Tonal structure and constituency in Neapolitan Italian: Evidence for the accentual phrase in statements and questions

Caterina Petrone, Mariapaola D'Imperio

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this paper, we report on some acoustic data suggesting the existence of the Accentual Phrase (AP) in Neapolitan Italian. In late narrow focus utterances in which intonation modality was varied, there was a difference in the shape and slope of the interaccentual region linking the H target of the prenuclear rise with the L target of the following nuclear rise. We hypothesized that such difference is due to the presence of a tone marking the end of an Accentual Phrase (AP), whose domain roughly correspond to the phonological phrase (φ). It is tentatively proposed that the phrasal tone is L for statements and HL for questions.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 4th International Conference on Speech Prosody, SP 2008
PublisherInternational Speech Communications Association
Pages301-304
Number of pages4
ISBN (Print)9780616220030
StatePublished - 2008
Externally publishedYes
Event4th International Conference on Speech Prosody 2008, SP 2008 - Campinas, Brazil
Duration: May 6 2008May 9 2008

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 4th International Conference on Speech Prosody, SP 2008

Conference

Conference4th International Conference on Speech Prosody 2008, SP 2008
Country/TerritoryBrazil
CityCampinas
Period5/6/085/9/08

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Language and Linguistics
  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Software
  • Mechanical Engineering

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