Document Type : Research

Authors

• Mahrokh Monsef
• Batool Alinezhad
• Vali Rezai

University of Isfahan

Abstract

Prosodic Structure of Focus in Persian Language
Mahrokh Monsef
Batool Alinejad*
Vali Rezai

Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the types of broad and narrow focus including the informational and corrective focus in Persian language adopting autosegmental-metrical theory (Ladd, 1996) and also the classification of focus in the framework of Lambrecht’s (1994) information structure theory. To do this and answer the research questions, the pitch changes in the intonation contours of the recorded sentences were analyzed. In analyzing the data, three prosodic parameters such as the pitch scaling of the peak, alignment and the duration of the segments containing pitch accents were mainly considered. The results showed that in the declarative sentences, moving from the sentence focus to the argument focus in the second constituent as a common constituent in all of the 6 focused conditions, we see an increase in the pitch scaling of the peak. Regarding alignment, it can be said that in moving from the sentence focus to the predicate and then the argument focus in the position of the second constituent, the alignment occurs earlier and in the corrective argument focus, the alignment occurs earlier than the informative focus. In all three types of focuses including the sentence, predicate and the argument focus, the duration of the first focal constituent is more than the second one and in the second constituent is more than the third one. In the second constituent, moving from the sentence focus to the predicate and then the argument focus, we see an increase in the duration of the focused syllable.
Keywords: Information structure, Focus, Pitch scaling of the peak, Alignment, Duration, Persian language

1. Introduction
This research investigated the intonational patterns of the focused constituents in a number of Persian languageutternaces in the framework of autosegmental-metrical theory. The autosegmental-metrical theory is basically based on the principle that the intonation is completely systematic and has a phonological structure; that is the intonation forms a hierarchical prosodic structure in the form of a sequence of tonal units (L, H, and a combination of these two tones). The intonation contour (a type of contour that shows the pitch excursions of an utterance over the time) is represented linearly through autosegmental tones, each of them aligned with a specific syllable or a specific place in a segmental group. The combination of these tones determines the prosodic structure of the speech. Previous studies in the field of focus have shown that speakers use different strategies such as morphological strategies (using a morphological morpheme), syntactic, phonetic or a combination of these in order to focus and highlight a constituent in the sentence. Among these, in many languages, the use of new solutions such as changes in new parameters is preferable to other solutions. In languages such as English and German, the vocal prominence of an utterance occurs without changing the syntactic construction of the sentence using the change of intonation. In addition, in languages such as Spanish, Catalan, and Italian, in addition to syntactic solutions, melodic solutions are used to focus a constituent on a sentence, in order to create more informational prominence (Vanrell et al.: 2013). Among these strategies, we can mention the distinction between focal and non-focal constituents in terms of pitch scaling, differences in the duration of the focal constituent and differences in the alignment of the tonal targets. Persian language also uses different syntactic and phonetic methods to highlight a constituent in a sentence due to its free part of speech. One of the common intonational methods for this purpose is to take advantage of intonational changes at the sentence level. Sadeghi (2018: 219) believes that the intonation is a common and widely used tool. The focus of the present study is to investigate the prosodic aspects of the focal constituents at the sentence level. Regarding the focus as a constituent that absorbs the nuclear pitch accent of the sentence, the following main questions are raised: 1. What are the acoustic correlations of the focus in Persian? , and 2. With what prosodic and intonational changes a focal constituent is produced at the sentence level?

2. Material and methods
In order to conduct this research, we presented 18 utterances that had different focal structures and each of them was asked in response to a background question, to 20 Persian language speakers (10 males and 10 females) to produce them during a production experiment. Each data set contains several sentences that are phonologically identical, but differ in focus type and the focal constituent size. A total of 720 (3 sentences * 6 types of focus * 20 speakers * 2 repetitions) sentence samples were recorded. Then using Praat speech processing software (Boersma and Winink , 2019), the intonational pattern of the extracted sentences and the intonational variables were codedmanually. To observe and study the changes of F0 along the pitch contour, the average values obtained from the difference between the minimum base frequency and the maximum base frequency of the focal syllable. In this study, for each focal state, 3 variables of pitch scaling, duration, and alignment of the tone H with the beginning of the syllable were measured. Statistical analysis of data was carried out using SPSS.

3. Discussion of Results & Conclusions
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of different focuses on the parameters of pitch scaling, alignment and duration. Statistical analysis of speech data revealed that the focal constituent changes the intonational pattern of the sentence by appearing at the sentence level. The results indicate that the pitch scaling of the peak in the firstconstituent in the sentence focus is wider than the second and the third constituents. In men and women, moving from the sentence focus to a narrow focus, in both informative and corrective modes, we see an increase in the pitch scaling, and this increase is observed more in the informative mode than in the corrective mode. The data regarding the alignment of H showed that in the sentence focus and also the predicate focus, the alignment of H with the beginning of the syllable in the thirdconstituent relative to the second constituent and in the second constituent relative to the first constituent is earlier. In the argumentfocus, the alignment occurs earlier and it is earlier in the corrective focus than the informative one. The statistical results related to the duration parameter also revealed, in all three types of focuses, the duration of thefirst focal constituent is more than the second one and in the second constituent is more than the third one. In the second constituent, moving from the broad focus to narrow focus, we see an increase in the duration of accented focus syllable. Therefore, in general, it can be said that the argument and narrow corrective focus causes more changes in the sentence intonational pattern than the broad focus.

Keywords: Alignment, Duration, , Focus, Information structure, Persian language, Pitch scaling of the peak

Keywords

• Alignment. Duration
• Focus
• Information structure
• Pitch scaling of the peak