ESCA Workshop on Prosody Lund, Sweden September 27-29, 1993

How to Tell H% from L% in Right-Detached Expressions in Norwegian

Thorstein Fretheim, Randi Alice Nilsen

Department of Linguistics, University of Trondheim, Dragvoll, Norway

Native listeners' perception and identification of boundary tone - either tow (L%) or high (H%) - in East Norwegian intonation contours is determined by more than just the presence of a falling or a rising tune at the end of the contour. Empirical evidence supports the claim that the H%-L% distinction in syntactically right-detached particles which are lexically specified for boundary tone is accessed most easily if H% is expressed inside and L% outside a focal Foot. This paper accounts for the observed constraints.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Fretheim, Thorstein / Nilsen, Randi Alice (1993): "How to tell h% from l% in right-detached expressions in Norwegian", In Prosody-1993, 58-61.