Theoretical aspects of German sentence accent assignment Caroline Féry, Potsdam
This paper discusses theoretical issues related to sentence accent assignment in German. The roles of syntax, semantics and phonology are examined in turn, and shown to be complementary. Due to its verb-end property, German has contributed to the development of the theory in a decisive way. It demonstrates better than English that accent is not assigned on a linear sequence, but rather to the argument- predicate structure of the sentence (Bierwisch 1966).
Although sentence accent is realized by pitch change, intensity and vowel quality, all features which are not present in a written text, syntax and semantics are crucial to understanding sentence accent assignment in spoken speech. Conversely, phonology plays an important role in silent reading, as testified by the psycholinguistic literature showing the reality of garden path effects due to a default implicit prosody.
This paper develops a holistic approach to sentence accent which combines insights from different submodules. The proposed architecture is the following: A hierarchically organized prosodic structure mediates between syntax and semantics on the one hand, and phonetics on the other. Accents are heads of prosodic phrases and are the highest grid positions in every prosodic phrase. These prosodic phrases arise on the basis of the lexical material, its syntactic structure, and its information structural content in a compositional way. Every prosodic phrase is also associated with a F0 register related to the preceding and following prosodic phrases, as well as to the level of embedding. The phonological and phonetic height of pitch accents is a function of the top lines of the prosodic phrases.
It is shown that syntax, semantics and phonology all play a necessary role in sentence accent assignment, but that none is sufficient by itself. We start with the role of syntax in section 1, go on with semantics in section 2 and end with phonology in section 3.
1 The syntactic component of sentence accent assignment
In an all-new sentence, every constituent is equally important from the point of view of its informational content. It is thus excluded that a constituent receives a stress because it is highlighted against a background in a specific context. As a result, the distribution of accents in an all-new sentence reflects the argument-adjunct- predicate-structure of the sentence, as shown by Bierwisch (1966), Schmerling (1976), Gussenhoven (1983), Selkirk (1984), Cinque (1993) and many others. The main generalizations are the following: Each lexical argument and adjunct is assigned its own accent. If an argument precedes the predicate, the predicate is integrated into the accent domain of the argument.1 Otherwise, the predicate is accented as well. We will return to the phonological implications of integration in section 3.
In the following, the location of the last accent in the sentence, the so-called
‘nuclear stress,’ is given special attention. Often, it is not the only one, but it is
1In another terminology, the accent of the predicate is ‘subordinate’ to that of the argument (Wagner 2005).
perceived as more prominent than the others, mainly because it is the last tonal event before the flat and low postnuclear stretch of the sentence.
Some examples of accents on the arguments and of deaccenting of the verb appear in (1) and (2). In addition to information structural factors, the order of the arguments is subject to a number of constraints and principles, such as inanimate precedes animate, definite precedes indefinite, and direct object precedes indirect object, which have been abundantly discussed in the literature (Lenerz 1977, Müller 1999, Büring 2001, etc.), but which will not be addressed in this paper.
(1) Integration: Object is stressed in the sequence object + verb a. MARIA hat ein BUCH gekauft.
Mary has a book bought ‘Mary bought a book.’
b. MARIA ist nach BERLIN gefahren.
Mary is to Berlin driven ‘Mary drove to Berlin.’
(2) The last of two verbal arguments has nuclear stress a. MARIA hat ein BUCH einem KIND gegeben.
Mary has a book.ACC a child.DAT given ‘Mary gave a book to a child.’
b. MARIA hat dem KIND ein BUCH gegeben.
Mary has the child.DAT a book.ACC given ‘Mary gave a book to the child.’
Cinque (1993) assumes what he calls a ‘Null Theory of Phrase Stress’: syntactic embeddedness is everything; there is no need for phonological rules. The nuclear accent location depends entirely on the direction of embedding, which can be rightward as in (3a) or leftward as in (3b).
(3) a. A b. A
/ \ / \
* B B *
/ \ / \ * C C *
| |
* *
Every syntactic node is a cyclic node and every cyclic node is a metrical constituent.
The metrical grid is erected bottom up, and the strongest constituent is even stronger because it is assigned a new head on each level.
In German, NPs are head-initial and complements and accents are to the right, as shown in (4) with Cinque’s examples.
(4) a. die [N' Entdeckung [NP des [N' IMPFSTOFFS]]]
the discovery of.the vaccine
‘the discovery of the vaccine’
b. die [N' Landung [PP auf [NP dem [N' MOND]]]]
the landing on the moon ‘the landing on the moon’
PPs are head-initial (5a) or head-final (5b). If they are head final, accents are to the left.
(5) a. auf dem TISCH, unter den LINDEN
on the table, under the lime trees
b. dem FLUSS entlang, dem BERG hinauf, dem BRIEF zufolge the river along, the mountain up, the letter according.to ‘along the river, up the mountain, according to the letter’
VPs are head-final, and accents are to the left; see (1), (2) and (6).
(6) … dass Anna ein Buch auf den TISCH gestellt hat that Anna a letter on the table put has
‘that Anna put a letter on the table’
As shown in (7), embeddedness is not everything after all, since Fred in (7) has the nuclear stress, despite the fact that senescence is more embedded.2 According to Cinque, a readjustment rule gives priority to the rightmost argument in a sentence regardless of embedding. This looks very much like a phonological effect, which thus weakens the null theory.
(7) Der Autor zahlreicher Artikel über Veralterungseffekte hat FRED erschossen.
the author many.GEN articles on effects.of.senescence has Fred shot
‘The author of many articles on the effects of senescence shot Fred.’
That information structure, and thus semantics, must also participate in an account of sentence accent is acknowledged by Cinque in his discussion of unaccusative intransitive sentences, with an accent only on the subject. Unaccusative sentences are discussed below.
Cinque’s ideas that sentence accents depend entirely on the syntactic structure and that the metrical grid is the only mediation between syntax and phonetics have been extremely influential. At least part of the syntactic literature uses the term ‘nuclear stress’ to characterize the most embedded accent, and no longer in its original sense as the rightmost sentence accent. That embedding is important for the accent placement is also visible from verb sequences as in (8), in which the accent is on the most deeply embedded element of a verb sequence, regardless of the order of the verbs (these sequences are taken from Wagner 2005:215ff). In Wagner’s terms
“functors that follow their complement are obligatorily prosodically subordinated.”
But Wagner, like Cinque, does not acknowledge the existence of prosodic phrases to regulate the height of pitch accents.
2 Depth of embedding may also be overridden by predicate-argument structure in other cases, as in (ia) and (ib); see also Zubizarretta (1998).
(i) a. Anna hat den Ziegenmelker mit den weißen Flügeln, die klatschen, im FERNSEHEN
gesehen. ‘Anna has seen the nightjars with the white wings that clap on TV.’ (klatschen is more deeply embedded than Fernsehen).
b. Ede hat seinen Sohn BETRUNKEN getroffen. ‘Ede met his son drunk.’ (seinen Sohn is more deeply embedded than betrunken).
(8) Verb sequences
a. …dass er MALEN helfen wollte that he paint help wanted ‘that he wanted to help paint’
b. Er hat MALEN wollen.
he has paint want ‘He wanted to paint.’
c. … weil er versprach zu versuchen zu SCHWEIGEN
because he promised to try to be.silent ‘because he promised to try to be silent’
d. …weil er zu SCHWEIGEN zu versuchen versprach e. … dass man ihn hier LIEGEN bleiben lassen kann that one him here lie remain let can ‘that one can let him lie here’
In my view, prosodic phrases are a crucial part of sentence accent assignment, which thus demonstrates the need for a phonological component (see section 3). In the same way, nuclear accent, understood as the last accent in a phonological sequence, cannot be easily eliminated from the theoretical discussion. If an adverbial or a PP adjunct comes last in a sentence, as in (9), it carries the nuclear accent of the sentence, regardless of its embedding (see also (34) for more examples illustrating the effect of the Nuclear Stress Rule (NSR) of Chomsky & Halle 1968 which assigns sentence main stress on the rightmost consitutent of the sentence).
(9) Adjunct adverb or PP
a. MARIA spazierte den HUND mit weißem FELL im PARK. Mary walked the dog with white fur in the park
b. MARIA ist von Berlin nach FRANKFURT (in fünf STUNDEN) gefahren.
Mary is from Berlin to Frankfurt (in five hours) driven
‘Mary drove from Berlin to Frankfurt (in five hours).’
Locational and directional PPs preceding the predicate are not always accented:
compare (10) with (6). Instead, the preceding argument may get the last accent of the sentence (see Krifka 1984 among others for this observation). Kratzer & Selkirk (2007:106), who propose a minimalist cyclic model of sentence accent, claim that only the highest argument of the sentence is accented (“The highest phrase within the spellout domain of a phase corresponds to a prosodic major phrase in phonological representation.”). Pitch accents are assigned at each spellout domain.
However this solution is only general if the examples in (2), with both a direct and an indirect object, are left out of consideration, and if the accent pattern of (6), where the locational adverb is accented, is never an option.3
(10) Locational and directional PPs are not stressed (Kratzer & Selkirk 2007) a. … dass ein JUNGE eine GEIGE im Supermarkt kaufte
that a boy a violin in-the supermarket bought ‘that a boy bought a violin in the supermarket’
b. … dass ein JUNGE eine GEIGE an einen Freund schickte
3 A thinkable solution compatible with Kratzer & Selkirk’s approach is to allow for another optional phase, in which the PP plus verb is a spellout as well.
that a boy a violin to a friend sent
‘that a boy sent a violin to a friend’
c. … dass MARIA KINDER in die Schule fuhr that Mary children in the school drove
‘that Mary drove children to school’
Unaccented locationals and directionals as in (10) seem to be in free variation with accented ones. The optionality of the accent may be analyzed in terms of part-of- predicate vs. true adjuncts. If these locational adjuncts are part of the predicate, they are left without accent, but if they are true adjuncts, they should carry an accent.
The argumental or part-of-predicate status of locationals may be variable in German, explaining why both (6) and (10) are possible.4
Resultative predicatives, as in (11), are ususally unaccented, and are part of the predicate in the same way as verb particles preceded by an object, as illustrated in (12).5
(11) Resultative predicates are unstressed a. Der Jäger hat dieFÜCHSE tot geschossen.
the hunter has the foxes dead shot
‘The hunter shot the foxes dead.’
b. Carlotta hat die FLASCHE leer getrunken.
Carlotta has the bottle empty drunk
‘Carlotta drank the bottle empty.’
(12) Verbal particle with an object
MARIA hat ihre MUTTER angerufen.
Mary has her mother called
‘Mary called her mother.’
The same constructions without an object or with a pronominal object have an accent on the predicative or on the particle, see (13), speaking for a hierarchy of accentedness between the object and the following element. In (11) and (12), accenting both the object and the particle would lead to a stress clash. The object is higher on the accentedness hierarchy, and gets the pitch accent. We will see in section 3 that this accent pattern can only be accounted for if the phonology is allowed to play a role in sentence accent assignment.
(13) Pronominal objects a. Er schoss sie TOT. He shot them dead.
b. MARIA hat (jemanden/sie) ANgerufen.
Mary has (somebody/her) called.
In the same way, and returning to the sentences in (1), the predicate is accented as
4 Gussenhoven (1992) shows that some constituents have an ambiguous status as arguments or adjuncts, as well.
5Compare depictive secondary predications, as in (i), in which the secondary predicate is accented.
(i) Er hat den FISCHROH gegessen.
he has the fish raw eaten
soon as the argument preceding it is unaccentable, as for instance when it is a pronoun. The verb is accented when the adjacent argument is lower on the accentedness hierarchy.
(1') Integration: Verb is stressed in the sequence unstressed argument + verb a. MARIA hat es GEKAUFT.
Mary has it bought ‘Mary bought it.’
b. MARIA ist dahin GEFAHREN. Mary is there driven
‘Mary drove there.’
c. MARIA hat einem KIND was GEGEBEN. Mary has a child something given ‘Mary gave something to a child.’
The classic account for such cases is that phonology imposes the presence of a pitch accent in prosodic domains like the one formed on an argument followed by a predicate. If the argument is ‘unstressable,’ the verb gets the prominence by default (see Ladd 1980, Jacobs 1993, Féry & Samek-Lodovici 2006).
Before we close this section, let us briefly address the well-known distinction between intransitive sentences with a single accent on the subject and those with accents both on the subject and on the predicate. In sentences with unaccusative (14) and passive verbs (15), the subject has the unique accent of the sentence.
(14) The subject is stressed in unaccusative sentences, the verb is not Die PRÄSIDENTIN ist gekommen.
‘The president came.’
(15) The subject is stressed in passive sentences, the verb is not Der RASEN wurde gemäht.
‘The lawn was mowed.’
Intransitive sentences with a stage-level predicate also have a unique accent on the subject (see Diesing 1988).
(16) Only the subject is accented in sentences with stage-level predicates FEUERWEHRMÄNNER sind verfügbar.
‘Firemen are available.’
And finally, eventive sentences with a simple (unergative or unaccusative) predicate have a single accent on the subject, as well.
(17) The subject is stressed in eventive sentences with a simple predicate, the verb is not
{Why have you come so late?}
a. Mein AUTO ist (auf der Autobahn) stehen geblieben.
my car has (on the highway) stopped
‘My car stopped (on the highway).’
b. {Why have you come so late?} Die LOKFÜHRER streiken.
the engine-drivers have gone-on-strike
Compare these sentences with the following ones, which have an accent both on the subject and on the verb. First, sentences with an unergative verb accent both the subject and the predicate, as in (18).
(18) The verb is stressed in unergative sentences … dass dieLOKFÜHRERGESTREIKT haben
… that the engine-drivers gone-on-strike have
… weil MARIA GETANZT hat
… because Maria danced has
Second, individual-level predicates, as in (19), also show accenting of both subject and predicate (Diesing 1988).
(19) Both subject and verb are accented in sentences with individual-level predicates
FEUERWEHRMÄNNER sind ALTRUISTISCH. firemen are altruistic
And finally, as soon as the eventive sentence has a complex VP, the VP may be accented.
(20) Eventive with a complex predicate: The complex predicate is stressed Mein AUTO ist zwischen Golm und BERLIN stehen geblieben.
my car is between Golm and Berlin stopped
‘My car stopped between Golm and Berlin.’
In fact, subject-verb sentences always have the possibility of receiving a topic- comment articulation, and thus of having accents both on the subject and on the predicate, as shown in (21), identical to in (17), with partial topics. The context induces the difference in stress.
(21) Both subject and verb are accented in topic-comment sentences {What happened with your car and with your motorbike?}
Mein AUTO ist STEHEN geblieben.
‘My car stopped.’
{Are all railway employees satisfied?}
Die LOKFÜHRERSTREIKEN.
‘The engine drivers have gone on strike.’
Diesing proposes a syntactic explanation, the internal vs. external position of the subject, for the difference between sentences with a single accent on the subject and those with accents both on the subject and on the predicate. Newer proposals, like those of Jäger (2001) and Kratzer & Selkirk (2007), assume a difference in the information structural roles of the subjects. Jäger claims that every sentence needs a topic. The topic may be a silent spatio-temporal frame (individual-level predicates), or the subject of the sentence. If the subject is a topic, there must be a focus in the same sentence, and the verb is the only candidate for this role, which explains the double accent pattern.
With these examples, the limits of the role of syntax in accent assignment have been
reached. In eventive vs. topic-comment sentences, as well as in the sentences with stage-level vs. individual-level predicates, the information structure motivates the syntactic structure, and indirectly also the accent distribution. In the same way, the difference between stressed locationals in (6) and unstressed ones in (10) goes beyond pure syntax.
Syntax-triggered accent assignment has been couched in a variety of models:
Zubizarretta (1998) uses mapping which refers directly to argument-predicate structure, and Cinque (1993) to syntactic embedding. Both use a traditional GB model of syntax. Neither one needs any prosodic phrasing, and in fact Cinque even denies that prosody is necessary in sentence accent assignment principles. Kratzer &
Selkirk (2007) have a different approach, since they claim that each phase of the minimalist syntax produces a spellout domain, translated as prosodic phrase, where pitch accents are assigned (see also Kahnemuyipour 2004, Ishihara 2007 and others for other languages). Gussenhoven (1992) also uses argument-predicate structure to define prosodic domains, whose heads are pitch accents.
Problematic, however, is the lack of flexibility of all these approaches. The minimalist account, for instance, predicts that phonological phrases at the same level are created on larger and larger syntactic phrases. But the prominence of the accents does not follow the cyclic creation of these phrases. Rather, as we will see in detail below, downstep proceeds on the linear sequences of words and phrases.
Moreover, most of the purely syntactic accounts of sentence accent do not allow for changes in the accent location due to information structure, or if they do, no real interaction between syntax and information structure or phonology is predicted.
Information structure seems to be independently processed from the syntax. In most approaches, if a narrow focus is present for instance, it completely overrides the information coming from syntax, creating new accent patterns and new phrasings (see also Gussenhoven 1992). We will see in section 3 that such a view is not necessary and can be advantageously replaced by a view of prosody which leaves the information provided by the syntax intact, also in sentences with a marked information structure. In a nutshell, information structure does not overwrite the prosodic information coming from syntax, but is superimposed on it with a different phonological module.
2 The semantic component of sentence accent assignment
Most naturally occurring utterances are placed in a context inducing an information structural articulation, which influences the distribution of pitch accents. Even ‘all- new’ sentences can be eventive or have a topic-comment articulation, as shown above. The influence of information structure on accent placement is best explained by a semantic component.
Selkirk (1995) shows that if the nuclear accent is on the last constituent, as on bats in (22), this accent projects to the whole VP according to accent projecting rules, which are well known and have been discussed abundantly in the literature (see also Chomsky 1971, Rochemont 1986 and many others). I will not reproduce them here.
(22) {What’s been happening?}
FOC[MARY]F [[bought]F [a [book]F [[about]F [[BATS]F]F]F]F]FOC
However, if the pitch accent is not projectable, as in (23), where Mary carries the only accent of the sentence, the information structure of the sentence must be
different. In (23), Mary is narrowly focused.6 (23) {Who bought a book about bats?}
FOC[[MARY]F]FOC bought a book about bats.
Many authors have adopted, in one version or another, the Focus Prominence Rule of Chomsky (1971), formulated in (24). This rule is responsible for the following observation: if nuclear stress is not rightmost, as in (23), a Focus Prominence Rule is applied which assigns the highest prominence to focused material.
(24) Focus Prominence Rule (Chomsky 1971)
Focus marked material must be more prominent than presupposed material.
This is the principle responsible for the accent pattern in (23), where the narrow focus carries a pitch accent, but the following material does not. Section 3 will provide a phonological explanation of the accent pattern of sentences with narrow focus based on the prosodic structure.
In Rooth’s (1985, 1992) work, the semantic reflex of intonational focus (that is, a pitch accent) is a second semantic value. This value interacts with ‘normal’
semantic and pragmatic processes. In (25b), where Anna carries a pitch accent, it has its usual referential semantic value, but also an additional ‘focus semantic value,’ revealed by the pitch accent it carries. The alternatives to the accented constituent play a central role when it comes to interpreting focus semantically. In the case of a contrast, as in (25b), the focus is the contrasting element Anna, and the alternatives are the set of persons who, in the appropriate context, could like Sue.
Since the sentence is a correction, the only alternative to Anna is Mary; see (25c), which shows the set of alternatives of this precise focus.7
(25) a. Mary likes Sue.
b. No, [ANNA]F likes Sue.
c. {Mary likes Sue, Anna likes Sue}
In a dialogue like (26), with informational focus and no contrast, Rooth also assumes a set of alternatives, exactly as in the preceding case. The right answer is again part of the set of alternatives. The right set of alternatives in (26c), which contains alternatives for the object, contrasts with the wrong one in (26d), which contains alternatives to the subject. That (26c) is the right one is shown by the accent on the object, which corresponds to the questioned element in the context of (26a). (26d) shows a wrong (infelicitous) set of alternatives for this sentence, in which Sarah, a given element, elicits a set of alternatives.
(26) a. What did Sarah read?
b. She read ‘PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.’
c. {she read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ she read ‘War and Peace,’ she read ‘Jude the Obscure,’…}
6 In (22), Mary is a topic and is realized differently than in (23), where it is a focus (see for instance Steedman 2000, Bolinger 1986 and many others).
7 In this section, English examples are used, because a lot of original examples are in English, but this does not bear on the fact that this article deals with German sentence accent. Everything that is demonstrated for English in this section is valid for German, as well.
d. *{Sarah read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ Mary read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’…}
In the dialogues (25) and (26), the focus does not introduce any truth-conditional semantic value. But in other cases, or if a focus is introduced by a focus-sensitive operator, it can be truth-value sensitive, depending on the focus operator. Only triggers a truth-conditional semantic value of focus, while even does not. Imagine a scenario where Mary introduced Bill and Tom to Sue, and no further introduction took place (Rooth 1985). In this case, (27a) is wrong, but (27b) is right. In (27a) only takes Bill as its associated constituent, and in (27b) Sue.
(27) a. Mary only introduced [BILL]F to Sue.
b. Mary only introduced Bill to [SUE]F
According to Rooth, focus in English thus has a uniform semantic import related to
‘contrast’ within a set of alternatives. The key to his approach is an interpretation principle introducing a variable (a contrasting element). However, this variable can be anaphoric to a variety of pragmatic and semantic objects, resulting in different focus-sensitive effects.
Schwarzschild (1999) also proposes a purely semantic approach to sentence accent, but he assumes that it is givenness which is primary in the semantic interpretation of pitch accents, rather than the focus semantic value. His motivation is that the term
‘focus’ is not straightforward, as it can denote several notions, like newness, contrast, correction, and selection, among others, whereas ‘givenness’ always means
‘anaphorically recoverable.’ In (28), the object is recoverable, since it is mentioned in the preceding question, and is thus given. Because of this, it is unstressed.
(28) {What did John’s mother do?}
She [[PRAISED]F himi]F
In (29), him gets an accent, although it is anaphorically recoverable. This is because each focus needs a pitch accent, although pitch accents are minimized, a phonological condition.
(29) {Who did Johni’s mother praise?}
She praised [HIMi]F
Him in (29) can be the bearer of the pitch accent because its F-marking is unembedded (contrary to (28)), and, as such, it allows an interpretation as given (see also Selkirk 1995 for the distinction between embedded and unembedded F- marking). Notice that accenting praise would not improve the sentence. It is as given as John, but does not answer the question in an appropriate way. Formally, F- marking praised him induces an additional F-mark as compared to (29) and violates (30b) once more. Schwarzschild’s principles in (30) apply to regulate the occurrence of pitch accents.
(30) a. GIVENness: A constituent that is not F-marked is given.
b. AvoidF: Do not F-mark.
In sum, every sentence has a pitch accent because every sentence has a focus, but the accents are distributed in such a way that given constituents are avoided, except
if accenting them cannot be avoided.
Féry & Samek-Lodovici (2006) propose that both focus and givenness are needed because of inescapable cases of pitch accents lacking corresponding F-marks and of F-marks lacking corresponding pitch accents. The examples illustrating both cases are taken from Schwarzschild (1999). In (31), tides has a pitch accent, despite its being given, and in (32) praised has no pitch accent, despite its being new.
(31) {The rising of the TIDES depends upon the MOON being full and} [the BOATF
being emptyF]F depends upon [the rising of the TIDES]F
(32) {What did Mary do?}
She [praisedF [her BROTHERF]F]F
To sum up so far, the general schema is that either syntax (in the case of wide focus) or semantics (in the case of focus operator or narrow focus) decides on the prosodic pattern. Syntax decides as a last resort.
There is another possible model of syntax-semantics-phonology interactions in the domains of sentence accent in which the influences act together, and each of the components plays its own role. There is no overwriting or correcting. This is the subject of the next section.
3 A phonology-based account of sentence accent assignment
This section discusses the two main roles of phonology in sentence accent assignment. The first one assigns heads to the prosodic phrases by means of a metrical grid, an abstract representation of prominence. The prosodic phrasing on which the metrical grid is constructed is derived from syntax, as illustrated in section 1. The other, more concrete role is to establish a link to phonetics. Accents have a phonetic reality, and can be realized with more or less melodic excursion, duration or intensity. They also vary in their excursion: a topic has a different kind of melodic contour than a focus (Bolinger 1986, Ladd 1980, Büring 1997, Steedman 2000 and many others). It is shown that the height of an accent is calculated from prosodic phrases and the metrical grid, first in all-new sentences, and second in sentences with narrow focus (and givenness). The prosodic phrasing associated with the syntactic structure is still available when information structure is at play. In other words, the prosodic structure coming from the syntax is not erased and replaced by another one when information structure influences the accent pattern, but rather there is an interplay between the phonological structure coming from the syntax and the one coming from the semantics. Section 3.1 introduces the components and shows how they work on all-new sentences. Section 3.2 shows the changes on sentences with a marked information structure.
3.1 Prosodic phrasing and metrical grid in all-new sentences
The first component of a phonological approach to sentence accent assignment is the construction of prosodic phrases mediating between syntax and phonetics.
Prosodic phrases are mapped to syntactic structure according to predicate-argument structure, as shown in section 1. Each prosodic phrase has a head, calculated on a metrical grid. The higher the prosodic level, the stronger the accent. Metrical grid
structure gives the relative (and abstract) strength of positions, and as such is also part of the phonological representation.
Prosodic constituents are organized in a layered hierarchy, as proposed by Selkirk (1984) and Nespor & Vogel (1986); see also the collection of papers edited by Inkelas & Zec (1990).8 A crucial difference between my approach and the original models of prosodic structure is that I assume that the level at which syntax and semantics play a role is recursive, at least up to the level of the intonation phrase, which roughly corresponds to the sentence (see Ladd 1990, Ito & Mester 2008, Wagner 2005, Féry 2009, Féry & Ishihara 2009, Féry & Kentner 2009 for recursive prosodic phrasing). The level at which syntax and phonetics interact is called the p- phrase; p-phrases can be small or large, and may be embedded into each other.9 The classic view of the metrical grid posits that every (syntactic) accent corresponds to the head of a p-phrase. An abstract example of a metrical grid with three p- phrases at the highest level of phrasing P1 is given in (33). In all P1-phrases, the highest level of phrasing in this example, a p-phrase is present at level P2, but only in the last one (P1c) does the head of P2 fall together with the head of P1. This also holds for the head of P3, which falls together with the heads of both P1 and P2.
x x x
x x x x x
(33) ( ( (x)P3 x) P2 x)P1a ( ( x)P2 x)P1b ( (( x )P3) P2)P1c
Selkirk (2008) proposes that in an all-new sentence, all accents of the larger prosodic phrases (Major Phrases in her terminology) are equally prominent. This is the view adopted in (33). In her account, only a sentence containing a narrow or contrastive accent projects this accent at the highest level, the intonation phrase.
Selkirk (2006) also convincingly argues that accent assignment is always relational, and that what matters is the difference between accents rather than their absolute height (see also Féry 2009 for this view).
As a result, the role of the Nuclear Stress Rule (NSR) as a rule assigning the strongest accent to the rightmost constituent in a sentence, which has been seriously reduced by the recognition that the predicate-argument structure prevails over linear order in making decisions about nuclear accent, is now reduced to zero. In (34), it is illustrated that the last preverbal constituent is accented. This last position may be the location of the ‘nuclear accent.’ Only in this sense does the NSR still play a role in phonology, but not in the sense that this accent is more ‘prominent’ than the preceding accents. Alternatively, the NSR can be understood as an elsewhere condition. If every constituent is accented, the last one is the strongest one.10 The NSR is now a purely phonetic operation: it interprets a linear sequence of constituents and renders the last one more prominent than the others.
8 In Inkelas & Zec (1990), the metrical grid is computed either directly or indirectly from the syntactic structure. If the relation is direct, no prosodic phrases interfere between syntax and phonology.
9 Other names for prosodic phrases are ‘major/minor phrase,’ ‘intermediate phrase,’ ‘accent group,’
etc.10
Zubizaretta (1998) assumes that the NSR should be divided into a so-called S(election-driven)- NSR, which applies on categories which are in a theta-theoretical selection relationship to each other, and a so-called C(onstituent-driven)-NSR, which relates to the structural asymmetric c-command dominance relationship. Languages differ from each other in allowing only one of the two rules to be active or both. In German S-NSR comes first, and when it cannot apply, C-NSR applies. But she does not allow both rules to apply in the same sentence.
(34) a. Maria hat ihren Hund im PARK spaziert.
Mary has her dog in.the park walked ‘Mary walked her dog in the park.’
b. Wo hat Maria ihren HUND spaziert?
where has Mary her dog walked ‘Where did Mary walk her DOG?’
There is one situation in which the NSR plays a role, which could explain why this rule has been so widely accepted. If a sentence contains an early narrow focus, the last accent is on this narrow focus, and the remainder of the sentence is destressed.
It is pronounced with a low and flat intonation. This effect renders the last pitch accent very prominent.
Let us now consider the formation of p-phrases in all-new sentences. First consider again the examples of default accent in (1) and (2), repeated as (35) and (36). In (35a) Buch ‘book’ gets the last (nuclear) accent, and in (35b), Berlin has the nuclear accent; in both sentences, the subject is accented as well. In (36), each argument has a pitch accent. In none of these sentences is the verb accented.
From the syntactic point of view, every maximal projection (XP) forms a p-phrase, which is headed by a pitch accent on the lexical stress of the head. In the VP, the accent on the last argument is sufficient, since the accent on the noun is at the same time the head of the VP (Féry & Samek-Lodovici 2006, Kratzer & Selkirk 2007).
The verb by itself is not a maximal projection (or a phase in the minimalist approach). According to all syntax-prosody mapping models, the final verb is integrated into the prosodic phrase of the preceding argument, and, for this reason, it is not accented. In the following examples, the subscripted P indicates a prosodic phrase (p-phrase). The p-phrases correspond to syntactic phrases. P1 is the highest level of prosodic constituents created through syntax-prosody mapping. P2 is the level directly below P1. Notice that, in (35) and (36) at least, the head of the second P1 is itself a prosodic constituent of level 2.
(35) a. [MARIA]P1 [hat [ein BUCH]P2 gekauft]P1
Mary has a book bought ‘Mary bought a book.’
b. [MARIA]P1 [ist [nach BERLIN]P2 gefahren]P1
Mary is to Berlin driven ‘Mary drove to Berlin.’
(36) a. [MARIA]P1 [hat [ein BUCH]P2 [einem KIND]P2 gegeben]P1
Mary has a book.ACC a child.DAT given ‘Mary gave a book to a child.’
b. [MARIA]P1 [hat [dem KIND]P2 [ein BUCH]P2 gegeben]P1
Mary has the child.DAT a book.ACC given ‘Mary gave a book to the child.’
The grid structure of sentence (36b) is illustrated in (37).
(37) x x x
x x x p-phrase
x x x PrWd
[MARIA]P1 [hat [dem KIND]P2 [ein BUCH]P2 gegeben]P1
The metrical grid by itself does not predict anything about the phonetic correlates of pitch accents. Rather these are mediated by the F0 component of prosodic phrases.
Prominence is rendered among other phonetic cues by the F0 height of pitch accents, which are themselves adjusted to the top lines of the register of prosodic domains. Typically, F0 on high tones tends to decrease stepwise in a neutral declarative sentence, which means that the last accent is realized with a lower F0 than the preceding ones. This effect is important since it is the main correlate of accent prominence. Accents in a series of prosodic domains at the same level are felt as equally prominent when they are in a downstep relationship (Liberman &
Pierrehumbert 1984 for English). In an all-new sentence, downstep is accounted for in the following way: every p-phrase at some level of embedding n is in a downstep relationship with the other p-phrases of the same level n. Downstep is represented in Fig. 1 as the range of F0 between a bottom line, which is constant, and a top line, which decreases progressively from p-phrase to p-phrase. Accordingly the melodic range becomes narrower, and high tones decrease over time. The dotted lines in the example stand for the top line (or reference line) of a p-phrase’s register, which can be reached when speakers realize an upstepped accent at the end of this p-phrase (see Truckenbrodt 2002 for upstep) or when they realize a boundary tone. The highest dotted line stands for the top line of the intonation phrase, which reaches to the end of the sentence.
P1
Maria P1
Kind
P2
Buch P2
gegeben Fig. 1
Prosodic phrasing is recursive, which means that prosodic phrases can be embedded into each other. More specifically, p-phrases of level n-1 can be present in a constituent of level n. Downstep is present at this level n-1, as well (see van den Berg et al. 1992, Truckenbrodt 2002 and Féry & Truckenbrodt 2005 for ‘downstep inside downstep’). Let us illustrate this with sentence (7), reproduced as (38). The genitive NP zahlreicher Artikel über Veralterungseffekte ‘of many articles on the effects of senescence’ is in a downstep relationship with the head noun Autor at level 2. And the most embedded noun Veralterungseffekte is in a downstep relationship with the preceding noun Artikel at level 3. The following noun Fred is in a downstep relationship with the whole subject at level 1. For this reason, Fred is slightly higher than Veralterungseffekte, which is adjusted relatively to the preceding nouns; see Fig. 2.
(38) [[Der AUTOR]P2[[zahlreicher ARTIKEL]P3 [über VERALTERUNGSEFFEKTE]P3]P2]P1 [hat [FRED]P2 erschossen]P1
‘The author of many articles on the effects of senescence shot Fred.’
P1 Autor
Artikel P2
Fred P1
Veralterungseffekte P3
Fig. 2 erschossen
Some other examples discussed in section 1 appear below. In (39), reproduced from (8d), zu schweigen ‘to be silent’ is the head of the whole verb complex. The other verbs do not project an XP, and, as a result, do not project a head.
(39) …[[weil er [zu SCHWEIGEN]P2 zu versuchen]P2 versprach]P1
In (40), reproduced from (9a), the verb is not final but in second position. Like in the examples (35) and (36), it does not project its own XP, and does not need to be accented. It is again integrated into the prosodic phrase projected by an adjacent argument. But in this case, the verb may be accented, whereas in examples (35) and (36) an accent on the verb would induce a contrastive interpretation on this word.
This difference between verb-final and verb-second sentences exemplifies the pre- vs. postnuclear accent asymmetry. Prenuclearly, words and constituents may carry a pitch accent, but not in postnuclear position. I assume this asymmetry to be entirely phonological (see also Féry & Ishihara 2009 for this claim). In postnuclear position, there is a complete collapse of the register width, which reduces to zero; see Fig. 3.
Obviously this does not happen in the prenuclear position; compare Figs. 1 and 2.
Fig. 3 illustrates the following: At the highest level of p-phrasing (P1), the sentence (40) has three constituents, each with its own head. The medial P1-constituent consists of several words, of which the NP den Hund ‘the dog’ is a p-phrase at the lower level P3, embedded in P2, which comprises the whole object. The remaining words spazierte and weißem are just Prosodic Words. As such, they can carry a pitch accent in the prenuclear position, but this accent is bound to be less prominent than the accents on the heads of their respective p-phrases.
(40) [MARIA]P1 [spazierte [[den HUND]P3 [mit weißem FELL]P3]P2]P1 [im PARK]P1
Maria
spazierte
den Hund
mit weißem Fell
im Park Fig. 3
Let us now turn to (41), reproduced from (10a). This sentence has an alternative accent pattern. It may have a pitch accent on Supermarkt, or not. If it does, the p- phrasing is the same as in (37); see (41a). If it does not, as Kratzer & Selkirk (2007)
claim, the verb is integrated into the constituent headed by its direct object and not into the constituent headed by the locational PP. The PP is then in the postnuclear part of the sentence and is unaccented. This is illustrated in Fig. 4. This difference comes from the syntax and is reflected in prosodic structure. The accent structure illustrated in (41b) is not a general option, but seems to be largely restricted to locational and directional PPs or adverbs.
(41) a. … [dass ein JUNGE]P1 [[eine GEIGE]P2 [im SUPERMARKT]P2 kaufte]P1
b.… [dass ein JUNGE]P1 [[eine GEIGE]P2 im Supermarkt kaufte]P1
dass ein Junge
eine Geige
im Supermarkt kaufte
Fig. 4
So far, only examples with a lexically filled verb-adjacent argument have been shown. In (42a), repeated from (12), there are again two P1-phrases. But when the direct object is pronominal, it cannot carry a pitch accent (except if used contrastively). This happens for instance in the sentence (42b), repeated from (13), with a pronominal preverbal direct object of a transitive sentence. As a result, the head of the p-phrase is now the verb. In this particular example, it is the particle of the particle-verb complex, but in (35) or (36) it is the past participle itself.
(42) a. [MARIA]P1 [hat [ihre MUTTER]P2 angerufen]P1
b. [MARIA]P1 [hat sie ANgerufen]P1
The last examples to be discussed in this section concern the contrast between intransitive sentences with a single pitch accent on the subject and those with an additional accent on the verb. The sentences in (43) illustrate the eventive reading of a sentence, as opposed to the topic-comment reading. In (43a), originally (17a), only the subject is accented and the remainder of the sentence is unaccented. This corresponds to the eventive reading. This sentence could be uttered for instance in a context in which the speaker explains why she is late. In (43b) (=21), subject and verb are accented. The sentence can be uttered in a context saying something about a car. It illustrates that information structure may force the emergence of a p-phrase.
(43) a. [[Mein AUTO]P2 ist stehen geblieben]P1
b. [Mein AUTOTOP]P1 [ist STEHEN geblieben]P1
my car is stand remained ‘My car stopped.’
More intriguing are the examples in (44). A sentence with an unergative accented verb can also be uttered with only one accent on the subject if the whole sentence is expressed as the rendition of a single event. This is shown with (18), reproduced as (44).
(44) a. …. [[weil MARIA]P2getanzthat]P1
b. …. [weil MARIATOP]P1[GETANZT hat]P1
… because Maria danced has ‘because Mary danced’
It is difficult to explain the difference between the last two pairs of examples in purely syntactic terms. Jäger (2001) as well as Kratzer & Selkirk (2007) locate the origin of the difference between the accent structure of these sentences in the topic phrase, which can be overt or covert. As explained in section 1, in (43a) and (44a) the topic is a covert temporal-locational frame for the remainder of the sentence.
The sentence only consists of the focused part, in which argument and verb are phrased together. In (43b) and (44b), the topic is the subject. An overt topic is in a separate prosodic phrase and calls for a second prosodic phrase containing the focus. I assume that phrasing at the level of the prosodic phrase is exhaustive.
The difference between stage-level and individual-level sentences, illustrated in (16) and (19), can be accounted for in similar terms. In the stage-level reading, the topic is temporally and locationally defined (though not expressed), whereas in the individual-level reading, the assertion is devoid of such a frame (it is always true), and the subject takes over the function of topic. A realized topic projects a p-phrase on its own, and thus has an additional p-phrase as compared to the same sentence without a topic. As before, the p-phrases at the same level are in a downstep relationship to each other.
3.2 Prosodic effects of information structure
It was shown in the preceding section that information structure may have an effect on the formation of p-phrases. However it was suggested that this effect is restricted to cases inducing a topic phrase, like those discussed in (43) and (44).
In this section, it is shown that a narrow focus in situ does not restructure the prosodic phrasing of a sentence, though it has an effect on pitch accents.
Consider what happens to the sentence (35b) when a narrow focus is located on Maria. In this case, the nuclear stress is no longer on Berlin, which is given, as indicated with the subscripted G but is now on Maria, and the remainder of the sentence is unaccented.
(45) {Who went to Berlin?}
[MARIAF]P1 [ist [nach BerlinG]P2 gefahren]P1
According to Gussenhoven (1983, 1992), the p-phrase structure of such a sentence is not the same as in the all-new reading. The original p-phrase boundaries on the VP are erased because, in this model, pitch accents are heads of p-phrases, and p- phrases cannot exist without a head. Gussenhoven only allows p-phrases on focused constituents, and is not explicit about the phrasing of given material.11 Alternatively, Pierrehumbert & Beckmann (1988) impose a new boundary before the focused word. In their account, focus phrases add new p-phrases (or Intermediate Phrases in their terminology). In both cases, restructuring of prosodic boundaries is the consequence of a marked information structure.
In a different view of prosodic phrasing applicable to German, p-phrases are the result of syntax-prosody mapping, and are blind to information structure (see Féry 2009). In other words, p-phrasing results from syntax in all cases. The advantage of
11 Gussenhoven (1992) proposes the Sentence Accent Assignment Rule (SAAR) in (i).
(i) ‘If focused, every predicate, argument, and modifier must be accented, with the exception of a predicate that, discounting unfocused constituents, is adjacent to an argument.’
such a view is that information structure can be ignored for the prosodic phrasing.
Thus, the phrasing of (45) is always the same, regardless of the presence of pitch accents as heads of p-phrases.
But, obviously, focus structure as well as givenness have an effect on the melody of the sentence. One of the most perceptible effects of narrow focus is to locally raise the F0 of the focused constituents. And it also lowers non-locally the F0 of non- focused constituents. I assume that raising and lowering of pitch accents are mediated through extension and reduction of the register of the p-phrases containing the narrow focus and the given constituents, respectively. As before, the pitch accents adjust to the top lines of their domain. Prefocally, the F0 is only reduced, but postfocally, it is cancelled. The kind of information structure has an effect on the register used in a sentence. Second Occurrence Focus reduces the accents, but not as much as givenness. A contrastive accent increases the F0 more than a non- contrastive informational focus. I refer the reader to Féry (2009) and Féry &
Ishihara (2009) for models of the effects of narrow focus, Second Occurrence Focus (SOF) and givenness on the F0 of constituents.
4. Conclusion
German sentence accent assignment originates in syntax and information structure, and phonology implements these effects in a specific way. Syntax defines prosodic phrases, and identifies on each prosodic phrase a most prominent constituent; this is translated into a metrical grid, an abstract phonological representation. Important for the phonological interpretation of phrasing and metrical grid are F0 registers of prosodic phrases at every level of embedding. A sequence of p-phrases at a specific level are in a downstep relation. An all-new sentence is only sensitive to this pattern of downstep, and adjusts all pitch accents to the top lines of these downstepped p- phrases, modulo boundary tones, which can go back to previous top lines still attainable at the moment of utterance. The phonetic realization, like the height of high and low tones, is thus understood as indices for the speaker and hearer to keep track of the syntactic structure of a sentence.
Information structure, in the form of topic-comment, can add a prosodic phrase around the topic, forcing the emergence of a focus phrase. Another pervasive effect of information structure is that it manipulates the top lines of register domains. A narrow focus raises a top line, a prenuclear given constituent lowers it, and a postnuclear given constituent reduces the register to its minimum, producing the effect that the material in this position is unaccented.
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caroline.fery@googlemail.com
