phrase when neither is focused but belong to different Accentual Phrases
when either one is focused.
CONTRASTIVE FOCUS IN CHICKASAW
n a…
h o l…
a… t
m i n k
o/ p i
71
s a…
t o k
250
200
150
L
H
H
H
L
L
H
H H%
1200
1500
Hz
ms
300
600
900
Figure 1. Pitch track for broad focus sentence na…hol…a…t minko/ pisa…tok ‘The white man saw
the chief.’
n a… h o
l… a… k o t
m i n k o / p i s a…
t o k
250
200
150
L
Hz
ms
H
350
H L
H H
700
1050
L
L
H
1400
H H%
1750
Figure 2. Pitch track for subject focus sentence na…hol…a…kot minko/ pisa…tok ‘THE WHITE
MAN saw the chief.’
72
MATTHEW GORDON
n a… h o
l… a… t
m i n k a… k o)… p i s a… t o k
250
200
L H
150
Hz
ms
H
450
LH
900
HL L
1350
1800
H
HH%
2250
Figure 3. Pitch track for object focus sentence na…hol…a…t minka…ko)… pisa…tok ‘The white man
saw THE CHIEF.’
Average f0 results for individual speakers are given in Table 2.
Table 2. Average f0 results for individual speakers (in Hertz, N=narrow focus)
Subject
Object
Verb
Broad
N-subj
N-obj
Broad
N-subj
N-obj
Broad
N-subj
N-obj
1
191
205
204
199
195
205
216
203
----
2
192
201
204
189
196
198
199
206
----
Speaker
3
160
183
188
166
177
180
187
149
----
4
192
210
---202
203
---187
191
----
5
158
165
184
159
164
181
164
166
174
In summary, both subject and object narrow focus consistently triggered raising
of f0. One speaker also displayed raising of f0 in objects under both object narrow
focus and subject narrow focus sentences. In addition, f0 for verbs was also lowered
in sentences involving narrow focus for two speakers. Somewhat surprisingly,
object narrow focus and subject narrow focus were only differentiated for one
speaker in terms of average f0 values. For this speaker, object focus triggered
raising of f0 for the focused object, as one might expect. However, this speaker also
curiously displayed higher f0 values for subjects in sentences with object focus than
for subjects under narrow focus themselves.
CONTRASTIVE FOCUS IN CHICKASAW
73
4.2. Duration
A two factor (syntactic category and focus condition) ANOVA pooling results from
all five speakers indicated a significant effect of both syntactic category and focus
on the pause duration between words in sentences: for syntactic category,
F(1,284)=6.200, p=.0133; for focus condition, F(2,284)=11.242, p<.0001. There
was also a significant interaction between the two factors: F(2,284)=23.029,
p<.0001. Overall, the pause between subject and object was shortest in broad focus
sentences and longest in sentences with narrow focus on the object. In contrast, the
pause between object and verb was shortest in object focus sentences and longest in
sentences with broad focus. Results averaged across speakers appear in Figure 4.
300
milliseconds
240
broad focus
180
subject focus
120
object focus
60
0
post-subject
post-object
Figure 4. Pause durations under three different focus conditions (all speakers pooled
together, bars represent one standard deviation from mean)
A series of pairwise t-tests revealed a highly significant difference in the postsubject pause between sentences with broad focus and both sentences with narrow
focus on the subject, t(1,120)=5.404, p<.0001, and those with narrow focus on the
object, t(1,98)=6.540, p<.0001. Only of the three pairwise comparisons involving
the post object pause, however, reached significance, the difference between the
broad focus and narrow object focus conditions: t(1,98)=2.363, p=.0201.
There was some variation between speakers in their duration results. Looking
first at the post-subject pause, four of the five speakers displayed the shortest pause
after subjects in broad focus sentences, while speaker 5 did not reliably differentiate
the broad focus and narrow subject focus conditions in terms of post-subject pause
duration. Only speaker 5 had a reliable difference in the post-subject pause between
the two narrow focus sentence types: the pause in object focus sentences was
greater than in subject focus sentences. For the other speakers, the two narrow focus
conditions were not significantly different from each other in their post-object
pauses.
74
MATTHEW GORDON
Turning to post-object pause duration, there was greater interspeaker variation,
with the most dominant pattern involving decreased duration following narrowly
focused objects. Speaker 2 had the shortest post-object pause in narrow object focus
sentences and roughly similar post-object pause durations in sentences with narrow
subject focus and those with broad focus, though none of the pairwise comparisons
reached significance in t-tests. Speaker 3 also displayed the shortest post-object
pause in sentences with object focus though differences between the three focus
conditions were quite small. Only the difference between object focus and subject
focus conditions reached statistical significance for this speaker: t(1,13)=3.346,
p=.0053. Speaker 5 followed a similar pattern with shorter pauses following
focused objects with both pairwise comparisons involving narrow object focus
sentences reaching significance: narrow object focus vs. narrow subject focus,
t(1,24)=2.652, p=.0139; narrow object focus vs. broad focus, t(1,24)=2.518,
p=.0189. The close degree of juncture between a focused object and the following
verb can be observed in figure 3 earlier in the paper.
Speaker 1 displayed a very different pattern: she had the shortest post-object
pause under the narrow subject focus condition, and the longest post-object pause
under the object focus condition, with intermediate values in the broad focus
condition. Only the comparisons involving narrow subject focus reached
significance: narrow subject focus vs. narrow object focus, t(1,7)=3.961, p=.0055;
narrow subject focus vs. broad focus, t(1,14)=3.639, p=.0194. Speaker 4 for whom
sentences with narrow object focus were not recorded, displayed shorter pauses after
objects in sentences with narrow focus on the subject, though this difference
narrowly missed significance: t(1,21)=2.057, p=.0523.
Pause durations for individual speakers appear appear in Table 3.
Table 3. Pause duration results for individual speakers (in milliseconds, N=narrow focus)
Post-subj
Post-obj
Broad
N-subj
N-obj
Broad
N-subj
N-obj
1
44
316
235
66
25
96
2
13
313
244
144
123
61
Speaker
3
0
41
88
97
104
90
4
8
132
---125
104
----
5
93
75
143
64
69
56
In summary, broad focus was typically associated with a very close degree of
temporal juncture between subjects and objects (with zero or nearly zero pause after
the subject for speakers 2, 3, 4), while the two narrow focus conditions were not
consistently differentiated in terms of their effect on the duration of pauses after the
subject. The two narrow focus sentence types were, however, differentiated in their
effect on the level of juncture between object and verb. Objects carrying narrow
focus were followed by very short pauses relative to unfocused objects both in
CONTRASTIVE FOCUS IN CHICKASAW
75
sentences with broad focus and sentences with narrow focus on the subject. These
patterns, though dominant, however, were not entirely consistent across speakers.
Speaker 5 differed from the other speakers in terms of pause durations after the
subject, whereas speaker 1 differed from the other speakers in her results for postobject pauses. It should also be noted that the increased temporal proximity
between a focused object and verb observed for most speakers is not associated with
elimination of the Accentual Phrase boundary typically separating most lexical
items greater than two syllables in sentences lacking any narrow focused element.
As figure 1-3 show, the first syllable of the verb is realized with low tone, the initial
tone of a Chickasaw Accentual Phrase, which characteristically has the tonal pattern
[LHHL] (Gordon 1999, to appear).
4. DISCUSSION
This paper has shown that Chickasaw marks contrastive focus not only
morphologically but also through prosody. The strategies employed by Chickasaw
to mark focus prosodically are similar in some respects to those exploited by other
languages but also differ in some respects from other languages. Both narrow object
focus and narrow subject focus were characteristically associated with raised f0
values for subjects, and, for one speaker, objects as well. Only one speaker
differentiated narrow object focus and narrow subject focus, however: for this
speaker, f0 values were higher for focused objects than non-focused objects. The
raising of f0 of subjects in both sentences with narrow subject focus and sentences
with narrow object focus is an unusual feature of Chickasaw, as increased f0 is
characteristically associated with only the focused element in most languages,
including English (Beckman and Pierrehumbert 1986), Korean (Jun 1993), Hausa
(Inkelas and Leben 1990). The dominant cross-linguistic pattern entailing localized
raising of f0 under focus was found only for a single Chickasaw speaker. Even this
speaker, however, displayed higher f0 values for subjects in sentences with narrow
object focus than in sentences with narrow subject focus. It thus seems that raising
of f0 is a general strategy for signalling any type of focus in Chickasaw and is not a
reliable cue to picking out which element is being focused. It is also worth noting
that two speakers displayed lowering of f0 in verbs in sentences with narrow focus
on either the subject or object. This pattern may be viewed as similar to the
deaccenting of words in the same intermediate phrase following a focused element
in English (Beckman and Pierrehumbert 1986), though focus leads only to a blanket
lowering of f0 in verbs in Chickasaw and does not actually lead to suppression of
the nuclear pitch accent in an IP final verb.
Chickasaw’s use of duration to signal focus follows, in some respects, a pattern
typical of other languages. A focused object increases the temporal proximity of the
object and following verb, a pattern similar to that found in Korean (Cho 1990, Jun
1993). It is important to note, however, that while a focused object triggers deletion
of the Accentual Phrase boundary between an object and following verb in Korean,
the change in temporal proximity of object and verb in Chickasaw is not necessarily
associated with a change in prosodic constituency. An Accentual Phrase boundary
76
MATTHEW GORDON
may also separate the verb preceding a focused object as it typically separates a verb
and a preceding unfocused object. It is conceivable, however, that examination of
more data will reveal a statistically greater likelihood for focused objects to be
grouped together in an Accentual Phrase with the following verb. Thus, it is as yet
unknown whether the temporal effects induced by placing narrow focus on the
object in Chickasaw are purely phonetic or whether the increased temporal closeness
of a focused object and verb has ramifications for prosodic constituency.
Another temporal phonetic effect triggered by narrow focus is increased
separation between the subject and object. For all but one speaker, this enhanced
level of disjuncture is associated with either narrow focus on the subject or object
and often has phonological ramifications on Accentual Phrase formation: the
subject and object are more likely to be grouped in the same Accentual Phrase when
neither carries narrow focus than when one or both does. Although the symmetry of
this effect under both narrow focus conditions, subject focus and object focus, is
atypical from a cross-linguistic standpoint, it serves to set off the focused element
from adjacent words perhaps increasing its prominence. In the case of a focused
object, the increased pause before the object complements the decreased pause
following the object. For two speakers (, the pause preceding a focused object is
greater than the pause preceding an unfocused object in both sentences without
narrow focus and sentences with a focused subject. The increased disjuncture
before a focused element for this speaker accords with other languages in which a
phonological phrase boundary is obligatory before a focused constituent, e.g.
Korean (Jun 1993), Hausa (Inkelas and Leben 1990), Japanese (Pierrehumbert and
Beckman 1988), and Greek (Condoravdi 1990).
5. SUMMARY
Results of this study suggest considerable diversity among Chickasaw speakers in
their prosodic realization of focus. More generally, the examined data suggest that
Chickasaw is less reliant on prosody to signal focus than other languages in which
focus is not signalled through morphology. While broad focus sentences is
characteristically differentiated from narrow focus through its lower f0 in nouns and,
for certain speakers, higher f0 in verbs, f0 does not, with the exception of one
speaker, distinguish sentences with narrow focus on the subject from those with
narrow focus on the object. Interword pause durations appear more reliable in
cueing focus, with both narrow focus conditions triggered increased temporal
disjuncture between subject and object, presumably a strategy for increasing the
salience of focused elements. For three speakers, narrow object focus was
associated with increased temporal proximity of the object and verb relative to the
other two focus conditions, broad focus and narrow focus on the subject, a trend
which parallels the dephrasing of post-focus elements in other languages. For one
speaker, narrow focused objects were preceded by a longer pause than objects not
under narrow focus.
The results for Chickasaw may be contrasted with the results of Rialland and
Robert’s study of Wolof, another language with morphological expression of focus.
CONTRASTIVE FOCUS IN CHICKASAW
77
Rialland and Robert do not report any use of prosodic cues to focus for Wolof,
though it should be noted that their study focused on intonation, i.e. f0, the
parameter which least reliably differentiated various focus conditions in Chickasaw.
It is thus conceivable that durational cues to focus are also present in Wolof. The
present study of Chickasaw suggests that, although the role of prosodic cues to focus
may be less consistently exploited in Chickasaw than in languages without overt
focus morphology, measurable phonetic cues to focus are potentially present even in
languages in which morphology carries the primary burden in signalling focus.
NOTES
1
A sincere thanks to the Chickasaw speakers, who so generously provided the data discussed in this
paper, and to Pam Munro for her assistance in preparing the corpus examined in this paper, and more
generally, for her insights and suggestions related to Chickasaw prosody. Portions of the data discussed
here were collected as part of an NSF grant awarded to Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson to document
the phonetic properties of endangered languages.
2
Note that the long vowel in naSo…ba ‘wolf’, hopa…ji/ ‘fortune teller’ and pisa…tok ‘saw’ are not phonemic
long vowels but are the result of a process of rhythmic lengthening targeting a non-final vowel in an open
syllable immediately preceded by a short vowel in an open syllable (see Munro and Willmond 1994,
Munro to appear for discussion of rhythmic lengthening). Rhythmically lengthened vowels behave
parallel to phonemic long vowels phonologically and are either, depending on the speaker, identical in
length or nearly identical in length to phonemic long vowels (see Gordon et al. 2000 for phonetic data).
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