@article{KueglerGenzel2012,
  author    = {K{\"u}gler, Frank and Genzel, Susanne},
  title     = {On the prosodic expression of pragmatic prominence The case of pitch register lowering in Akan},
  series = {Language and speech},
  volume    = {55},
  journal   = {Language and speech},
  number    = {9},
  publisher = {Sage Publ.},
  address   = {London},
  issn      = {0023-8309},
  doi       = {10.1177/0023830911422182},
  pages     = {331 -- 359},
  year      = {2012},
  abstract  = {This article presents data from three production experiments investigating the prosodic means of encoding information structure in Akan, a tone language that belongs to the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo family, spoken in Ghana. Information structure was elicited via context questions that put target words either in wide, informational, or corrective focus, or in one of the experiments also in pre-focal or post-focal position rendering it as given. The prosodic parameters F0 and duration were measured on the target words. Duration is not consistently affected by information structure, but contrary to the prediction that High (H) and Low (L) tones are raised in ex situ (fronted) focus constructions we found a significantly lower realization of both H and L tones under corrective focus in ex situ and in situ focus constructions. Givenness does not seem to be marked prosodically. The data suggest that pragmatic prominence is expressed prosodically by means of a deviation from an unmarked prosodic structure. Results are thus contradicting the view of the effort code that predicts a positive correlation of more effort resulting in higher F0 targets.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Gollrad2013,
  author    = {Gollrad, Anja},
  title     = {Prosodic cue weighting in sentence comprehension},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-81954},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {148},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {Gegenstand der Dissertation ist die Untersuchung der Gewichtung prosodischer Korrelate der Phrasierung im Deutschen, insbesondere der Dauer- und Grundfrequenzeigenschaften auf der Ebene der phonologischen Phrase (φ) und der Intonationsphrase (ι). F{\"u}r die prosodische Dom{\"a}ne der phonologischen Phrase und der Intonationsphrase gilt als belegt, dass sie h{\"a}upts{\"a}chlich durch phonetische Parameter der pr{\"a}finalen Dehnung (Lehiste, 1973; Klatt, 1976; Price et al., 1991; Turk \& White, 1999), der Pausendauer (Fant \& Kruckenberg, 1996) und der Ver{\"a}nderung der Grundfrequenz (Pierrehumbert, 1980) ausgedr{\"u}ckt werden, wobei die phonetischen grenzmarkierenden Eigenschaften eher quantitativer als qualitativer Natur sind. Ebenfalls ist bekannt, dass auf der anderen Seite H{\"o}rer diese phonetischen Eigenschaften der Sprecher nutzen, um die prosodische Struktur einer {\"A}ußerung zu ermitteln (Snedeker \& Trueswell, 2003; Kraljic \& Brennan, 2005). Perzeptuelle Evidenz aus dem Englischen und Niederl{\"a}ndischen deuten allerdings darauf hin, dass sich Sprachen hinsichtlich der entscheidenden Korrelate, die f{\"u}r die Perzeption der Dom{\"a}nen konsultiert werden, unterscheiden (Aasland \& Baum, 2003; Sanderman \& Collier, 1997; Scott, 1982; Streeter, 1978). Die grenzmarkierenden phonetischen Korrelate der Dom{\"a}nen werden in der Perzeption unterschiedlich stark gewichtet, was sich im Konzept eines sprachspezifischen prosodischen cue weightings ausdr{\"u}ckt. F{\"u}r das Deutsche ist allerdings nicht hinreichend bekannt, welche dieser drei phonetischen Parameter die wichtigste Rolle f{\"u}r die Perzeption der phonologischen Phrasengrenze und der Intonationsphrasengrenze spielt. Ziel der Dissertation war es, diejenigen phonetischen Merkmale zu identifizieren, die f{\"u}r die Perzeption der phonologischen Phrasengrenze und der Intonationsphrasengrenze entscheidend sind und sich somit f{\"u}r die Bildung der jeweiligen prosodischen Phrasengrenze als notwendig herausstellen. Die Identifikation und Gewichtung eines phonetischen Merkmals erfolgte in der vorliegenden Arbeit durch die Effekte prosodischer Manipulation der phonetischen Korrelate an phonologischen Phrasengrenzen und Intonationsphrasengrenzen auf die Disambiguierung lokaler syntaktischer Ambiguit{\"a}ten in der Perzeption. Der Einfluss einzelner phonetischer Merkmale wurde in einem forced-choice Experiment evaluiert, bei dem H{\"o}rern syntaktisch ambige Satzfragmente auditiv pr{\"a}sentiert wurden und ihnen anschließend die Aufgabe zukam, aus einer Auswahl an disambiguierenden Satzvervollst{\"a}ndigung zu w{\"a}hlen. Die Anzahl der ausgew{\"a}hlten Satzvervollst{\"a}ndigungen pro Satzbedingung {\"a}nderte sich in Abh{\"a}ngigkeit der prosodischen Manipulation der pr{\"a}finalen Dehnung, der Pausendauer und der Grundfrequenz, wodurch der Einfluss eines einzelnen phonetischen Merkmals auf den Disambiguierungsprozess sichtbar wurde. Ein phonetischer Parameter wurde genau dann als notwendig klassifiziert, wenn sich durch seine Manipulation die F{\"a}higkeit zur Disambiguierung der syntaktischen Strukturen signifikant reduzierte, oder g{\"a}nzlich scheiterte, und somit die Wahrnehmung prosodischer Kategorien beinflusst wurde (Heldner, 2001). Hat sich in der Perzeption ein phonetisches Merkmal als notwendig herausgestellt, wurde nachfolgend eine optimalit{\"a}tstheoretische Modellierung vorgeschlagen, die die phonetischen Eigenschaften auf eine (abstrakte) phonologische Strukturerstellung beschreibt. Dieser Verarbeitungsschritt entspricht dem Teilbereich des Perzeptionsprozesses, der in Boersma \& Hamann (2009), Escudero (2009) und F{\´e}ry et al. (2009) unter anderen als Phonetik-Phonologie-Mapping beschrieben wird. Die Dissertation hat folgende Hauptergebnisse hervorgebracht: (1) F{\"u}r die Perzeption phonologischer Phrasengrenzen und Intonationsphrasengrenzen werden nicht alle messbaren phonetischen Grenzmarkierungen gleichermaßen stark genutzt. Das phonetische Merkmal der pr{\"a}finalen Dehnung ist auf der Ebene der kleineren prosodischen Dom{\"a}ne, der phonologischen Phrase, notwendig. Die Information der Grundfrequenz in der Form von Grenzt{\"o}nen ist in der gr{\"o}ßeren Dom{\"a}ne der Intonationsphrase notwendig und damit ausschlaggebend f{\"u}r die Perzeption der prosodischen Phrasengrenze. (2) Auf der Ebene der φ-Phrase werden phonetische Eigenschaften der segmentalen Dauer in Form pr{\"a}finalen Dehnung zur Bildung abstrakter phonologischer Repr{\"a}sentationen herangezogen werden. L{\"a}ngenconstraints schreiben syntaktische Konstituenten aufgrund ihrer Inputdauern einer prosodischen Kategorie zu. Inputdauern der ersten Nominalphrase von 500ms und mehr signalisieren Finalit{\"a}t und sind durch eine φ- Grenze am rechten Rand markiert. Inputdauern von 400ms und weniger signalisieren Kontinuit{\"a}t und werden durch das Ausbleiben einer φ-Grenze am rechten Rand der ersten Nominalphrase markiert. Inputdauern, die zwischen den kritischen L{\"a}ngen von 400ms und 500ms variieren sind bez{\"u}glich der Bildung von φ- Grenzen ambig und k{\"o}nnen in der Perzeption nicht eindeutig disambiguiert werden. (3) Auf der Ebene der ι-Phrase wird die Bildung einer prosodischen Struktur durch die reine tonale Kontur (steigend oder fallend) an der ersten Nominalphrase gelenkt. Eine fallende Grundfrequenzkontur an der ersten Nominalphrase signalisiert Finalit{\"a}t und wird durch eine ι-Grenze am rechten Rand markiert. Eine steigende Kontur an der ersten Nominalphrase signalisiert phrasale Kontinuit{\"a}t und ist bei den vorliegenden S{\"a}tzen der Genitivbedingung gerade durch das Ausbleiben einer ι-Grenze auf der phonologischen Repr{\"a}sentationseben gekennzeichnet.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{Zerbian2013,
  author    = {Zerbian, Sabine},
  title     = {Prosodic marking of narrow focus across varieties of South African English},
  series = {English world-wide : a journal of varieties of English},
  volume    = {34},
  journal   = {English world-wide : a journal of varieties of English},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Benjamins},
  address   = {Amsterdam},
  issn      = {0172-8865},
  doi       = {10.1075/eww.34.1.02zer},
  pages     = {26 -- 47},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {This paper reports on an elicited production study which investigates prosodic marking of narrow focus in modified noun phrases in varieties of South African English. The acoustic analysis of fundamental frequency, intensity, and duration in narrow focus is presented and discussed. The results suggest that these three acoustic parameters are manipulated differently in narrow focus in the varieties of English as a Second Language as compared to General South African English. The article compares the results to what is known about prosodic marking of information structure in other varieties of English as a Second Language and underlines the necessity of carefully controlled data in the investigation of phonological and phonetic variation in varieties of English.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Genzel2013,
  author    = {Genzel, Susanne},
  title     = {Lexical and post-lexical tones in Akan},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-77969},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {vi, 260},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {This dissertation is about factors that contribute to the surface forms of tones in connected speech in Akan. Akan is an African tone language, which is spoken in Ghana. It has two level tones (low and high), automatic and non-automatic downstep. Downstep is the major factor that influences the surface forms of tones. The thesis shows that downstep is caused by declination. It is argued that declination is an intonational property of Akan, which serves to signal coherence. A phonological representation using a high and a low register tone, associating to the left and right edge of an intonational phrase (IP), respectively, is proposed. Declination/downstep is modelled using a (phonetic) pitch implementation algorithm (Liberman \& Pierrehumbert, 1984). An innovative application of the algorithm is presented, which naturally captures the relation between declination and downstep in Akan. Another important factor is the prosodic manifestation of sentence level pragmatic meanings, such as sentence mode and focus. Regarding the former, the thesis shows that a post-lexical low tone, which associates with the right edge of an IP, signals interrogativity. Additionally, lexical tones in Yes - No questions are realized in a higher pitch register, which does not lead to a reduction of declination. It is claimed that the higher register is not part of the phonological representation in Akan, but that it emerges at the phonetic level to compensate for the 'unnatural' form of the question morpheme and to satisfy the Frequency code (Gussenhoven, 2002; 2004). An extension of Rialland's (2007) typology in terms of a new category called "low tense" question prosody is proposed. Concerning focus marking, it is argued that the use of the morpho-syntactic focus marking strategy is related to extra grammatical factors, such as hearer expectation, discourse expectability (Zimmermann, 2007) and emphasis (Hartmann, 2008). If a speaker of Akan wants to highlight a particular element in a sentence, in-situ, i.e. by means of prosody, the default prosodic structure is modified in such a way that the focused element forms its own phonological phrase (pP). If it is already contained in a pP, the boundary deliminating the focused element is enhanced (F{\´e}ry, 2012). This restructuring/enhancement is accompanied by an interruption of the otherwise continuous melody due to insertion of a pause and/or a glottal stop. Beside declination and intonation, raising of H tones applies in Akan. H raising is analyzed as a local anticipatory planning effect, employed at the phonetic level, which enhances the perceptual distance between low and high tones. Low tones are raised, if they are wedged between two high tones. L raising is argued to be a local carryover effect (co-articulation). Further, it is demonstrated that global anticipatory raising takes place. It is shown that Akan speakers anticipate the length of an IP. Preplanning (anticipatory raising) is argued to be an important process at the level of pitch implementation. It serves to ensure that declination can be maintained throughout the IP, which prevents pitch resetting. The melody of an Akan sentence is largely determined by the choice of words. The inventory of post-lexical tones is small. It consists of post-lexical register tones, which trigger declination and post-lexical intonational tones, which signal sentence type. The overall melodic shape is falling. At the local level, H raising and L raising occur. At the global level, initial low and high tones are realized higher if they occur in a long and/or complex sentence. This dissertation shows that many factors, which emerge at different levels of the tone production process, contribute to the surface form of tones in Akan.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{HolzgrefeLangWellmannPetroneetal.2013,
  author    = {Holzgrefe-Lang, Julia and Wellmann, Caroline and Petrone, Caterina and Truckenbrodt, Hubert and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Wartenburger, Isabell},
  title     = {Brain response to prosodic boundary cues depends on boundary position},
  series = {Frontiers in psychology},
  volume    = {4},
  journal   = {Frontiers in psychology},
  number    = {28},
  publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation},
  address   = {Lausanne},
  issn      = {1664-1078},
  doi       = {10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00421},
  pages     = {14},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {Prosodic information is crucial for spoken language comprehension and especially for syntactic parsing, because prosodic cues guide the hearer's syntactic analysis. The time course and mechanisms of this interplay of prosody and syntax are not yet well-understood. In particular, there is an ongoing debate whether local prosodic cues are taken into account automatically or whether they are processed in relation to the global prosodic context in which they appear. The present study explores whether the perception of a prosodic boundary is affected by its position within an utterance. In an event-related potential (PRP) study we tested if the brain response evoked by the prosodic boundary differs when the boundary occurs early in a list of three names connected by conjunctions (i.e., after the first name) as compared to later in the utterance (i.e., after the second name). A closure positive shift (CPS)-marking the processing of a prosodic phrase boundary-was elicited for stimuli with a late boundary, but not for stimuli with an early boundary. This result is further evidence for an immediate integration of prosodic information into the parsing of an utterance. In addition, it shows that the processing of prosodic boundary cues depends on the previously processed information from the preceding prosodic context.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{SimikWierzba2015,
  author    = {Simik, Radek and Wierzba, Marta},
  title     = {The role of givenness, presupposition, and prosody in Czech word order: An experimental study},
  series = {Semantics and pragmatics},
  volume    = {8},
  journal   = {Semantics and pragmatics},
  publisher = {Linguistic Society of America},
  address   = {Washington},
  issn      = {1937-8912},
  doi       = {10.3765/sp.8.3},
  pages     = {103},
  year      = {2015},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{GueldemannZerbianZimmermann2015,
  author    = {Gueldemann, Tom and Zerbian, Sabine and Zimmermann, Malte},
  title     = {Variation in information structure with special reference to Africa},
  series = {Annual review of linguistics},
  volume    = {1},
  journal   = {Annual review of linguistics},
  editor    = {Liberman, M and Partee, BH},
  publisher = {Annual Reviews},
  address   = {Palo Alto},
  isbn      = {978-0-8243-4201-2},
  issn      = {2333-9691},
  doi       = {10.1146/annurev-linguist-030514-125134},
  pages     = {155 -- 178},
  year      = {2015},
  abstract  = {Information structure has been one of the central topics of recent linguistic research. This review discusses a wide range of current approaches with particular reference to African languages, as these have been playing a crucial role in advancing our knowledge about the diversity of and recurring patterns in both meaning and form of information structural notions. We focus on cross-linguistic functional frameworks, the investigation of prosody, formal syntactic theories, and relevant effects of semantic interpretation. Information structure is a thriving research domain that promises to yield important advances in our general understanding of human language.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{AbboubBollAvetisyanBhataraetal.2016,
  author    = {Abboub, Nawal and Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie and Bhatara, Anjali and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Nazzi, Thierry},
  title     = {An exploration of rhythmic grouping of speech sequences by french- and german-learning infants},
  series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  journal   = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  number    = {427},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-407201},
  pages     = {12},
  year      = {2016},
  abstract  = {Rhythm in music and speech can be characterized by a constellation of several acoustic cues. Individually, these cues have different effects on rhythmic perception: sequences of sounds alternating in duration are perceived as short-long pairs (weak-strong/iambicpattern), whereas sequences of sounds alternating in intensity or pitch are perceived as loud-soft, or high-low pairs (strong-weak/trochaic pattern). This perceptual bias-called the lambic-Trochaic Law (ITL) has been claimed to be an universal property of the auditory system applying in both the music and the language domains. Recent studies have shown that language experience can modulate the effects of the ITL on rhythmic perception of both speech and non-speech sequences in adults, and of non-speech sequences in 7.5-month-old infants. The goal of the present study was to explore whether language experience also modulates infants' grouping of speech. To do so, we presented sequences of syllables to monolingual French- and German-learning 7.5-month-olds. Using the Headturn Preference Procedure (HPP), we examined whether they were able to perceive a rhythmic structure in sequences of syllables that alternated in duration, pitch, or intensity. Our findings show that both French- and German-learning infants perceived a rhythmic structure when it was cued by duration or pitch but not intensity. Our findings also show differences in how these infants use duration and pitch cues to group syllable sequences, suggesting that pitch cues were the easier ones to use. Moreover, performance did not differ across languages, failing to reveal early language effects on rhythmic perception. These results contribute to our understanding of the origin of rhythmic perception and perceptual mechanisms shared across music and speech, which may bootstrap language acquisition.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{AbboubBollAvetisyanBhataraetal.2016,
  author    = {Abboub, Nawal and Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie and Bhatara, Anjali and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Nazzi, Thierry},
  title     = {An Exploration of Rhythmic Grouping of Speech Sequences by French- and German-Learning Infants},
  series = {Frontiers in human neuroscienc},
  volume    = {10},
  journal   = {Frontiers in human neuroscienc},
  publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation},
  address   = {Lausanne},
  issn      = {1662-5161},
  doi       = {10.3389/fnhum.2016.00292},
  pages     = {6707 -- 6712},
  year      = {2016},
  abstract  = {Rhythm in music and speech can be characterized by a constellation of several acoustic cues. Individually, these cues have different effects on rhythmic perception: sequences of sounds alternating in duration are perceived as short-long pairs (weak-strong/iambic pattern), whereas sequences of sounds alternating in intensity or pitch are perceived as loud-soft, or high-low pairs (strong-weak/trochaic pattern). This perceptual bias—called the Iambic-Trochaic Law (ITL)-has been claimed to be an universal property of the auditory system applying in both the music and the language domains. Recent studies have shown that language experience can modulate the effects of the ITL on rhythmic perception of both speech and non-speech sequences in adults, and of non-speech sequences in 7.5-month-old infants. The goal of the present study was to explore whether language experience also modulates infants' grouping of speech. To do so, we presented sequences of syllables to monolingual French- and German-learning 7.5-month-olds. Using the Headturn Preference Procedure (HPP), we examined whether they were able to perceive a rhythmic structure in sequences of syllables that alternated in duration, pitch, or intensity. Our findings show that both French- and German-learning infants perceived a rhythmic structure when it was cued by duration or pitch but not intensity. Our findings also show differences in how these infants use duration and pitch cues to group syllable sequences, suggesting that pitch cues were the easier ones to use. Moreover, performance did not differ across languages, failing to reveal early language effects on rhythmic perception. These results contribute to our understanding of the origin of rhythmic perception and perceptual mechanisms shared across music and speech, which may bootstrap language acquisition.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{BijeljacBabicHoehleNazzi2016,
  author    = {Bijeljac-Babic, Ranka and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Nazzi, Thierry},
  title     = {Early prosodic acquisition in bilingual infants},
  series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  journal   = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  number    = {435},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-407225},
  pages     = {8},
  year      = {2016},
  abstract  = {Infants start learning the prosodic properties of their native language before 12 months, as shown by the emergence of a trochaic bias in English-learning infants between 6 and 9 months (Jusczyk et al., 1993), and in German-learning infants between 4 and 6 months (Huhle et al., 2009, 2014), while French-learning infants do not show a bias at 6 months (Hohle et al., 2009). This language-specific emergence of a trochaic bias is supported by the fact that English and German are languages with trochaic predominance in their lexicons, while French is a language with phrase-final lengthening but lacking lexical stress. We explored the emergence of a trochaic bias in bilingual French/German infants, to study whether the developmental trajectory would be similar to monolingual infants and whether amount of relative exposure to the two languages has an impact on the emergence of the bias. Accordingly, we replicated Hohle et al. (2009) with 24 bilingual 6-month-olds learning French and German simultaneously. All infants had been exposed to both languages for 30 to 70\% of the time from birth. Using the Head Preference Procedure, infants were presented with two lists of stimuli, one made up of several occurrences of the pseudoword /GAba/ with word-initial stress (trochaic pattern), the second one made up of several occurrences of the pseudoword /gaBA/ with word-final stress (iambic pattern). The stimuli were recorded by a native German female speaker. Results revealed that these French/German bilingual 6-month olds have a trochaic bias (as evidenced by a preference to listen to the trochaic pattern). Hence, their listening preference is comparable to that of monolingual German-learning 6-month-olds, but differs from that of monolingual French-learning 6-month-olds who did not show any preference (Noble et al., 2009). Moreover, the size of the trochaic bias in the bilingual infants was not correlated with their amount of exposure to German. The present results thus establish that the development of a trochaic bias in simultaneous bilinguals is not delayed compared to monolingual German-learning infants (Hohle et al., 2009) and is rather independent of the amount of exposure to German relative to French.},
  language  = {en}
}