Focus prosody in Brahvi and Balochi

Previous research has shown that post-focus compression (PFC) - the reduction of F0 and intensity after a focused word, is present in some languages but absent in many others. It has been hypothesized that the cross-linguistic distribution of PFC parallels that of the Nostratic macro-family. The present study is a test of this Nostratic-origin hypothesis through a comparison of focus prosody in Brahvi, a Dravidian language, and Balochi, an Indo-Iranian language, both alleged members of the Nostratic macro-family. Twenty native speakers from each language produced declarative sentences with different focus conditions. Acoustic analysis showed that, in both languages, post-focus F0 peaks are significantly lower than those in baseline neutral-focus sentences. But post-focus lowering of F0 and intensity is greater in Balochi than in Brahvi. These results offer evidence that at least one of the Dravidian languages has PFC, which is consistent with the Nostratic-origin hypothesis. The weaker form of PFC in Brahvi, however, suggests that factors that may weaken PFC in a language need to be investigated, and other Dravidian languages also need to be studied for the presence of PFC

Post-focus compression in Brahvi and Balochi

Previous research has shown that post-focus compression (PFC) - the reduction of pitch range and intensity after a focused word in an utterance, is a robust means of marking focus, but it is present only in some languages. The presence of PFC appears to follow language family lines. The present study is a further exploration of the distribution of PFC by investigating Brahvi, a Dravidian language, and Balochi, an Indo-Iranian language. Balochi is predicted to show PFC given its presence in other Iranian languages. Dravidian languages have not been studied for prosodic focus before and they are not related to any languages with PFC. We recorded twenty native speakers from each language producing declarative sentences in different focus conditions. Acoustic analyses showed that, in both languages, post-focus f 0 and other correlates were significantly reduced relative to baseline neutral-focus sentences, but post-focus lowering of f 0, and intensity was greater in magnitude in Balochi than in Brahvi. The Balochi results confirm our prediction, while the Brahvi results offer the first evidence of PFC in a Dravidian language. The finding of PFC in a Dravidian language is relevant to a postulated origin of PFC, which is related to the controversial Nostratic Macrofamily hypothesis