Constructions with preposed infinitive: Typological and pragmatic notes

Bernini, Giuliano

doi:10.1515/9783110213973.2.105

Cited by 3 publications

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“…The functional importance that finite elements play in Germanic languages (cf. Bernini, 2009; Dimroth et al, 2010) is signaled by a systematic accentual prominence on the finite form of the verb. Compared to cases where the auxiliary is by default unaccented (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a preliminary conclusion, we think that the functional importance ascribed to the finite elements in Germanic languages either may not be attributable to French, as suggested by recent cross-linguistics studies on Germanic and Romance languages (cf. Bernini, 2009; Dimroth et al, 2010), or simply does not surface most of the times due to phonological constraints of the auxiliary, which is a phonologically weak element. The quite frequent occurrence of phonological differences for Verum and non-Verum Focus contexts and further phonetic differences in peak scaling across contexts lends support to the latter assumption.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The cross-linguistic comparison between German and French will inform us whether the functional importance attributed to finite verbal elements in German (cf. Bernini, 2009; Dimroth et al, 2010; Klein, 1998, 2006) also holds for French.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

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Intonational Means to Mark Verum Focus in German and French

2012

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German and French differ in a number of aspects. Regarding the prosody-pragmatics interface, German is said to have a direct focus-to-accent mapping, which is largely absent in French--owing to strong structural constraints. We used a semi-spontaneous dialogue setting to investigate the intonational marking of Verum Focus, a focus on the polarity of an utterance in the two languages (e.g. the child IS tearing the banknote as an opposite claim to the child is not tearing the banknote). When Verum Focus applies to auxiliaries, pragmatic aspects (i.e. highlighting the contrast) directly compete with structural constraints (e.g. avoiding an accent on phonologically weak elements such as monosyllabic function words). Intonational analyses showed that auxiliaries were predominantly accented in German, as expected. Interestingly, we found a high number of (as yet undocumented) focal accents on phrase-initial auxiliaries in French Verum Focus contexts. When French accent patterns were equally distributed across information structural contexts, relative prominence (in terms of peak height) between initial and final accents was shifted towards initial accents in Verum Focus compared to non-Verum Focus contexts. Our data hence suggest that French also may mark Verum Focus by focal accents but that this tendency is partly overridden by strong structural constraints.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intonational Means to Mark Verum Focus in German and French

2012

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“…Klein (1998Klein ( , 2006 proposed a relation between finiteness and assertion, which suggests that finite verbs are the carriers of the assertion. We therefore test whether polarity switch is encoded in the same way across three different verb conditions (see also Bernini, 2009 to be produced in the tested specific contexts (for more details see, Dimroth et al, 2010).…”

Section: Focus Marking In Italianmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this scenario, the need to focus the carrier of the assertion is very strong (Klein, 1998(Klein, , 2006Bernini, 2009). …”

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Prosodic and lexical marking of contrast in L2 Italian

Turco

Dimroth

Braun

2015

Second Language Research

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We investigated the second language (L2) acquisition of pragmatic categories that are not as consistently and frequently encoded in the L2 than in the first language (L1).Experiment 1 showed that Italian speakers linguistically highlighted affirmative polarity contrast (e.g., The child ate the candies following after The child did not eat the candies) in 34.3% of the cases, by producing a nuclear pitch accent on the finite verb (i.e. verum focus accent). Experiment 2 revealed that high-proficient German and Dutch non-native speakers of Italian linguistically encoded polarity contrast more frequently, either using a verum focus accent (German) or lexical markers (Dutch). This corresponds closely to the patterns preferred in their native languages. Our results show L1 transfer on three levels: a) the relevance of the pragmatic category (i.e. marking polarity contrast on the assertion component), b) the linguistic markers to encode polarity contrast and c) the phonetic implementation of the intonational marking. These three levels of transfer have ! ! 2 implications for how non-native speakers acquire the L2 discourse organisational principles and the linguistic markers to encode them.

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In search for polarity contrast marking in Italian

Andorno¹,

Claudia²

2018

Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today

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In the current paper, we examine polarity contrast marking in Italian in contexts where a contrast in polarity (polarity maintenance or switch) is the main information to be conveyed. We analyze and compare two kinds of data: elicited speech from Map Task dialogues and read speech focusing on clausal replies echoing (part of) the prompt. We tackle the questions how frequently do speakers of Italian use echo replies when confirming or correcting the polarity of a negatively biased question; what are the syntactic and prosodic properties of Italian echo replies in these contexts, and how often speakers produce verum focus when no other option is available for marking a contrast in polarity. The results confirm that the marking of polarity contrast, and in particular, prosodic encoding through verum focus, is possible although not a preferred option in Italian. Polarity contrast can also be left unspecified. This result supports earlier findings about the instability of polarity marking in Italian. In addition to this, the results indicate that verum focus readings can also emerge as a result of morpho-syntactic manipulations, such as the use of clitic right dislocation. In this case, the prosodic highlighting of the verb can be seen as an effect of a syntactic operation.

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Constructions with preposed infinitive: Typological and pragmatic notes

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Intonational Means to Mark Verum Focus in German and French

Intonational Means to Mark Verum Focus in German and French

Prosodic and lexical marking of contrast in L2 Italian

In search for polarity contrast marking in Italian

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