The Prosody of Topic and Focus in Spontaneous English Dialogue

Our research addresses the interface between meaning and prosody. In particular, it concerns the way intonation plays a part in the interpretation of an utterance. for example, we are concerned with the extent to which a falling versus a falling-rising intonation at the end of an utterance or an extra tonal height on a specific word or phrase affects the way the utterance is interpreted.

Information structure categories such as topic and focus have been correlated with specific types of contours. Many authors have stated that there is a peak associated with focus, while others have stated that there is also a peak associated with topic. Claims have been made as to the specific sequence of underlying tones associated with these categories, at least for constructed examples; for instance, that focus will be marked with H* and topic will be marked with L+H*. Here, we test these claims by analyzing the intonation and information structure of a sample of spontaneous dialogue in English.