TY - JOUR A1 - Verhoeven, Elisabeth A1 - Kügler, Frank T1 - Accentual preferences and predictability: An acceptability study on split intransitivity in German JF - Lingua : international review of general linguistics N2 - The difference in the default prosodic realization of simple sentences with unergative vs. unaccusative/passive verbs (assigning early nuclear accent with unaccusative/passive verbs but late nuclear accent with unergative verbs) is often related to the syntactic distinction of their nominative arguments as starting off in different hierarchical positions. Alternative accounts try to trace this prosodic variation back to asymmetries in the semantic or pragmatic contribution of the verb to an utterance. The present article investigates the interaction of the assignment of default nuclear accent with the predictability of the verb. In an experimental study testing the acceptability of nuclear accent assignment, we confirmed that the predictability of the verb influences accentual preferences (such that highly predictable verbs are preferably not accented). However, the experiment also reveals that the unaccusativity distinction cannot be accounted for by means of pragmatic phenomena of this type: the two verb classes are associated with distinct accentual patterns in the baseline condition, that is, without the predictability manipulation. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - Nuclear accent KW - Prosodic phrasing KW - Unaccusativity KW - Unergative verbs KW - Predictability KW - Information structure Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2014.09.013 SN - 0024-3841 SN - 1872-6135 VL - 165 SP - 298 EP - 315 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kügler, Frank T1 - Do we know the answer? BT - variation in yes-no-question intonation JF - Linguistics in Potsdam N2 - Content: 1. Introduction 2. The corpus 2.1 Subjects 2.2 Recordings 2.3 Data processing 2.4 Materials 3. Intonation in Upper Saxon German yes-no-questions 4. Intonational variation and information structure 5. Conclusions and discussion Y1 - 2003 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-32424 SN - 1616-7392 SN - 1864-1857 IS - 21 SP - 9 EP - 29 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pfeil, Simone A1 - Genzel, Susanne A1 - Kügler, Frank T1 - Empirical investigation of focus and exhaustivity in Akan JF - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 N2 - It has been observed for many African languages that focussed subjects have to appear outside of their syntactic base position, as opposed to focussed objects, which can remain in-situ. This is known as subjectobject asymmetry of focus marking, which Fiedler et al. (2010) claim to hold also for Akan. Genzel (2013), on the other hand, argues that Akan does not exhibit a subject-object focus asymmetry. A questionnaire study and a production experiment were carried out to investigate whether focussed subjects may indeed be realized in-situ in Akan. The results suggest that (i) focussed subjects do not have to be obligatorily realized ex-situ, and that (ii) the syntactic preference for the realization of a focussed subject highly depends on exhaustivity. KW - Akan KW - focus KW - subjects KW - exhaustivity KW - in-situ Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-83774 SN - 1614-4708 SN - 1866-4725 IS - 19 SP - 87 EP - 109 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kügler, Frank A1 - Skopeteas, Stavros A1 - Verhoeven, Elisabeth T1 - Encoding information structure in Yucatec Maya BT - on the interplay of prosody and syntax N2 - The aim of this paper is to outline the means for encoding information structure in Yucatec Maya. Yucatec Maya is a tone language, displaying a three-fold opposition in the tonal realization of syllables. From the morpho-syntactic point of view, the grammar of Yucatec Maya contains morphological (topic affixes, morphological marking of out-of-focus predicates) and syntactic (designated positions) means to uniquely specify syntactic constructions for their information structure. After a descriptive overview of these phenomena, we present experimental evidence which reveals the impact of the nonavailability of prosodic alternatives on the choice of syntactic constructions in language production. KW - cleft constructions KW - lexical tone KW - topic affixes KW - verb-initial cleft constructions KW - verb-initial Y1 - 2007 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19469 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kügler, Frank A1 - Skopeteas, Stavros A1 - Verhoeven, Elisabeth T1 - Encoding Information structure in Yucatec Maya: on the Interplay of Prosody and Syntax Y1 - 2007 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Patil, Umesh A1 - Kentner, Gerrit A1 - Gollrad, Anja A1 - Kügler, Frank A1 - Féry, Caroline A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Focus, word order and intonation in Hindi N2 - A production study is presented that investigates the effects of word order and information structural context on the prosodic realization of declarative sentences in Hindi. Previous work on Hindi intonation has shown that: (i) non-final content words bear rising pitch accents (Moore 1965, Dyrud 2001, Nair 1999); (ii) focused constituents show greater pitch excursion and longer duration and that post-focal material undergoes pitch range reduction (Moore 1965, Harnsberger 1994, Harnsberger and Judge 1996); and (iii) focused constituents may be followed by a phrase break (Moore 1965). By means of a controlled experiment, we investigated the effect of focus in relation to word order variation using 1200 utterances produced by 20 speakers. Fundamental frequency (F0) and duration of constituents were measured in Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) and Object-Subject-Verb (OSV) sentences in different information structural conditions (wide focus, subject focus and object focus). The analyses indicate that (i) regardless of word order and focus, the constituents are in a strict downstep relationship; (ii) focus is mainly characterized by post-focal pitch range reduction rather than pitch raising of the element in focus; (iii) given expressions that occur pre-focally appear to undergo no reduction; (iv) pitch excursion and duration of the constituents is higher in OSV compared to SOV sentences. A phonological analysis suggests that focus affects pitch scaling and that word order influences prosodic phrasing of the constituents. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - paper 201 Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-46118 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Genzel, Susanne A1 - Kügler, Frank T1 - How to elicit semi-spontaneous focus realizations with specific tonal patterns JF - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 N2 - This article presents a situation description production experiment investigating the interaction between syntax and 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 the object in narrow informational focus or narrow corrective focus while controlling for the tonal structure of the target word. Contrary to the prediction that corrective focus is marked by fronting and morphological marking of the focused constituent the data suggest that the in-situ strategy is the preferred one. KW - Akan KW - information structure KW - syntax Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-49749 SN - 1614-4708 SN - 1866-4725 IS - 13 SP - 77 EP - 102 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zerbian, Sabine A1 - Downing, Laura A1 - Kügler, Frank T1 - Introduction : tone and intonation from a typological perspective Y1 - 2009 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00243841 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2007.10.024 SN - 0024-3841 ER - TY - BOOK A1 - Grubic, Mira A1 - Genzel, Susanne A1 - Kügler, Frank T1 - Linguistic Fieldnotes I: Information Structure in different African Languages N2 - This is the 13th issue of the working paper series Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure (ISIS) of the Sonderforschungsbereich (SFB) 632. It is the first part of a series of Linguistic Fieldnote issues which present data collected by members of different projects of the SFB during fieldwork on various languages or dialects spoken worldwide. This part of the Fieldnote Series is dedicated to data from African languages. It contains contributions by Mira Grubic (A5) on Ngizim, and Susanne Genzel & Frank Kügler (D5) on Akan. The papers allow insights into various aspects of the elicitation of formal correlates of focus and related phenomena in different African languages investigated by the SFB in the second funding phase, especially in the period between 2007 and 2010. T3 - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 - 13 KW - Ngizim KW - Akan KW - information structure KW - syntax Y1 - 2010 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-49684 ER - TY - BOOK A1 - Duah, Reginald Akuoko A1 - Fominyam, Henry Z. A1 - Klose, Claudius A1 - Pfeil, Simone A1 - Genzel, Susanne A1 - Kügler, Frank A1 - Valle, Daniel ED - Grubic, Mira ED - Bildhauer, Felix T1 - Mood, Exhaustivity & Focus Marking in non-European Languages N2 - This is the 19th — and final — issue of the working paper series Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure (ISIS) of the Collaborative Research Center 632. In this issue, we present cross-linguistic work on Mood, Exhaustivity, and Focus Marking, on African languages and American languages. T3 - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632 - 19 Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-81200 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - GEN A1 - Kügler, Frank A1 - Genzel, Susanne T1 - On the prosodic expression of pragmatic prominence BT - the case of pitch register lowering in Akan 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. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 369 KW - Akan KW - effort code KW - information structure KW - prosody KW - register lowering Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-403217 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 - Kügler, Frank T1 - Phonological phrasing and ATR vowel harmony in Akan JF - Phonology N2 - This paper examines phonological phrasing in the Kwa language Akan. Regressive [+ATR] vowel harmony between words (RVH) serves as a hitherto unreported diagnostic of phonological phrasing. In this paper I discuss VP-internal and NP-internal structures, as well as SVO(O) and serial verb constructions. RVH is a general process in Akan grammar, although it is blocked in certain contexts. The analysis of phonological phrasing relies on universal syntax-phonology mapping constraints whereby lexically headed syntactic phrases are mapped onto phonological phrases. Blocking contexts call for a domain-sensitive analysis of RVH assuming recursive prosodic structure which makes reference to maximal and non-maximal phonological phrases. It is proposed (i) that phonological phrase structure is isomorphic to syntactic structure in Akan, and (ii) that the process of RVH is blocked at the edge of a maximal phonological phrase; this is formulated in terms of a domain-sensitive CrispEdge constraint. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S0952675715000081 SN - 0952-6757 SN - 1469-8188 VL - 32 IS - 1 SP - 177 EP - 204 PB - Cambridge Univ. Press CY - Cambridge ER - TY - GEN A1 - Kügler, Frank T1 - Phonological phrasing and ATR vowel harmony in Akan T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - This paper examines phonological phrasing in the Kwa language Akan. Regressive [+ATR] vowel harmony between words (RVH) serves as a hitherto unreported diagnostic of phonological phrasing. In this paper I discuss VP-internal and NP-internal structures, as well as SVO(O) and serial verb constructions. RVH is a general process in Akan grammar, although it is blocked in certain contexts. The analysis of phonological phrasing relies on universal syntax-phonology mapping constraints whereby lexically headed syntactic phrases are mapped onto phonological phrases. Blocking contexts call for a domain-sensitive analysis of RVH assuming recursive prosodic structure which makes reference to maximal and non-maximal phonological phrases. It is proposed (i) that phonological phrase structure is isomorphic to syntactic structure in Akan, and (ii) that the process of RVH is blocked at the edge of a maximal phonological phrase; this is formulated in terms of a domain-sensitive CrispEdge constraint. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 456 Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-414172 IS - 456 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - van de Vijver, Ruben A1 - Hellmuth, Sam A1 - Kügler, Frank A1 - Mayer, Jörg A1 - Stoel, Ruben T1 - Phonology and intonation Y1 - 2007 SN - 978-3-939469-66- 7 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Féry, Caroline A1 - Hellmuth, Sam A1 - Kügler, Frank A1 - Mayer, Jörg T1 - Phonology and intonation JF - Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS N2 - The encoding standards for phonology and intonation are designed to facilitate consistent annotation of the phonological and intonational aspects of information structure, in languages across a range of prosodic types. The guidelines are designed with the aim that a nonspecialist in phonology can both implement and interpret the resulting annotation. Y1 - 2007 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-22217 SN - 1614-4708 SN - 1866-4725 IS - 7 SP - 29 EP - 53 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - GEN A1 - Féry, Caroline A1 - Kügler, Frank T1 - Pitch accent scaling on given, new and focused constituents in German N2 - The influence of information structure on tonal scaling in German is examined experimentally. Eighteen speakers uttered a total of 2277 sentences of the same syntactic structure, but with a varying number of constituents, word order and focus-given structure. The quantified results for German support findings for other Germanic languages that the scaling of high tones, and thus the entire melodic pattern, is influenced by information structure. Narrow focus raised the high tones of pitch accents, while givenness lowered them in prenuclear position and canceled them out postnuclearly. The effects of focus and givenness are calculated against all-new sentences as a baseline, which we expected to be characterized by downstep, a significantly lower scaling of high tones as compared to declination. The results further show that information structure alone cannot account for all variations. We therefore assume that dissimilatory tonal effects play a crucial role in the tonal scaling of German. The effects consist of final f0 drop, a steep fall from a raised high tone to the bottom line of the speaker, H-raising before a low tone, and H-lowering before a raised high tone. No correlation between word order and tone scaling could be established. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Contrastive stress KW - intonation Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-46091 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Féry, Caroline A1 - Kügler, Frank A1 - van de Vijver, Ruben T1 - Pitch accents realization in German Y1 - 2003 SN - 1-87634-649-3 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Kügler, Frank A1 - Gollrad, Anja T1 - Production and perception of contrast BT - the case of the rise-fall contour in German T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - This study investigates the phonetics of German nuclear rise-fall contours in relation to contexts that trigger either a contrastive or a non-contrastive interpretation in the answer. A rise-fall contour can be conceived of a tonal sequence of L-H-L. A production study elicited target sentences in contrastive and non-contrastive contexts. The majority of cases realized showed a nuclear rise-fall contour. The acoustic analysis of these contours revealed a significant effect of contrastiveness on the height/alignment of the accent peak as a function of focus context. On the other hand, the height/alignment of the low turning point at the beginning of the rise did not show an effect of contrastiveness. In a series of semantic congruency perception tests participants judged the congruency of congruent and incongruent context-stimulus pairs based on three different sets of stimuli: (i) original data, (ii) manipulation of accent peak, and (iii) manipulation of the leading low. Listeners distinguished nuclear rise-fall contours as a function of focus context (Experiment 1 and 2), however not based on manipulations of the leading low (Experiment 3). The results suggest that the alignment and scaling of the accentual peak are sufficient to license a contrastive interpretation of a nuclear rise-fall contour, leaving the rising part as a phonetic onglide, or as a low tone that does not interact with the contrastivity of the context. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 413 KW - production of contrast KW - perception of contrast KW - semantic-congruency task KW - rise-fall contour KW - German intonation Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-406469 IS - 413 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kügler, Frank A1 - Gollrad, Anja T1 - Production and perception of contrast: The case of the rise-fall contour in German JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - This study investigates the phonetics of German nuclear rise-fall contours in relation to contexts that trigger either a contrastive or a non-contrastive interpretation in the answer. A rise-fall contour can be conceived of a tonal sequence of L-H-L. A production study elicited target sentences in contrastive and non-contrastive contexts. The majority of cases realized showed a nuclear rise-fall contour. The acoustic analysis of these contours revealed a significant effect of contrastiveness on the height/alignment of the accent peak as a function of focus context. On the other hand, the height/alignment of the low turning point at the beginning of the rise did not show an effect of contrastiveness. In a series of semantic congruency perception tests participants judged the congruency of congruent and incongruent context-stimulus pairs based on three different sets of stimuli: (i) original data, (ii) manipulation of accent peak, and (iii) manipulation of the leading low. Listeners distinguished nuclear rise-fall contours as a function of focus context (Experiment 1 and 2), however not based on manipulations of the leading low (Experiment 3). The results suggest that the alignment and scaling of the accentual peak are sufficient to license a contrastive interpretation of a nuclear rise-fall contour, leaving the rising part as a phonetic onglide, or as a low tone that does not interact with the contrastivity of the context. KW - production of contrast KW - perception of contrast KW - semantic-congruency task KW - rise-fall contour KW - German intonation Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01254 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 6 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Genzel, Susanne A1 - Kügler, Frank T1 - Production and perception of question prosody in Akan JF - Journal of the International Phonetic Association N2 - The paper presents a production experiment investigating the phonetic parameters speakers employ to differentiate Yes-No questions from string-identical statements in Akan, a West-African two-tone Kwa language. Results show that, in comparison to the statement, speakers use a higher pitch register throughout the utterance as a global parameter, and falling f0, longer duration and higher intensity as local parameters on the final syllable of the Yes-No question. Further, two perception experiments (forced-choice identification and gating) investigate the perceptual relevance of the global parameter and the local final parameters. Results show that listeners cannot assess the higher pitch register information to identify the mode of a sentence early on. Rather, identification takes place when the local phonetic parameters on the final vowel are available. The findings point to the superiority of language-specific cues in sentence mode perception. It is suggested that Akan uses a low boundary tone that associates with the right edge of the intonation phrase (L%) in Yes-No questions. The results are discussed from the point of view of question intonation typology in African languages. It is argued that a classification along the lines of functionally relevant cues is preferable to an impressionistic analysis. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100318000191 SN - 0025-1003 SN - 1475-3502 VL - 50 IS - 1 SP - 61 EP - 92 PB - Cambridge Univ. Press CY - Cambridge ER - TY - INPR A1 - Baumann, Stefan A1 - Kügler, Frank T1 - Prosody and information status in typological perspective - Introduction to the Special Issue T2 - Lingua : international review of general linguistics Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2015.08.001 SN - 0024-3841 SN - 1872-6135 VL - 165 SP - 179 EP - 182 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Asu, Eva-Liina A1 - Schötz, Susanne A1 - Kügler, Frank T1 - The acoustics of Estonian Swedish long close vowels as compared to Central Swedish and Finland Swedish Y1 - 2009 UR - http://www.ling.su.se/fon/fonetik_2009/proceedings_fonetik2009.pdf SN - 978-91-633-4892-1 (print) ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Baer-Henney, Dinah A1 - Kügler, Frank A1 - van de Vijver, Ruben T1 - The Interaction of Language-Specific and Universal Factors During the Acquisition of Morphophonemic Alternations With Exceptions JF - Cognitive science : a multidisciplinary journal of anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology ; journal of the Cognitive Science Society N2 - Using the artificial language paradigm, we studied the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations with exceptions by 160 German adult learners. We tested the acquisition of two types of alternations in two regularity conditions while additionally varying length of training. In the first alternation, a vowel harmony, backness of the stem vowel determines backness of the suffix. This process is grounded in substance (phonetic motivation), and this universal phonetic factor bolsters learning a generalization. In the second alternation, tenseness of the stem vowel determines backness of the suffix vowel. This process is not based in substance, but it reflects a phonotactic property of German and our participants benefit from this language-specific factor. We found that learners use both cues, while substantive bias surfaces mainly in the most unstable situation. We show that language-specific and universal factors interact in learning. KW - Phonology KW - Exceptional alternation KW - Acquisition KW - Substance KW - Phonotactics KW - Artificial language paradigm Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12209 SN - 0364-0213 SN - 1551-6709 VL - 39 IS - 7 SP - 1537 EP - 1569 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kügler, Frank T1 - The intonational phonology of Swabian and Upper Saxon JF - Linguistische Arbeiten Y1 - 2007 SN - 978-3-484-30515-1 VL - 515 PB - Niemeyer CY - Tübingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kügler, Frank T1 - The role of duration as a phonetic correlate of focus Y1 - 2008 UR - http://aune.lpl.univ-aix.fr/~sprosig/sp2008/papers/id175.pdf ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Kügler, Frank T1 - Tone and intonation in Akan T2 - Intonation in African Tone Languages N2 - This chapter provides an account of the intonation patterns in Akan (Kwa, Niger-Congo). Tonal processes such as downstep, tonal spreading and tonal replacement influence the surface tone pattern of a sentence. In general, any Akan utterance independent of sentence type shows a characteristic down-trend in pitch. This chapter proposes that Akan employs a simple post-lexical tonal grammar that accounts for the shapes of an intonation contour. The unmarked post-lexical structure is found in simple declaratives. The downward trend of an intonation contour is shaped by local tonal interactions (downstep), and sentence-final tonal neutralization. In polar questions, an iota-phrase-final low boundary tone (L%) accounts for the intensity increase and lengthening of the final vowel compared to a declarative. Complex declaratives and left-dislocations show a partial pitch reset at the left edge of an embedded iota-phrase. Underlying lexical tones are not affected by intonation with the exception of sentence-final H-tones. KW - downstep KW - low boundary tone KW - polar question KW - constituent question KW - imperative KW - complex declarative KW - Akan KW - pitch register reset KW - prosodic phrasing KW - tonal neutralization KW - avoidance KW - lax question prosody Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-3-11-050352-4; 978-3-11-048479-3 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110503524-004 SN - 1861-4191 VL - 24 SP - 89 EP - 129 PB - De Gruyter Mouton CY - Berlin ER -