Swedish as a [+Continuity] language : left-edge prosody and right-edge morphosyntax
Author
Editor
- Johan Brandtler
- David Håkansson
- Stefan Huber
- Eva Klingvall
Summary, in English
Abstract in Undetermined
Swedish and French avoid placing focused constituents at the left periphery of sentences. This has previously been suggested to be due to phonological factors. Here, we develop this idea and argue that the reason for avoiding focus at the left edge in these languages is the existence of syntactically related prosodic prominences in the beginning of utterances. Initial focal accents would overlap with the syntactically related accents, forcing a suboptimal prosodic structure. Further, we provide evidence for such a left-edge boundary tone in Swedish main clauses, as well as for a complementary strong tendency in Swedish to associate the right edge of sentences with focus.
Swedish and French avoid placing focused constituents at the left periphery of sentences. This has previously been suggested to be due to phonological factors. Here, we develop this idea and argue that the reason for avoiding focus at the left edge in these languages is the existence of syntactically related prosodic prominences in the beginning of utterances. Initial focal accents would overlap with the syntactically related accents, forcing a suboptimal prosodic structure. Further, we provide evidence for such a left-edge boundary tone in Swedish main clauses, as well as for a complementary strong tendency in Swedish to associate the right edge of sentences with focus.
Department/s
Publishing year
2012
Language
English
Pages
333-341
Publication/Series
Discourse and grammar : a festschrift in honor of Valéria Molnár
Full text
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Document type
Book chapter
Publisher
Lund University (Media-Tryck)
Topic
- General Language Studies and Linguistics
Keywords
- boundary-tone
- left periphery
- focus
- C-continuity
- Swedish
- prosody
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISBN: 978-91-637-0411-6