Gilbert Ambrazaitis

Between Fall and Fall-Rise: Substance-Function Relations in German Phrase-Final Intonation Contours

This study investigates an intonation contour of German whose status has notbeen established yet: a globally falling contour with a slight rise at the very end ofthe phrase (FSR). The contour may be said to lie on a phonetic continuum betweenfalling (F) and falling-rising (FR) contours. It is hypothesized that F, FR and FSR dif-ferwith respect to their communicative functions: F is terminal, FR is non-terminal,and FSR is pseudo-terminal, respectively. The hypotheses were tested in two steps.First, measurements in a labelled corpus of spontaneous speech provided the nec-essarybackground information on the phonetics of the contours. In the secondstep, the general hypothesis was approached in a perceptual experiment using theparadigm of a semantic differential: 49 listeners judged 17 systematically gener-atedstimuli on nine semantic scales, such as ‘impolite/polite’. The hypotheses weregenerally confirmed. Both F and FSR were associated with a conclusive statement,while FR was more likely to be judged as marking a question. FSR differs from F inthat it does not express features such as categoricalness, dominance or impolite-ness.The results are interpreted as an instance of the frequency code: the additionof a slight rise means avoidance of extremely low F0 ; the functional consequence isa reduction of communicated dominance.

Multimodal prominences : Exploring the patterning and usage of focal pitch accents, head beats and eyebrow beats in Swedish television news readings

Facial beat gestures align with pitch accents in speech, functioning as visual prominence markers. However, it is not yet well understood whether and how gestures and pitch accents might be combined to create different types of multimodal prominence, and how specifically visual prominence cues are used in spoken communication. In this study, we explore the use and possible interaction of eyebrow (EB) and head (HB) beats with so-called focal pitch accents (FA) in a corpus of 31 brief news readings from Swedish television (four news anchors, 986 words in total), focusing on effects of position in text, information structure as well as speaker expressivity. Results reveal an inventory of four primary (combinations of) prominence markers in the corpus: FA+HB+EB, FA+HB, FA only (i.e., no gesture), and HB only, implying that eyebrow beats tend to occur only in combination with the other two markers. In addition, head beats occur significantly more frequently in the second than in the first part of a news reading. A functional analysis of the data suggests that the distribution of head beats might to some degree be governed by information structure, as the text-initial clause often defines a common ground or presents the theme of the news story. In the rheme part of the news story, FA, HB, and FA+HB are all common prominence markers. The choice between them is subject to variation which we suggest might represent a degree of freedom for the speaker to use the markers expressively. A second main observation concerns eyebrow beats, which seem to be used mainly as a kind of intensification marker for highlighting not only contrast, but also value, magnitude, or emotionally loaded words; it is applicable in any position in a text. We thus observe largely different patterns of occurrence and usage of head beats on the one hand and eyebrow beats on the other, suggesting that the two represent two separate modalities of visual prominence cuing.

Revisiting Southern and Central Swedish intonation from a comparative and functional perspective

Revisiting South and Central Swedish intonation from a comparative and functional perspective

5 Conclusion: Support for an Autonomous Model

This conclusion chapter of the book focuses on phonology, lexical stress/pitch accent and derivational/adaptional morphology. Other areas of interest are gender, animacy, thematic status, allophonic variation and patters and variation of code-mixing and syntax. Several patterns of Scandoromani, both in phonology, morphology and syntax indicate a great deal of autonomy from the matrix language, in which all speakers are native speakers. In one respect Scandoromani is different from some other mixed languages: of the two component languages, Scandinavian and Romani, only Scandinavian (the matrix/grammaticising language) is fully known to the speakers. Early data from Scandoromani indicate an early switch towards a Scandinavian-adapted inflectional system, making it likely that the general structure of the language and the basic patterns of mixing did, indeed, come about within a limited period of time.Keywords: animacy; gender; lexical stress; mixed languages; morphology; Scandoromani

2 The Sounds of a Mixed Language

This chapter presents an overview of the Swedish Romani sound system. It examines segmental features: vowel and consonant inventories; as well as word level prosody: lexical stress, the quantity distinction, and lexical pitch accents. Since the core of the sound system has been adapted from Swedish, a comparison with Swedish underlies the synchronic description of the language in the chapter. It focuses on two segmental features for more detailed analysis: (i) an aspiration feature in the voiceless stops /ph th kh/ and in the voiced stop /gh/ that is not present in Swedish: the aspirated voiceless stops go back to Romani, whilst the /gh/ represents an innovation; (ii) a series of voiceless post-alveolar fricatives: Swedish has a similar series. The chapter pays special attention as well to a third feature of the language: the conspicuous occurrence of variation in pronunciation at all levels of phonology.Keywords: consonant inventories; Swedish Romani sound system; voiceless post-alveolar fricatives; voiceless stops; vowel

Appendix I Vocabulary

This appendix brings together the lexical sources of Scandoromani (Swedish and Norwegian), which can be regarded as reliable: they have been collected by native speakers accompanied by a scholar. There are a number of discrepancies in ortography between the sources, as well as a huge variation in form and meaning for individual lexical items. Furthermore, the sources differ as to how much additional information that they give for lexical entries. For this reason, it has been an almost impossible task to harmonize and create consistency in the vocabulary. The policy has been as follows: the ortography of the sources has been kept at all occasions. For items that occur in several sources, only LDj is given in the head, followed by information about occurrences in other sources. If there is a slight variation in form/meaning, this variation is listed towards the end of the entry.Keywords: lexical sources; Scandoromani; vocabulary

3 The Interdependence of Adaptation, Derivation, and Inflection in a Mixed Morphology

The morphology of a mixed language like Scandoromani presents a great challenge: the formation of new words, the adaptation and camouflaging of loan words, and the adaptation of the lexicon to Scandinavian inflectional morphology and prosody prove intricate and unpredictable. A number of noun categories from inflected Romani factor into Scandoromani derivation and inflection: i.e., gender, animacy (animate/ inanimate), and the matic status. Scandoromani inflection follows Scandinavian, which means that nouns occur in four forms: indefinite singular, definite singular, indefinite plural, and definite plural. The Scandoromani morphology of derivations and loan-word adaptations are among the most intriguing aspects of the language. The verb morphology of inflected Romani is highly complex, with markings for different persons and a complicated system of tense, mood, and aspect that varies between dialects. Scandoromani has only one type of verbal inflection, corresponding to the so-called weak inflection of Swedish and Norwegian.Keywords: mixed language; mixed morphology; Norwegian; noun; Scandinavian; Scandoromani; Swedish

1 Scandoromani: Language and Speakers

The dialect Scandoromani is a remnant of the language spoken by the first Romani immigrants to the Nordic countries. It belongs to the northwest continuum of Romani dialects: a group that also embraces the Sinte/Manouche dialects spoken in Germany, France, Netherlands, Hungary, Bohemia, Slovakia, Russia, and northern Italy, and the Finnish Kale dialect. Even though Scandoromani is fairly well documented, at least its vocabulary, the historical paucity of sources is problematic. Early documentation is mostly limited to word lists, often of poor quality, mostly compiled by lay persons and often in prison: e.g., by prison chaplains or prison guards talking with sentenced convicts. The ways in which Scandoromani is most frequently used, in particular, the broken form might, at first glance, resemble an in-group lexicon rather than a language. Scandoromani is normally taken to be a mixed language of a type known as intertwined.Keywords: in-group lexicon; mixed language; Romani immigrants; Scandoromani

4 Outline of a Syntax

Scandoromani syntax patterns follow Scandinavian patterns. One finds speech, fully comprehensible and grammatically correct Scandoromani, in which word order, constructions and syntactic patterns are fully equivalent to the matrix language: word by word and beyond, to the level of verbal and nominal compounding. When transcribing or otherwise listening to Scandoromani recordings, one of the most striking features of the language is its use of the unmarked verbal form in nearly all occasions. The most important deviation from Swedish syntax lies in the possibility to omit the place-holder subject, obligatory in Swedish, a rule connected to the Swedish fixed word order. Its primary application in Scandoromani is to 3rd person singular and plural, though it applies as well to the 1st singular form of the personal/demonstrative pronoun and to such impersonal constructions as Swedish det, Scandoromani dolle. Scandoromani follows the expected mixture pattern of a bilingual mixed language.Keywords: bilingual mixed language; Scandinavian patterns; Scandoromani syntax patterns; Swedish syntax