TY - JOUR A1 - Sauermann, Antje A1 - Höhle, Barbara T1 - Word order in German child language and child-directed speech BT - a corpus analysis on the ordering of double objects in the German middlefield JF - Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics N2 - We report two corpus analyses to examine the impact of animacy, definiteness, givenness and type of referring expression on the ordering of double objects in the spontaneous speech of German-speaking two- to four-year-old children and the child-directed speech of their mothers. The first corpus analysis revealed that definiteness, givenness and type of referring expression influenced word order variation in child language and child-directed speech when the type of referring expression distinguished between pronouns and lexical noun phrases. These results correspond to previous child language studies in English (e.g., de Marneffe et al. 2012). Extending the scope of previous studies, our second corpus analysis examined the role of different pronoun types on word order. It revealed that word order in child language and child-directed speech was predictable from the types of pronouns used. Different types of pronouns were associated with different sentence positions but also showed a strong correlation to givenness and definiteness. Yet, the distinction between pronoun types diminished the effects of givenness so that givenness had an independent impact on word order only in child-directed speech but not in child language. Our results support a multi-factorial approach to word order in German. Moreover, they underline the strong impact of the type of referring expression on word order and suggest that it plays a crucial role in the acquisition of the factors influencing word order variation. KW - German KW - word order KW - corpus study KW - language acquisition KW - information structure KW - referring expression Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.281 SN - 2397-1835 VL - 3 IS - 1 PB - Ubiquity Press LTD CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Patterson, Clare A1 - Esaulova, Yulia A1 - Felser, Claudia T1 - The impact of focus on pronoun resolution in native and non-native sentence comprehension JF - Second language research KW - clefts KW - discourse-level cues KW - focus KW - focus-sensitive particles KW - information structure KW - non-native speakers KW - pronoun resolution Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0267658317697786 SN - 0267-6583 SN - 1477-0326 VL - 33 SP - 403 EP - 429 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kügler, Frank A1 - Genzel, Susanne T1 - On the prosodic expression of pragmatic prominence The case of pitch register lowering in Akan JF - Language and speech N2 - 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. KW - Akan KW - effort code KW - information structure KW - prosody KW - register lowering Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830911422182 SN - 0023-8309 VL - 55 IS - 9 SP - 331 EP - 359 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Chen, Aoju A1 - Höhle, Barbara T1 - Four- to five-year-old' use of word order and prosody in focus marking in Dutch JF - Linguistics Vanguard N2 - This study investigated Dutch-speaking four- to five-year-olds’ use of word order and prosody in distinguishing focus types (broad focus, narrow focus, and contrastive narrow focus) via an interactive answer-reconstruction game. We have found an overall preference for the unmarked word order SVO and no evidence for the use of OVS to distinguish focus types. But the children used pitch and duration in the subject-nouns to distinguish focus types in SVO sentences. These findings show that Dutch-speaking four- to five-year-olds differ from their German- and Finnish-speaking peers, who show evidence of varying choice of word order to mark specific focus types, and use prosody to distinguish focus types in subject and object nouns in both SVO and OVS sentences. These comparisons suggest that typological differences in the relative importance between word order and prosody can lead to differences in children’s use of word order and prosody in unmarked and marked word orders. A more equal role of word order and prosody in the ambient language can stimulate more extensive use of prosody in the marked word order, whereas a more limited role of word order can restrict the use of prosody in the unmarked word order. KW - information structure KW - Dutch-speaking children KW - word order KW - prosody KW - focus Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2016-0101 SN - 2199-174X VL - 4 PB - De Gruyter CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Simik, Radek A1 - Wierzba, Marta T1 - EXPRESSION OF INFORMATION STRUCTURE IN WEST SLAVIC: MODELING THE IMPACT OF PROSODIC AND WORD-ORDER FACTORS JF - Language : journal of the Linguistic Society of America N2 - The received wisdom is that word-order alternations in Slavic languages arise as a direct consequence of word-order-related information-structure constraints such as ‘Place given expressions before new ones’. In this article, we compare the word-order hypothesis with a competing one, according to which word-order alternations arise as a consequence of a prosodic constraint: ‘Avoid stress on given expressions’. Based on novel experimental and modeling data, we conclude that the prosodic hypothesis is more adequate than the word-order hypothesis. Yet we also show that combining the strengths of both hypotheses provides the best fit for the data. Methodologically, our article is based on gradient acceptability judgments and multiple regression, which allows us to evaluate whether violations of generalizations like ‘Given precedes new’ or ‘Given lacks stress’ lead to a consistent decrease in acceptability and to quantify the size of their respective effects. Focusing on the empirical adequacy of such generalizations rather than on specific theoretical implementations also makes it possible to bridge the gap between different linguistic traditions and to directly compare predictions emerging from formal and functional approaches. KW - information structure KW - givenness KW - word order KW - prosody KW - acceptability-judgment experiments KW - modeling KW - multiple regression KW - Slavic Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2017.0040 SN - 0097-8507 SN - 1535-0665 VL - 93 SP - 671 EP - 709 PB - Linguistic Society of America CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gotzner, Nicole A1 - Spalek, Katharina T1 - Expectations about upcoming discourse referents BT - Effects of pitch accents and focus particles in German language production JF - 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 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1163/18773109-01401003 SN - 1877-3095 SN - 1877-3109 VL - 14 IS - 1 SP - 77 EP - 94 PB - Brill CY - Leiden ER -