Encoding information structure in Yucatec Maya : on the Interplay of prosody and syntax

The aim of this paper is to outline the means for encoding information structure in Yucatec Maya. Yucatec Maya is a tone language, displaying a three-fold opposition in the tonal realization of syllables. From the morpho-syntactic point of view, the grammar of Yucatec Maya contains morphological (topic affixes, morphological marking of out-of-focus predicates) and syntactic (designated positions) means to uniquely specify syntactic constructions for their information structure. After a descriptive overview of these phenomena, we present experimental evidence which reveals the impact of the nonavailability of prosodic alternatives on the choice of syntactic constructions in language production

Post-focal compression as a prosodic cue for focus perception in Hindi

Focus in Hindi is prosodically marked by means of post-focal compression (PFC) and the present study examines whether PFC is a prosodic cue that is functionally used by listeners to perceive the focus. In a production study with 30 native Hindi speakers uttering six different ambiguous contrastive ellipsis structures PFC occurred after the focused indirect object, thought not after a focused direct object. These structures served as input for a forced-choice sentence-completion experiment, in which 18 listeners listened to sentence fragments of the matrix clause and were asked to decide which of the two possible objects contrasts (direct object or indirect object) would correctly complete the sentence. Results show that if PFC was absent listeners were unable to choose the intended sentence completion. If PFC was present correct sentence completion judgements increased significantly. Thus PFC is a cue for focus perception in Hindi. Based on the functional load of the pitch register in Hindi, we argue that pitch register represents a further intonational category to consider, at least for languages like Hindi

Phonology and intonation

The encoding standards for phonology and intonation are designed to facilitate consistent annotation of the phonological and intonational aspects of information structure, in languages across a range ofprosodic types. The guidelines are designed with the aim that a nonspecialist in phonology can both implement and interpret the resulting annotation