Traces of language contact in intonation

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Uth
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Mexican Spanish ◽  
High Pitch ◽  
Stressed Syllable ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Elicitation Studies

Abstract This article deals with the intonational realization of contrastive focus in Yucatecan Spanish. Data from three recent elicitation studies with a total of ten bilingual speakers of Yucatecan Spanish (YS) and Yucatec Maya (YM) and five monolingual speakers of YS suggest that contrastive focus in the Yucatecan Spanish variant spoken by the Spanish-dominant and monolingual speakers is mostly signaled by means of a high pitch early in the intonation phrase (IP) followed by a fall to the final stressed syllable of a contrasted word. In this respect, the established YS variety crucially differs from standard Mexican Spanish (MS), where the stressed syllable of a contrastive constituent is generally associated with an L+H* pitch accent (cf. de-la-Mota, Martín Butragueño & Prieto. 2010). However, the systematicity described above only shows up in the data produced by the Spanish-dominant and monolingual YS speakers, whereas the balanced bilingual data is characterized by much higher idiosyncratic variation. This fact suggests that the development of intonational systems is also a matter of consolidation or strengthening of features.

Prosodic realization of contrastive focus in Yucatecan Spanish

2016 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Uth
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Mexican Spanish ◽  
High Pitch ◽  
Stressed Syllable ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Systematic Behavior

AbstractThis article deals with the prosodic realization of contrastive focus in Yucatecan Spanish. Data from three recent elicitation experiments with a total of 5 balanced bilingual speakers of Yucatecan Spanish (YS) and Yucatec Maya (YM), 5 Spanish dominant bilingual speakers of YS and YM, and 5monolingual speakers of YS suggest that in YS contrastive focus is mostly signaled by means of a high pitch early in the Intonation Phrase, followed by a fall to the final stressed syllable of a contrasted word. In this respect, the established YS variety importantly differs from standard Mexican Spanish (MS), where the stressed syllable of a contrastive constituent is generally associated with an L+H* pitch accent (cf. De la Mota 2010). However, the systematic behavior described above only shows up in the data produced by the Spanish dominant and monolingual speakers, whereas the data produced by the balanced bilingual speakers is characterized by a much higher amount of idiosyncratic variation. This fact suggests that the development of intonational systems in language contact settings is, among other things, a matter of gradual consolidation or strengthening of features.

scholarly journals Lack of Syllable Duration as a Post-Lexical Acoustic Cue in Spanish in Contact with Maya

Languages ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Nuria Martínez García ◽  
Melanie Uth
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mixed Effects ◽  
Mixed Effects Models ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Linear Mixed Effects Models ◽  
Linear Mixed Effects ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Syllable Duration ◽  
Focus Marking

This paper focuses on the duration of stressed syllables in broad versus contrastive focus in Yucatecan Spanish and examines its connection with Spanish–Maya bilingualism. We examine the claim that phonemic vowel length in one language prevents the use of syllable duration as a post-lexical acoustic cue in another. We study the duration of stressed syllables of nouns in subject and object position in subject-verb-object (SVO) sentences (broad and contrastive focus) of a semi-spontaneous production task. One thousand one hundred and twenty-six target syllables of 34 mono- and bilingual speakers were measured and submitted to linear mixed-effects models. Although the target syllables were slightly longer in contrastive focus, duration was not significant, nor was the effect of bilingualism. The results point to duration not constituting a cue to focus marking in Yucatecan Spanish. Finally, it is discussed how this result relates to the strong influence of Yucatec Maya on Yucatecan Spanish prosody observed by both scholars and native speakers of Yucatecan Spanish and other Mexican varieties of Spanish.

Contrastive Focus in Yucatecan Spanish

2019 ◽  
pp. 275-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Gutiérrez-Bravo ◽  
Carlos Martín Sobrino ◽  
Melanie Uth
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Yucatan Peninsula ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Yucatán Peninsula

This chapter provides a description and analysis of contrastive focus constructions in Yucatecan Spanish, the dialect of Spanish spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. In this variety of Spanish fronted focus constructions are notoriously common. Closer inspection, however, shows that fronted foci in Yucatecan Spanish behave in a way that is markedly different from that of any other variety of Spanish that we are aware of. We provide evidence in favor of the hypothesis that the particular Yucatecan Spanish focus fronting constructions observed in Yucatecan Spanish originate from language contact between Yucatecan Spanish and Yucatec Maya (the Mayan language spoken in Yucatán; ISO code: yua). The main reason is that the syntax of the Yucatecan Spanish focus constructions is strikingly similar to that of comparable constructions in Yucatec Maya.

scholarly journals Information structure and intonation in Andean Spanish

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Antje Gerda Muntendam
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Peak Height ◽  
Stressed Syllable ◽  
Peak Alignment ◽  
Andean Spanish ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Picture Story ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Spanish Bilinguals

This study examines information structure and intonation in Andean Spanish. The data come from picture-story tasks and an elicitation task with 22 Quechua-Spanish bilinguals from Peru. The target sentences were sentences with broad focus, (contrastive) focus on the subject, on the object, and on the VP. The duration of the stressed syllable/word, peak height, peak alignment, and intensity were measured. The results showed that in Andean Spanish pre-nuclear peaks are aligned early and there are fewer prominence-lending features than in non-Andean Spanish, possibly indicating a Quechua influence. The study contributes to research on intonation, bilingualism and language contact.

Circumflex Nuclear Configurations in Yucatecan Spanish as a Supraregional Feature: The Roles of Bilingualism and Gender

2020 ◽  
pp. 002383092096813
Author(s):  
Melanie Uth ◽  
Nuria Martínez García
Keyword(s):  
Spanish Language ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Mexican Spanish ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Male Group ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Southeast Mexico ◽  
Spanish Bilinguals

In this paper, we study the nuclear configurations of declarative broad focus utterances in Yucatecan Spanish, a Mexican variety spoken in southeast Mexico in contact with Yucatec Maya, from a sociolinguistic perspective. We draw on a corpus of 276 utterances elicited from 16 speakers, eight Maya–Spanish bilinguals (four female/four male) and eight Spanish monolinguals (four female/four male). We particularly concentrate on the roles of bilingualism, gender, and their relationship to local (Hispanic) identity. Although the intonation of Yucatecan Spanish is known to be very different from Central Mexican Spanish, we find in our data a considerable number of contours that Martín Butragueño (2017) refers to as typical “Central Mexican circumflex intonation” (p. 153). What is more, this feature is distributed unevenly among speaker groups in our data. First of all, it is much more frequent in the bilingual than in the monolingual group. We suggest that this is due to the monolinguals’ higher degree of identification with the local Spanish language and culture (whereas the bilingual speakers are more oriented toward the Mayan language and culture and less toward the local Spanish ones; see Uth, 2018b). Secondly, as regards gender, there are many sociolinguistic works that suggest that women tend to be less oriented toward local vernaculars than men. Building on that, we argue that a greater decrease of the supraregional circumflex configuration within the monolingual male group than within the monolingual female is to be expected. However, this hypothesis is not confirmed by our data.

Simple metathesis in loanword phonology: the Arabic-Romance language contact

2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (4) ◽  
pp. 1049-1084
Author(s):  
Yvonne Kiegel-Keicher
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Stressed Syllable ◽  
Romance Language ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Systematic Process ◽  
Loanword Phonology

AbstractSimple metathesis can be found in numerous Ibero-Romance arabisms compared with their Andalusi Arabic etyma. The analysis of a corpus of Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan arabisms illustrates its effects on syllable structure and syllable weight. It can be shown that Arabic-Romance simple metathesis constitutes a motivated structural change that provides for typologically unmarked syllable weight relations within the word. After the resyllabification it entails the involved unstressed syllables no longer excede the stressed syllable in weight. However, it is not an obligatory, systematic process, but merely an optional tendency, which corresponds to the universal tendency expressed by the Weight Law.

scholarly journals On the nature of cross-linguistic transfer: A case study of Andean Spanish

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTJE G. MUNTENDAM
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Andean Spanish ◽  
Pragmatic Transfer ◽  
Elicitation Study ◽  
Linguistic Transfer ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Elicitation Studies ◽  
Long Distance Movement

This paper presents the results of a study on cross-linguistic transfer in Andean Spanish word order. In Andean Spanish the object appears in preverbal position more frequently than in non-Andean Spanish, which has been attributed to an influence from Quechua (a Subject–Object–Verb language). The high frequency of preverbal objects could be explained by focus fronting. The main syntactic properties of focus fronting in Spanish are weak crossover and long distance movement. Two elicitation studies designed to test for these properties in non-Andean Spanish, Andean Spanish and Quechua show no evidence of syntactic transfer from Quechua into Andean Spanish. Rather, the analysis of naturalistic data and an elicitation study on question–answer pairs show that there is pragmatic transfer from Quechua into Andean Spanish. The study has implications for theories of syntax and language contact, and especially for the debate on the nature of cross-linguistic transfer.

scholarly journals Directional Idioms in English and Welsh: A Usage-Based Perspective on Language Contact

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 573-611
Author(s):  
Kevin J. Rottet
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Motion Events ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
The Hill ◽  
English Verb ◽  
Single Set ◽  
Roll Out ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract The English verb-particle construction or phrasal verb (pv) has undergone dramatic semantic extensions from the expression of literal motion events (the ball rolled down the hill) – a pattern known as satellite-framing – to idiomatic figurative uses (the company will roll out a new plan) where selection of the particle is motivated by Conceptual Metaphors. Over the course of its long contact with English, Welsh – also satellite-framed with literal motion events – has extended the use of its verb-particle construction to replicate even highly idiomatic English pv s. Through a case study of ten metaphorical uses of up and its Welsh equivalent, we argue that this dramatic contact outcome points to the convergence by bilingual speakers on a single set of Conceptual Metaphors motivating the pv combinations. A residual Celtic possessive construction (lit. she rose on her sitting ‘she sat up’) competes with English-like pv s to express change of bodily posture.

Bitonal pitch accent and phonological alignment in Sardinian

Probus ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miran Kim ◽  
Lori Repetti
Keyword(s):  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Stressed Syllable ◽  
Romance Language ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Landing Sites ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
As Stress

Abstract This study presents new data on pitch accent alignment in Sardinian, a Romance language spoken in Italy. We propose that what has been described as “stress shift” in encliticization processes is not a change in the word level stress, but variation in the association of the pitch accent. Our claim is that word level stress remains in situ, and the falling tune which our data exhibit can be interpreted as a bitonal pitch accent (HL*) associated with the entire verb + enclitic unit: the starred tone is associated with the rightmost metrically prominent syllable, and the leading tone is associated with the word-level stressed syllable. The research questions we address are twofold: (i) how are the landing sites of the two tonal targets phonetically identified; (ii) how are the phonetic facts reconciled with prosodic structure.

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