Prosodic realization of information structure categories in standard Chinese

Abstract

This paper investigates the prosodic realization of information structure categories in Standard Chinese.A number of proper names with different tonal combinations were elicited as a grammatical subject in five pragmatic contexts.Results show that both duration and F 0 range of the tonal realizations were adjusted to signal the information structure categories (i.e.theme vs. rheme and background vs. focus).Rhemes consistently induced a longer duration and a more expanded F 0 range than themes.Focus, compared to background, generally induced lengthening and F 0 range expansion (the presence and magnitude of which, however, are dependent on the tonal structure of the proper names).Within the rheme focus condition, corrective rheme focus induced more expanded F 0 range than normal rheme focus.