The focus prominence rule in Spanish from a perception perspective

Autores/as

  • Christoph Gabriel
  • Steffen Heidinger

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7557/1.11.1.6483

Palabras clave:

Argentinean Spanish, Peninsular Spanish, focus, word order, nuclear stress, syntax-prosody interface, perception

Resumen

La ley de correspondencia entre foco y acento (inglés focus prominence rule, FPR) predice que los hablantes articulan sus enunciados de tal manera que el acento nuclear cae dentro del dominio focal (¿Qué compró Juan?Juan compró [una biciCLEta]F / *JUAN compró [una bicicleta]F). En este trabajo, examinamos las consecuencias de la FPR para la interpretación del foco. Para ello, realizamos un experimento de percepción con dos grupos de participantes que representaban las variedades argentina y peninsular. Examinamos si la partición foco-trasfondo asignada por los oyentes a las oraciones SVO (sin contexto) corresponde a la estructura informativa bajo la cual las oraciones habían sido producidas originalmente. Los resultados muestran que la interpretación por los oyentes coincide con la partición foco-trasfondo de los estímulos en el 70% de las respuestas y que la tasa de precisión depende fuertemente de tres variables: tipo de foco (foco contrastivo (FC) > foco informativo (FI)), constituyente focalizado (sujeto > objeto directo) y variedad hablada por los participantes (español argentino > español peninsular). La precisión oscila entre el 94% ([sujeto]FC, participantes argentinos) y el 43% ([objeto]FI, hablantes de español peninsular). Además de los tres factores mencionados, discutimos si la colocación del acento nuclear (y la forma de la oración en general) pueden considerarse dispositivos para marcar el foco en español. Sostenemos que la forma de la oración se ve mejor como un filtro que descarta ciertas interpretaciones de la estructura informativa, pero las pistas contextuales son a menudo necesarias para identificar la partición foco-trasfondo.

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2022-06-01

Cómo citar

Gabriel, C., & Heidinger, S. (2022). The focus prominence rule in Spanish from a perception perspective. Borealis – An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 11(1), 141-172. https://doi.org/10.7557/1.11.1.6483

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