Prosodic and morphological focus marking in Ixcatec (Otomanguean)

Evangelia Adamou (1) , Matthew Gordon (2) , Stefan Th. Gries (2)

1 LACITO - Langues et civilisations à tradition orale
2 UC Santa Barbara - University of California [Santa Barbara]

This paper presents the first description of the expression of focus in Ixcatec, a nearly extinct language of Mexico. The study is based on experimental tasks carried out with the last three fluent speakers of Ixcatec. Prosodic analysis shows that in Ixcatec, a language with three lexical tones, contrastive focus is associated with raised F0, lack of focus is marked through lowered F0 and decreased duration, and corrective focus is signaled through various speaker-specific means. Finally, this study shows that morphological and phonetic properties display a complex interaction that contradicts the view that focus may be conveyed through either morphological or phonetic exponents but not both.

Domaines: Linguistique

Evangelia Adamou, Matthew Gordon, Stefan Th. Gries. Prosodic and morphological focus marking in Ixcatec (Otomanguean). Evangelia Adamou; Katharina Haude; Martine Vanhove. Information Structure in Lesser-described Languages: Studies in Prosody and Syntax, John Benjamins, pp.51-83, 2018. ⟨hal-01709546⟩