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  - 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  -