TY  - JOUR
A1  - Gotzner, Nicole
A1  - Spalek, Katharina
T1  - Expectations about upcoming discourse referents
T2  - International review of pragmatics : IRP
N2  - In the current study, we explore how different information-structural devices affect which referents conversational partners expect in the upcoming discourse. Our main research question is how pitch accents (H*, L+H*) and focus particles (German nur `only' and auch 'also') affect speakers' choices to mention focused referents, previously mentioned alternatives or new, inferable alternatives. Participants in our experiment were presented with short discourses involving two referents and were asked to orally produce two sentences that continue the story. An analysis of speakers' continuations showed that participants were most likely to mention a contextual alternative in the condition with only and the L+H* conditions, followed by H* conditions. In the condition with also, in turn, participants mentioned both the focused/accented referent and the contextual alternative. Our findings highlight the importance of information structure for discourse management and suggest that speakers take activated alternatives to be relevant for an unfolding discourse.
KW  - information structure
KW  - linguistics focus
KW  - pitch accents
KW  - focus
KW  - alternatives
KW  - discourse expectations
Y1  - 2022
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/58978
SN  - 1877-3095
SN  - 1877-3109
VL  - 14
IS  - 1
SP  - 77
EP  - 94
PB  - Brill
CY  - Leiden
ER  -