Search citation statements
Paper Sections
Citation Types
Year Published
Publication Types
Relationship
Authors
Journals
The focus prominence rule (FPR) predicts that speakers articulate their utterances in such a way that the nuclear stress falls within the focus domain (¿Qué compró Juan? ‘What did John buy?’ → Juan compró [una bicicleta]F ‘John bought [a BIKE]F’ / #Juan compró [una bicicleta]F ‘John bought [a bike]F’). To examine the consequences of the FPR for focus interpretation, we carried out a perception experiment using oral production data produced by Argentinean speakers. Two groups of hearers representing either the Argentinean or the Peninsular variety of Spanish were tested. We examined whether the focus-background partition assigned by hearers to (contextless) SVO sentences coincides with the focus-background partition under which the sentences had originally been produced. The results show that the hearers’ interpretations coincide with the original focus-background partition in 70% of the responses and that the accuracy rate strongly depends on three variables: focus type (contrastive (CF) > information focus (IF)), focused constituent (subject > direct object), and variety spoken by participants (Argentinean Spanish > Peninsular Spanish). The accuracy ranges from 94% ([subject]CF, Argentinean participants) to 43% ([object]IF, speakers of Peninsular Spanish). Besides the three above-mentioned factors, we discuss whether stress placement (and sentence form more generally) can be seen as focus marking devices in Spanish. We argue that sentence form is best viewed as a filter, which rules out (or makes improbable) certain focus-background partitions. However, contextual cues are often necessary to identify the actual focus-background partition of a sentence.
The focus prominence rule (FPR) predicts that speakers articulate their utterances in such a way that the nuclear stress falls within the focus domain (¿Qué compró Juan? ‘What did John buy?’ → Juan compró [una bicicleta]F ‘John bought [a BIKE]F’ / #Juan compró [una bicicleta]F ‘John bought [a bike]F’). To examine the consequences of the FPR for focus interpretation, we carried out a perception experiment using oral production data produced by Argentinean speakers. Two groups of hearers representing either the Argentinean or the Peninsular variety of Spanish were tested. We examined whether the focus-background partition assigned by hearers to (contextless) SVO sentences coincides with the focus-background partition under which the sentences had originally been produced. The results show that the hearers’ interpretations coincide with the original focus-background partition in 70% of the responses and that the accuracy rate strongly depends on three variables: focus type (contrastive (CF) > information focus (IF)), focused constituent (subject > direct object), and variety spoken by participants (Argentinean Spanish > Peninsular Spanish). The accuracy ranges from 94% ([subject]CF, Argentinean participants) to 43% ([object]IF, speakers of Peninsular Spanish). Besides the three above-mentioned factors, we discuss whether stress placement (and sentence form more generally) can be seen as focus marking devices in Spanish. We argue that sentence form is best viewed as a filter, which rules out (or makes improbable) certain focus-background partitions. However, contextual cues are often necessary to identify the actual focus-background partition of a sentence.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.