School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications

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    Prosodic marking of focus in Nafsan
    Fletcher, J ; Billington, R ; Thieberger, N ; Calhoun, S ; Escudero, P ; Tabain, M ; Warren, P (Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association, 2019)
    Languages use a variety of means to realise informational structure categories like topicalisation and focus. The interaction between prosody and focus realisation strategies was examined in Nafsan, a Southern Oceanic language of Vanuatu, in a series of tasks that were designed to explore prosodic realisation of informational and contrastive focus on nouns that were subjects or objects in mini-dialogues where word-order was manipulated. All speakers produced utterance-initial or utterance-final focal elements with a major pitch movement associated with the focused noun (subject or object). Focused nouns were also realised with a wider pitch and often realised in their own prosodic phrase compared to the same item in non-focal contexts. There was also significant syllable lengthening at the right edge of in-focus words. In utterance-initial contexts, post-focal material in Nafsan was almost always produced in a relatively compressed pitch range and there was evidence of de-phrasing of non-focal nouns regardless of utterance position, suggesting prosodic phrasing patterns similar to other languages with edge-marking prominence.
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    Acoustic correlates of prominence in Nafsan
    Billington, R ; Fletcher, J ; Thieberger, N ; Volchok, B ; Epps, J ; Wolfe, J ; Smith, J ; Jones, C (Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association, 2018)
    Though Oceanic languages are often described as preferring primary stress on penultimate syllables, many different patterns have been noted across and within language families, and may interact with segmental and phonotactic factors. This is exemplified across linguistically diverse Vanuatu. However, both impressionistic and instrumentally-based escriptions of prosodic patterns and their correlates are limited for languages of this region. This paper presents preliminary acoustic and durational results for Nafsan, an Oceanic language of Vanuatu, which suggest a preference for prominence at the right edge of words, with fundamental frequency as a primary correlate.