Expectations about upcoming discourse referents
- 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 anIn 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.…
| Author details: | Nicole GotznerORCiDGND, Katharina SpalekORCiDGND |
|---|---|
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1163/18773109-01401003 |
| ISSN: | 1877-3095 |
| ISSN: | 1877-3109 |
| Title of parent work (English): | International review of pragmatics : IRP |
| Subtitle (English): | Effects of pitch accents and focus particles in German language production |
| Publisher: | Brill |
| Place of publishing: | Leiden |
| Publication type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Date of first publication: | 2022/02/22 |
| Publication year: | 2022 |
| Release date: | 2023/04/24 |
| Tag: | alternatives; discourse expectations; focus; information structure; linguistics focus; pitch accents |
| Volume: | 14 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Number of pages: | 18 |
| First page: | 77 |
| Last Page: | 94 |
| Funding institution: | German Research Foundation (DFG) through an Emmy Noether Grant [GO; 3378/1-1]; German Research Foundation (DFG) through ERC Starting Grant; [GAP-677742] |
| Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Linguistik |
| DDC classification: | 4 Sprache / 40 Sprache / 400 Sprache |
| Peer review: | Referiert |
