Focus prosody in Cantonese : the case of verb-copying constructions

Abstract

The Cantonese verb-focusing construction – V1-dou1mei6-V2, a near-cognate with Mandarin’s (lián-)yě/doū – is one example among many in the understudied yet diverse group referred to as verb-copying constructions. Existing research investigates mainly its syntactic and semantic properties, while its prosodic properties were largely left untouched. In a production experiment involving 10 native Hong Kong Cantonese speakers aged 18 to 24 (mean=21.8), it is found that the construction shows a default prosodic pattern involving significant changes in F0 and duration of the focused verb working together in a cooperative manner. Speakers can choose to realise focus in either or both ways, i.e. an insignificant F0 raise in the focused verb would be accompanied by a significant durational lengthening, vice versa. The study yielded no consistent or significant results in terms of pitch range expansion or the controversial post-focus compression found in multiple previous studies. The current study demonstrates a workable alternative methodology for eliciting natural focus prosody with no priming or other influence from the experimenter. Additional findings of the study shed light on the F0 prosodic pattern of verb-topicalisation, another verb-copying construction, where the topicalised verb displays a pitch contour that lies between that of verbs in sentences with neutral intonation and focus prosody.