Clausal parentheticals, intonational phrasing, and prosodic theory

Abstract

This paper investigates the intonational phrasing of three types of parenthetical insertions – non-restrictive relative clauses (NRRCs), full sentences, and comment clauses (CCs) – in actual spoken language. It draws on a large set of data from a corpus of spoken British English. Its aim is twofold: first, it evaluates the correctness of previous claims about the intonational phrasing of parentheticals, specifically the assumption that parentheticals are phrased in a separate intonation domain; second, it discusses the implications of the intonational phrasing of parentheticals for prosodic theory. The results of the data analysis are as follows. First, the longer types of interpolations but not CCs are by default phrased separately. Second, both the temporal and the tonal structure of the host may be affected by the parenthetical. Third, CCs lend themselves more readily to the restructuring of intonational phrases such that they are phrased in one domain together with material from the host. Fourth, the prosodic results cannot be explained in syntactic accounts which do not allow for a syntactic relation between parenthetical and host. Fifth, the interface constraints on intonational phrasing apply to parentheticals. Sixth, the intonational phrasing of parentheticals supports the assumption of a post-syntactic, phonological component of the grammar at which restructuring applies.

The left and right periphery in Dutch

“…This is not what we normally perceive for the demonstrative in CLD. However, it is convincingly shown by Dehé (2009) that the phonological behaviour of parentheticals does not always match the syntactic boundaries. In particular, weak/short parentheticals or first elements of longer parentheticals can be prosodically integrated with the surrounding material (an example is a parenthetical like denk ik 'I think').…”

On the grammaticalization of ( ’t) schijnt ‘it seems’ as an evidential particle in colloquial Belgian Dutch1

“…As research by Dehé andWichmann (2010a, 2010b) has shown for English comment clauses and matrix clauses like I think and I believe, prosody can be key in distinguishing the various functional profiles that these expressions may have; depending on their prosodic profile, they may function as matrix clauses, comment clauses or discourse markers and speakers use distinct prosodic patterns to disambiguate these functions and their associated meanings. More sophisticated research into the prosody of schij nenconstructions as well as parentheticals and particles in Dutch would help shed more light not only on their indeterminate category membership, but also on the degrees of grammaticalization of their various instantiations, as current research by each of the aforementioned authors suggests.…”

“…17 Dehé (2009) points out, against common assumptions about the prosody of parentheticals, that English comment clauses like I think have a variety of prosodic realizations. Although for this reason, prosodic integration and lack of pitch movement cannot serve as a strict definitional requirement for a construction to qualify as a particle, it should be noted that being phrased separately and carrying stress is not an uncommon prosodic profile for parentheticals while being much more marked for particles.…”

Epistemic adverbs, the prosody-syntax interface, and the theory of phases

“…I will not attempt to discuss here the complex characterization of the comma intonation, and I refer the reader to the existing literature, for instance the discussion in Dehé (2007 and2009) and Döring (2007). Recall also that there is a huge and very interesting literature on parentheticals, which I will not be able to consider in this work.…”