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Article published In: Studies in Language
Vol. 40:2 (2016) ► pp.302–339

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The prosody of Focus and Givenness in Hindi and Indian English

Published online: 1 July 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.40.2.02fer
This paper reports the results of two identical experiments, one in Hindi and one in Indian English, that elicited semi-spontaneous sentences containing a focused agent or a focused patient. The primary aim of the experiments was to investigate the prosodic correlates of information structure in the two languages and to explain these correlates with a phonological model. The resulting phonological model proposes that focus is realized with enhanced correlates of phrasing and not with prominence, at least not of the same kind as languages using pitch accents. Secondary aims were to verify the ecological validity of similar data elicited with scripted speech (Patil et al. 2008) and to reflect on the place of Hindi and Indian English in a typology of intonation.
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