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Swedish as a [+Continuity] language : left-edge prosody and right-edge morphosyntax

Horne, Merle LU orcid and Roll, Mikael LU (2012) p.333-341
Abstract
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.
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
publication status
published
subject
keywords
boundary-tone, left periphery, focus, C-continuity, Swedish, prosody
host publication
Discourse and grammar : a festschrift in honor of Valéria Molnár
editor
Brandtler, Johan ; Håkansson, David ; Huber, Stefan and Klingvall, Eva
pages
333 - 341
publisher
Lund University (Media-Tryck)
ISBN
978-91-637-0411-6
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
The information about affiliations in this record was updated in December 2015. The record was previously connected to the following departments: Linguistics and Phonetics (015010003)
id
d0ecd915-6365-4f03-9406-6a09a01b28f1 (old id 2437994)
date added to LUP
2016-04-04 12:23:33
date last changed
2021-03-29 22:16:44
@inbook{d0ecd915-6365-4f03-9406-6a09a01b28f1,
  abstract     = {{Abstract in Undetermined<br/>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.}},
  author       = {{Horne, Merle and Roll, Mikael}},
  booktitle    = {{Discourse and grammar : a festschrift in honor of Valéria Molnár}},
  editor       = {{Brandtler, Johan and Håkansson, David and Huber, Stefan and Klingvall, Eva}},
  isbn         = {{978-91-637-0411-6}},
  keywords     = {{boundary-tone; left periphery; focus; C-continuity; Swedish; prosody}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{333--341}},
  publisher    = {{Lund University (Media-Tryck)}},
  title        = {{Swedish as a [+Continuity] language : left-edge prosody and right-edge morphosyntax}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/5994449/2437995.pdf}},
  year         = {{2012}},
}