Sentence stress in presidential speeches
-
Arto Anttila
Abstract
Sentential prominence is not represented in writing, it is hard to measure phonetically, and it is highly variable, yet it undoubtedly exists. Here we report preliminary findings from our study of sentential prominence in the inaugural addresses of six U.S. presidents. We confirm the familiar hypothesis that sentential prominence has two sources (Jespersen 1920): it is partly mechanical and depends on syntax (Chomsky & Halle 1968, Liberman & Prince 1977, Cinque 1993) and partly meaningful in that it highlights informative material (Bolinger 1972). Both contribute independently to perceived prominence. Pursuing the view that sentential prominence is amatter of stress,we provide evidence for the linguistic reality of the Nuclear Stress Rule (Chomsky & Halle 1968) as well as the view that information coincides with stress peaks in good prose (Bolinger 1957).We also observe that part of speech matters to sentence stress: noun and adjective stresses are loud and mechanical; verb and function word stresses are soft and meaningful. We suggest that thismay explainwhy parts of speech differ inword phonology as well.
Abstract
Sentential prominence is not represented in writing, it is hard to measure phonetically, and it is highly variable, yet it undoubtedly exists. Here we report preliminary findings from our study of sentential prominence in the inaugural addresses of six U.S. presidents. We confirm the familiar hypothesis that sentential prominence has two sources (Jespersen 1920): it is partly mechanical and depends on syntax (Chomsky & Halle 1968, Liberman & Prince 1977, Cinque 1993) and partly meaningful in that it highlights informative material (Bolinger 1972). Both contribute independently to perceived prominence. Pursuing the view that sentential prominence is amatter of stress,we provide evidence for the linguistic reality of the Nuclear Stress Rule (Chomsky & Halle 1968) as well as the view that information coincides with stress peaks in good prose (Bolinger 1957).We also observe that part of speech matters to sentence stress: noun and adjective stresses are loud and mechanical; verb and function word stresses are soft and meaningful. We suggest that thismay explainwhy parts of speech differ inword phonology as well.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Prosody in syntactic encoding 1
- Sentence stress in presidential speeches 17
- German case ambiguities at the interface: Production and comprehension 51
- Ambiguity resolution via the syntax-prosody interface: The case of kya ‘what’ in Urdu/Hindi 85
- Focus structure affects comparatives: Experimental and corpus work 119
- The ordering of interface mapping rules in German object fronting 159
- Interaction at the syntax–prosody interface 189
- Syntacticizing intonation? Tag questions in Glasgow Scots 219
- A prosodic constraint on prenominal modification 245
- Cartography cannot express scrambling restrictions – but interface-driven relational approaches can 265
- Head movement as a syntax-phonology interface phenomenon 303
- Index 331
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Prosody in syntactic encoding 1
- Sentence stress in presidential speeches 17
- German case ambiguities at the interface: Production and comprehension 51
- Ambiguity resolution via the syntax-prosody interface: The case of kya ‘what’ in Urdu/Hindi 85
- Focus structure affects comparatives: Experimental and corpus work 119
- The ordering of interface mapping rules in German object fronting 159
- Interaction at the syntax–prosody interface 189
- Syntacticizing intonation? Tag questions in Glasgow Scots 219
- A prosodic constraint on prenominal modification 245
- Cartography cannot express scrambling restrictions – but interface-driven relational approaches can 265
- Head movement as a syntax-phonology interface phenomenon 303
- Index 331
