The Role of Prosody in the Processing of Ambiguities in Brazilian Portuguese
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René Alain Santana de Almeida
Abstract
The present paper aims to analyze the role of prosody in the resolution of a global ambiguity in sentences of the type NP1 – V – NP2 – Adverb of place – Adverb of intensity (bastante / ‘very’) – Attribute (O guitarrista recebeu o baterista no quarto bastante drogado / ‘The guitarist received the drummer in the room very drugged’), in Brazilian Portuguese. We consider the hypothesis that prosodic cues, such as focus and pause, aid in the process of disambiguation and that, such cues may also contribute to anticipating the preference for a referent even before the attribute is uttered. The experimental paradigm of this study used online measurements resulting from the method of the visual world paradigm, with auditory and visual stimuli, through eye tracking. The recordings were acoustically manipulated in Praat (Boersma 2001). Upon hearing the segment bastante / ‘very’, the preference from participants for the NP1 increased significantly, in the conditions in which there was prosodic manipulation, even before the adjective was processed. The results suggest that focus and pause are independent factors that influence the anaphoric preference very early during processing.
Abstract
The present paper aims to analyze the role of prosody in the resolution of a global ambiguity in sentences of the type NP1 – V – NP2 – Adverb of place – Adverb of intensity (bastante / ‘very’) – Attribute (O guitarrista recebeu o baterista no quarto bastante drogado / ‘The guitarist received the drummer in the room very drugged’), in Brazilian Portuguese. We consider the hypothesis that prosodic cues, such as focus and pause, aid in the process of disambiguation and that, such cues may also contribute to anticipating the preference for a referent even before the attribute is uttered. The experimental paradigm of this study used online measurements resulting from the method of the visual world paradigm, with auditory and visual stimuli, through eye tracking. The recordings were acoustically manipulated in Praat (Boersma 2001). Upon hearing the segment bastante / ‘very’, the preference from participants for the NP1 increased significantly, in the conditions in which there was prosodic manipulation, even before the adjective was processed. The results suggest that focus and pause are independent factors that influence the anaphoric preference very early during processing.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents IX
- Prosody and L2 Learning Interface: The Case of Spanish L2 and Brazilian Portuguese L1 Intonation 1
- The Role of Prosody in the Processing of Ambiguities in Brazilian Portuguese 31
- Defining and Identifying Discourse Markers in Spontaneous Speech 65
- A Contribution to a Better Understanding of Silent Pause 103
- Perceptual and Physiological Correlates of Voice Quality Settings 127
- Multimodal Analysis of Speech Attractiveness Expression 151
- Posture and Gestures Can Affect the Prosodic Speaker Impact in a Remote Presentation 181
- An Acoustic Analysis of Creaky Voice Patterns in Singing 223
- Evaluating OpenAI’s Whisper ASR for Punctuation Prediction and Topic Modeling of life histories of the Museum of the Person 247
- Index
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents IX
- Prosody and L2 Learning Interface: The Case of Spanish L2 and Brazilian Portuguese L1 Intonation 1
- The Role of Prosody in the Processing of Ambiguities in Brazilian Portuguese 31
- Defining and Identifying Discourse Markers in Spontaneous Speech 65
- A Contribution to a Better Understanding of Silent Pause 103
- Perceptual and Physiological Correlates of Voice Quality Settings 127
- Multimodal Analysis of Speech Attractiveness Expression 151
- Posture and Gestures Can Affect the Prosodic Speaker Impact in a Remote Presentation 181
- An Acoustic Analysis of Creaky Voice Patterns in Singing 223
- Evaluating OpenAI’s Whisper ASR for Punctuation Prediction and Topic Modeling of life histories of the Museum of the Person 247
- Index
