Sat - April 23, 2005

Truckenbrodt: On intonation phrase boundaries in German



Hubert Truckenbrodt (University of Tübingen) has posted a new paper: On intonation phrase boundaries in German (to appear in Linguistische Berichte).

Abstract:
This short report presents an experimental exploration of the intonation of German embedded clauses, based on the data of an Austrian speaker of German. The right edge of an intonation phrase is indicated by upstep and by edge tones with this speaker. A right edge of an intonation phrase is generally found at the right edge of clauses, including embedded clauses, though not preceding medial left edges of CPs. This cannot be captured by the proposal of Downing (1970) and Nespor and Vogel (1986) to the effect that root clauses form intonation phrases, and documents that finite CP clauses affect intonation phrase formation even when they are syntactically more deeply embedded. A brief account in Optimality Theory is presented that relates the present findings to those discussed by Downing and Nespor and Vogel. The account generalizes the interaction of Alignment and Wrapping from phonological phrases to intonation phrases.

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