Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

The many colors of prominence : a pilot study of topic prosodic units

Erickson, Donna LU ; Raso, Tommaso ; Lundmark, Malin Svensson LU orcid ; Frid, Johan LU orcid and Coulange, Sylvain (2025) In Journal of Speech Sciences 14. p.025008-025008
Abstract
This paper examines prominence from a pragmatic, phonological and acoustic-articulatory perspective. Based on results of a corpus-based analysis of Topic prosodic units in four languages (Italian, Brazilian and European Portuguese, and American English), three types of topic prosodic forms (TPFs) are described. Also are reviewed studies reporting phonological organization of English prominence patterns, as well as acoustic and articulatory characteristics of prominence, i.e., broad focus, narrow focus and emphasis, and specifically, how jaw lowering increases with increased prominence. Topic prominence has its scope on the whole prosodic unit, while narrow focus/emphasis prominence has its scope on one word. To examine the acoustic and... (More)
This paper examines prominence from a pragmatic, phonological and acoustic-articulatory perspective. Based on results of a corpus-based analysis of Topic prosodic units in four languages (Italian, Brazilian and European Portuguese, and American English), three types of topic prosodic forms (TPFs) are described. Also are reviewed studies reporting phonological organization of English prominence patterns, as well as acoustic and articulatory characteristics of prominence, i.e., broad focus, narrow focus and emphasis, and specifically, how jaw lowering increases with increased prominence. Topic prominence has its scope on the whole prosodic unit, while narrow focus/emphasis prominence has its scope on one word. To examine the acoustic and articulatory characteristics of global prominence in a Topic prosodic unit compared with local prominence when the final topic word is emphasized, a pilot study of TPFs as spoken by an American English speaker was done. The results suggest that global Topic prominence differs from that of marking narrow focus/emphasis; narrow focus/emphasis prominence and Topic prominence are two different types of prominences both from the acoustic-articulatory and from the functional point of view. A new articulatory finding is that only for local prominence, i.e., when the topic word is emphasized, does the jaw show the largest amount of lowering in the phrase; for global prominence, the largest amount of jaw lowering occurs on another word within the phrase, not on the final topic word. Our findings, thus, suggest that there are different types of prominences whose functional values are reflected in the formal cues that implement them. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Topic, Prominence, Articulation, Pragmatics, Phonology
in
Journal of Speech Sciences
volume
14
pages
23 pages
DOI
10.20396/joss.v14i00.20381
project
Språkbanken & Swe-Clarin
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
64ef0abf-0ac0-47bf-8633-6b4a74fc79f6
date added to LUP
2025-10-21 12:46:05
date last changed
2025-10-24 03:03:39
@article{64ef0abf-0ac0-47bf-8633-6b4a74fc79f6,
  abstract     = {{This paper examines prominence from a pragmatic, phonological and acoustic-articulatory perspective. Based on results of a corpus-based analysis of Topic prosodic units in four languages (Italian, Brazilian and European Portuguese, and American English), three types of topic prosodic forms (TPFs) are described. Also are reviewed studies reporting phonological organization of English prominence patterns, as well as acoustic and articulatory characteristics of prominence, i.e., broad focus, narrow focus and emphasis, and specifically, how jaw lowering increases with increased prominence. Topic prominence has its scope on the whole prosodic unit, while narrow focus/emphasis prominence has its scope on one word. To examine the acoustic and articulatory characteristics of global prominence in a Topic prosodic unit compared with local prominence when the final topic word is emphasized, a pilot study of TPFs as spoken by an American English speaker was done. The results suggest that global Topic prominence differs from that of marking narrow focus/emphasis; narrow focus/emphasis prominence and Topic prominence are two different types of prominences both from the acoustic-articulatory and from the functional point of view. A new articulatory finding is that only for local prominence, i.e., when the topic word is emphasized, does the jaw show the largest amount of lowering in the phrase; for global prominence, the largest amount of jaw lowering occurs on another word within the phrase, not on the final topic word. Our findings, thus, suggest that there are different types of prominences whose functional values are reflected in the formal cues that implement them.}},
  author       = {{Erickson, Donna and Raso, Tommaso and Lundmark, Malin Svensson and Frid, Johan and Coulange, Sylvain}},
  keywords     = {{Topic; Prominence; Articulation; Pragmatics; Phonology}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{025008--025008}},
  series       = {{Journal of Speech Sciences}},
  title        = {{The many colors of prominence : a pilot study of topic prosodic units}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.20396/joss.v14i00.20381}},
  doi          = {{10.20396/joss.v14i00.20381}},
  volume       = {{14}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}