Open AccessSome properties of prosodic phrasing in Thompson Salish
Author(s) -
Karsten Koch
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
zas papers in linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1435-9588
DOI - 10.21248/zaspil.52.2010.386
Subject(s) - linguistics , noun phrase , stress (linguistics) , consonant , phrase , computer science , consonant cluster , obstruent , focus (optics) , pitch accent , parsing , speech recognition , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , psychology , noun , prosody , vowel , philosophy , physics , optics
In Nłeʔkepmxcin, consonant-heavy inventories, lengthy obstruent clusters and widespread glottalization can make potential F0 cues to prosodic phrase boundaries (e.g. boundary tones or declination reset) difficult to observe phonetically. In this paper, I explore a test that exploits one behaviour of phrasefinal consonant clusters to test for prosodic phrasing in Nłeʔkepmxcin clauses. Final /t/ of the 1pl marker kt is aspirated when phrase-final, but not phraseinternally. Use of this test suggests that Thompson Salish speakers parse verbs, arguments and adjuncts into separate phonological phrases. However, complex verbal predicates and complex noun phrases are parsed as single phonological phrases. Implications are discussed, especially in regards to findings that (absence of) pitch accent is not employed to signal the informational categories of Focus and Givenness, even though Nłeʔkepmxcin is a stress language.