Demarcating and highlighting in Papuan Malay phrase prosody

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Phonetics
• Sociolinguistics

Background:

• Phrase-level prosody in languages typically serves demarcating and highlighting functions.
• Trade Malay languages predominantly use prosody for demarcating, with limited pitch accent use.
• Prosodic events in Trade Malay often occur on the final two syllables of a phrase.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the demarcating and highlighting functions of phrase prosody in Papuan Malay.
• To analyze the acoustic properties (F0 movement) of the final two syllables in Papuan Malay phrases.
• To consider the potential influence of word stress on phrase-level prosody in Papuan Malay.

Main Methods:

• Acoustic analyses were performed on a corpus of spontaneous Papuan Malay speech.
• The study examined the form (F0 movement) and potential functions of prosody on the final two syllables.
• The research considered the interplay between word stress and phrase-level prosodic events.

Main Results:

• Most findings indicate that Papuan Malay phrase prosody functions primarily for demarcating information.
• Acoustic analysis revealed specific patterns of F0 movement on the final two syllables.
• The results suggest Papuan Malay may occupy a unique position in the typology of prosodic prominence.

Conclusions:

• Papuan Malay phrase prosody predominantly serves a demarcating role.
• While a highlighting function is not entirely excluded, the evidence leans towards demarcation.
• Papuan Malay exhibits distinctive characteristics in its prosodic prominence system.