Mut, Tsz Ching and Simard, Candide and Tamata, Apolonia and Lee, Albert (2023) Focus prosody in Fijian: In-situ focus marking. [Book, Journal, Proceedings Edited]
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Abstract
This paper presents an acoustic analysis of focus prosody in Fijian - a verb-first language. We analysed the pitch (f0), intensity, and duration data of the same sentence that vary in the position of narrow focus: (i) initial, (ii) medial, and (iii) final focus, compared to the neutral focus. Compared with neutral focus, we found that narrow focus led to a general elevation of the pitch f0, greater intensity, and longer mean syllable duration. The only exception is for initial focus. Initial focus differs from the other two positions, with shorter mean syllable duration and no significant difference in intensity with neutral focus. We used sentences composed solely of juxtaposed NPs to elicit focus because in a verb-first language, focus is otherwise often marked by word order.
| Item Type: | Book, Journal, Proceedings Edited |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics P Language and Literature > PL Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania |
| Divisions: | Faculty of Arts, Law and Education (FALE) > School of Language, Arts and Media > Confucius Institute |
| Depositing User: | Apolonia Tamata |
| Date Deposited: | 24 Jul 2025 22:53 |
| Last Modified: | 24 Jul 2025 23:01 |
| URI: | https://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/14075 |
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