Variation in Information Structure with Special Reference to Africa

Güldemann, Tom; Zerbian, Sabine; Zimmermann, Malte

doi:10.1146/annurev-linguist-030514-125134

Cited by 12 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 102 publications

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“…traditional abstract Case or what we have referred to as Vergnaud licensing) and search for an alternative nominal licensing system in these languages. Since information structure is known to play a pervasive role in the syntax of Bantu languages (Downing & Hyman 2015, Van der Wal 2015c, Güldemann, Zerbian & Zimmermann 2015), the alternative licensing system might be hypothesised to be based upon one or more categories in information structure. For example, argument indexing on the verb and movement to the preverbal position need not be related to subject licensing: The preverbal position in many Bantu languages has been argued to be restricted to topical/non-focal elements (see, among others, Bokamba 1976; Morimoto 2000; Sabel & Zeller 2006; Zerbian 2006, 2007; Van der Wal 2009; Yoneda 2011), and ‘subject’ agreement has been argued to be directly related to topicality (Morimoto 2006 for Kirundi), or indirectly via the requirement to agree with a higher, preverbal element (Baker 2003, 2008; Collins 2004; Carstens 2005; Diercks 2011).…”

Section: Summary Of Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nominal licensing in caseless languages

Sheehan

Wal

2018

J. Ling.

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This paper provides evidence for a kind of nominal licensing (Vergnaud licensing) in a number of morphologically caseless languages. Recent work on Bantu languages, has suggested that abstract Case or nominal licensing should be parameterised (Diercks 2012, Van der Wal 2015a). With this is mind, we critically discuss the status of Vergnaud licensing in six languages lacking morphological case and agreement. While Luganda appears to systematically lack a Vergnaud licensing requirement, Makhuwa more consistently displays evidence in favour of it, as do all of the analytic languages that we survey (Mandarin, Yoruba, Jamaican Creole and Thai). We conclude that, while it seems increasingly problematic to characterise nominal licensing in terms of uninterpretable/abstract Case features, we nonetheless need to retain a (possibly universal) notion of nominal licensing, the explanation for which remains opaque.

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Section: Summary Of Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nominal licensing in caseless languages

Sheehan

Wal

2018

J. Ling.

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“…In Vietnamese, the low-falling tone huyền is realized with a rise in pitch to mark narrow focus. Some African tonal languages also use prosodic cues to indicate new or contrastive information, whereas others show no sign of using intonation for information structure (for an overview, see Zerbian et al, 2010;Güldemann et al, 2015). Tonal languages that use intonation for structuring discourse do not all employ the same strategy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating the variation of intonation contours in Northern Vietnamese tones

Tjuka,

Nguyen,

van de Vijver

et al. 2024

Front. Educ.

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Intonation is an instrument for structuring discourse and emphasizing different types of information. In German, for example, pitch is used to highlight focus, while in Vietnamese, different pitch contours distinguish lexical tones. As of yet, the interplay between intonation and lexical tone in relation to information structure has not been sufficiently investigated across languages. Vietnamese has six lexical tones and is particularly interesting for investigating the influence of different intonation strategies on the realization of tones. Here, we present a production study with 70 Northern Vietnamese speakers. The participants read six sentences under two conditions. In each sentence, a word occurring in the final position of the sentence and carrying one of the six tones was pronounced in two different discourse contexts. Acoustic analyses of the intonation contours showed that Vietnamese speakers realized the words with significant differences in pitch at the onset. Yet, the strategies for raising or lowering the pitch varied depending on the tone. Our results show the use of prosodic cues in a complex tone system across a large number of speakers. In addition, the study can serve as a starting point for educational programs that include training on intonation patterns in specific contexts.

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“…In Vietnamese, the low-falling tone huyền is realized with a rise in pitch to mark narrow focus. Some African tonal languages also use prosodic cues to indicate new or contrastive information, whereas others show no sign of using intonation for information structure (for an overview, see Zerbian et al 2010;Güldemann et al 2015). Tonal languages that use intonation for structuring discourse do not all employ the same strategy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating the variation of intonation contours in Northern Vietnamese tones

Tjuka¹,

Nguyen²,

Vijver³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Intonation is a means of structuring discourse and one of its functions is to highlight new or contrasting information, i.e., focus. Speakers of different languages use a range of prosodic cues to mark focus. Compared to non-tonal languages such as English, tonal languages use pitch to distinguish lexical tones and focus marking. Determining the interplay between intonation and lexical tone is therefore important. Previous studies found that tonal languages use different strategies to mark focus. For example, some use an increase (e.g., Mandarin Chinese), others a decrease in pitch (e.g., Kammu). The Vietnamese language has six lexical tones and is particularly interesting for examining pitch contours in focus marking. In this article, we present a production study with 70 Northern Vietnamese speakers. Participants read six sentences aloud under two different conditions (narrow/wide focus). In each sentence, focus marked a single noun (‘focus item’) which occurred in the final position of the sentence and carried one of the six tones. Acoustic analyses of the focus item showed that Vietnamese speakers realized focus with significant differences in pitch at the beginning of the word, but the strategies to increase or decrease pitch varied across tones. Our findings add important insights to the discussion about Information Structure and the role of intonation in tonal languages by analyzing the use of prosodic cues in a complex tone system. The large number of speakers in our study also adds further methodological rigor compared to other studies, which often rely on a few speakers.

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Variation in Information Structure with Special Reference to Africa

Cited by 12 publications

References 102 publications

Nominal licensing in caseless languages

Nominal licensing in caseless languages

Investigating the variation of intonation contours in Northern Vietnamese tones

Investigating the variation of intonation contours in Northern Vietnamese tones

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