Morphological focus marking and pitch prominence in Tundra

Morphological focus marking and pitch prominence in Tundra Yukaghir Dejan Matic & Cecilia Odé dejan. matic@mpi. nl, c. ode@uva. nl

Focus and Stress • Universality of focus-stress correspondence – Basic Focus Rule: An accented word is F(ocus)-marked (Selkirk 1995: 555) – Stress-Focus Correspondence Principle: The focus of a clause is a(ny) constituent containing the main stress of the intonational phrase, as determined by the stress rule (Reinhart 1995: 62) – Focus: A Focus-marked phrase contains an accent (Schwarzschild 1999: 173) – Stress-Focus: A focused phrase has the highest prosodic prominence in its focus domain (Féry & Samek-Lodovici 2006: 135 -6)

Focus and Stress (cont. ) • Counterexamples – Tone languages using local changes of pitch range instead of stress/pitch accents (cf. e. g. Xu 1999 for Mandarin) – Languages which use prosodic phrasing to mark focus instead of stress/pitch (cf. e. g. Pierrehumbert & Bekman 1988 for Japanese, Kanerva 1990, Downing et al. 2004 for Chichewa, Koch 2008 for Thompson River Salish) – Languages without any correlation between focus and prosody (cf. e. g. Rialland & Robert 2001 for Wolof, Lindström & Remijsen 2005 for Kuot, Zerbian 2007 for Sotho, Hartmann & Zimmermann 2007 for Hausa)

Focus and Stress (cont. ) • No correlation between focus and prosody: languages with morphological focus marking (Wolof, Kuot, Hausa) • Does morphological focus marking imply lack of prosodic marking of focus? • The purpose of the talk: Describe the interaction of prosody and focus in a non-tonal language with (partial) morphological focus marking

Yukaghir • Tundra Yukaghir and Kolyma Yukaghir: a small language family of north-eastern Siberia, perhaps distantly related to Uralic (cf. Fortescue 1998, Nikolaeva 2000: 25 ff. , 2006) • Tundra Yukaghir: 50 -55 mostly elderly speakers (as of summer 2010): – villages of Andrjushkino and Kolymskoe in the Lower Kolyma Tundra (35 -40 speakers) – the village of Cherksy (13 speakers) – Yakutsk (5 speakers)

Tundra Yukaghir

Maria N. Tokhtosova, Il’ja I. Kurilov, Vasilij N. Tret’jakov, Maria N. Kurilova

Anna E. Tret’jakova, Fedosija I. Kurilova, Ala: ji

Olera Tundra, village of Andrjushkino, yurt in Toghoj near Andrjushkino

Focus Marking in Tundra Yukaghir • Focused core arguments (S and O) – focus case -le(ŋ) or -(e)k – S- or O-focus agreement on the verb (1) – Neme-leŋ iŋeː-meŋ? what-FOC fear-OF. 1/2 SG – Labunmə-leŋ iŋeː-meŋ. ptarmigan-FOC fear-OF. 1/2 SG “ – What do you fear? – I fear ptarmigans. ” (K 05: 240)

Focus Marking in Tundra Yukaghir (cont. ) • Focus on the verb – no focus case – particle me(r)= + ‘neutral’ verb agreement (2) Tada: t me=kew-eč. Taŋ l'eml'e-pul-ŋin then VFOC=go-PF. INTR(3 SG) that chief-PL-DAT nime-γe me=segu-j house-LOC VFOC=enter-INTR(3 SG) “Then he left. He entered the house of their chief. ” (K 05: 150)

Focus Marking in Tundra Yukaghir (cont. ) • Focus on oblique arguments/adjuncts – no focus case, no particle mə(r)= – ‘neutral’ verb agreement (3) – Qaduŋudeŋ kew-ej? whither go-PF(3 SG) – Moskva-ŋiń keweč. Moscow-DAT go-PF. INTR(3 SG) “ – Where did he go? – He went to Moscow. ” (fd_DM 08)

Focus Marking in Tundra Yukaghir: Summary Focus case + Focus agreement Focus on S/O Focus on oblique Focus on verb Neutral agreement Particle mə(r)=

Experiment • Purpose: – presence of pitch prominence on focusmarked S’s and O’s; – similarities in F 0 prominence patterns of focus -marked S/O’s, non-focus-marked focused obliques, and mə(r)=-marked verbs; – differences in F 0 prominence patterns between broad and narrow focus construals

Experiment (cont. ) • Setup – 4 speakers (Andrjushkino and Chersky) – question-answer pairs (Xu 1999) • with explicit contrast (Is it X? It is Y, not X) • without contrast (What is it? It is X) – five focus constellations (SFoc, Obl. Foc, VFoc, Broad. Foc) – 33 q-a pairs X 4 speakers = 132 pairs – Reading intonation avoided via multiple repetition (Zerbian 2007)

Results 1: Focused Subjects and Objects • In all instances: pitch prominence on S/O with morphological focus marking • Pitch movement: falling pitch on focused S/O, followed by low pitch (no perceptually relevant pitch movements after focused S/O) • Morphological focus marking AND pitch prominence

Results 1: Focused Subjects and Objects (4) Eguojie kin-ek jaqte-te-l? Apanala: -leŋ jaqte-te-l. tomorrow who-FOC sing-FUT-SUB. FOC old. woman-FOC sing-FUT-S. FOC “Who is going to sing tomorrow? ” “The/an old woman will sing. ” (5) Ivan kin-ek juo-mele? Tudel apanala: -leŋ juo-mele. I. who-FOC see-OBJ. FOC. 3 sg He old. woman-FOC see-OBJ. FOC. 3 sg “Who did Ivan see? ” “He saw the/an old woman. ”

Results 2: Focused Obliques • In all instances: pitch prominence on focused obliques without morphological focus marking • Pitch movement: falling pitch on focused elements, followed by low pitch (no perceptually relevant pitch movements after focused oblique) • The same type of pitch prominence as with morphologically focus-marked S/O’s

Results 2: Focused Obliques (6) Tet ama: qańin kelu-Ø? you father when arrive-INTERR. 3 sg Tudel awja: kelu-j. he yesterday arrive-INTR. 3 sg “When did your father arrive? ” “He arrived yesterday. ”

Results 3: Focused Verbs • In most instances (2 exceptions): pitch prominence on focused verbs marked with particle me(r)= • Pitch movement: falling pitch on mə(r)=, followed by a rise and a fall on the last syllable. • The first pitch movement identical to other focus-triggered pitch movements • Unclear status of the final rise and fall (end of the intonational phrase)

Results 3: Focused Verbs (7) Tu-ŋ adil qa: lid'e-le me=jewligi-m? DEM-ATTR young. man wolf-ACC VFOC=like-TR. 3 sg Ele: ń, adil qa: lid'e-le mer=iŋie-m. no young. man wolf-ACC VFOC=fear-TR. 3 sg “Does that young man like wolves? ” “No, the young man is afraid of wolves”

Results 4: Narrow Focus & Broad Focus • Broad focus (answer to questions “What happened? ” “What does X do? ”) expressed with the same morphological means as narrow focus on S – focus case (-le(ŋ) or -(e)k) + S/O focus agreement • No detectable prosodic differences: falling pitch on S/O followed by low pitch level

Results 4: Narrow Focus and Broad Focus (8) Tudel adi-leŋ uba: -mele? he young. man-FOC kiss-OBJ. FOC. 3 sg El=adi-leŋ, met-ek uba: -mele. NEG=young. man-FOC me-FOC kiss-OBJ. FOC. 3 sg “Did she kiss the young man? ” “Not the young man - she kissed me. ” (narrow) (9) Tudel neme-le wie-mele? Met-ek uba: -mele. he what-FOC do-OBJ. FOC. 3 sg me-FOC kiss-OBJ. FOC. 3 sg “What did she do? ” “She kissed me. ” (broad)

Results 5: The Role of Contrast • Are there differences in pitch movement with contrastive foci in comparison to those which do not stand in immediate contrast to salient alternatives? • No detectable prosodic differences: falling pitch on S/O followed by low pitch level

Results 5: The Role of Contrast (4) Eguojie kin-ek jaqte-te-l? Apanala: -leŋ jaqte-te-l. tomorrow who-FOC sing-FUT-SUB. FOC old. woman-FOC sing-FUT-S. FOC “Who is going to sing tomorrow? ” “The/an old woman will sing. ” (no contrast) (10) Eguojie pa: d'eduo-leŋ jaqte-te-l? tomorrow girl-FOC sing-FUT. SUB-FOC El=pa: d'eduo-leŋ, apanala: -leŋ jaqte-te-l. NEG=girl-FOC old. woman-FOC sing-FUT-SUB. FOC “Will the girl sing tomorrow? ” “Not the girl, the old woman will sing. ” (contrast)

Retrospects • Morphologically marked focus on S/O is redundantly prosodically marked. • The same type of pitch prominence is found on foci which are not morphologically marked and (to a certain extent) on morphologically marked verbs. • Contrast and focus scope play no role in pitch prominence asignment. ⇨ Falling pitch followed by low pitch level is a marker of focus in TY across different types of focus marking

Retrospects (cont. ) Prosodic marking of focus and morphological focus systems are typologically not mutually exclusive

Prospects • Deepening the analysis: duration and intensity in addition to F 0; more comparison across sentences • Enhancing the data set: – further variabales (positional, etc. ) – corpus data • Perception experiments (matching questions to answers and vice versa)