Prosodic and Morphological Focus Marking in Ixcatec (Otomanguean)

Evangelia Adamou, Matthew Gordon, & Stefan Th. Gries. Prosodic and Morphological Focus Marking in Ixcatec (Otomanguean). in Evangelia Adamou, Katharina Haude, & Martine Vanhove (Eds.), Information Structure in Lesser-Described Languages: Studies in Prosody and Syntax, 51-83, 2018

35 Pages Posted: 10 Jan 2019

See all articles by Evangelia Adamou

Evangelia Adamou

CNRS

Matthew Gordon

University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)

Stefan Th. Gries

University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) - Department of Linguistics; JLU Giessen

Date Written: December 30, 2018

Abstract

This paper presents the first description of the expression of focus in Ixcatec, a nearly extinct language of Mexico. The study is based on experimental tasks carried out with the last three fluent speakers of Ixcatec. Prosodic analysis shows that in Ixcatec, a language with three lexical tones, contrastive focus is associated with raised F0, lack of focus is marked through lowered F0 and decreased duration, and corrective focus is signaled through various speaker-specific means. Finally, this study shows that morphological and phonetic properties display a complex interaction that contradicts the view that focus may be conveyed through either morphological or phonetic exponents but not both.

Suggested Citation

Adamou, Evangelia and Gordon, Matthew and Gries, Stefan Th., Prosodic and Morphological Focus Marking in Ixcatec (Otomanguean) (December 30, 2018). Evangelia Adamou, Matthew Gordon, & Stefan Th. Gries. Prosodic and Morphological Focus Marking in Ixcatec (Otomanguean). in Evangelia Adamou, Katharina Haude, & Martine Vanhove (Eds.), Information Structure in Lesser-Described Languages: Studies in Prosody and Syntax, 51-83, 2018, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3307968

Evangelia Adamou

CNRS

France

Matthew Gordon

University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)

South Hall 5504
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
United States

Stefan Th. Gries (Contact Author)

University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) - Department of Linguistics ( email )

Santa Barbara, CA 93106
United States

JLU Giessen ( email )

Licher Str. 64
Giessen, 35394
Germany

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