Eva Fernández & Dianne Bradley Queens College & Graduate Center CUNY in collaboration with

1. CUNY GC • QC Acoustic Correlates of Phrasing Patterns in English and Spanish Sentences Containing the RC Attachment Construction Eva Fernández & Dianne Bradley Queens College & Graduate Center CUNY in collaboration with José Manuel Igoa & Celia Teira Universidad Autónoma de Madrid May 1, 2004 5th SUNY/CUNY/NYU Mini Stony Brook, NY

2. The Implicit Prosody Hypothesis (IPH) “In silent reading, a default prosodic contour is projected onto the stimulus, and it may influence syntactic ambiguity resolution” (Fodor 1998, 2002) the brother of the bridegroom who snores the brother of the bridegroom ][ who snores

3. The RC Attachment Ambiguity • Preferred site for attachment varies by… • language: Spanish higher than English • length of RC: long higher than short N1 N2 RC The guest impressed the brother of the bridegroom who snores. Who snores? the brother the bridegroom … who often unknowingly snores. N1 N2 RC El invitado impresionó al hermano del novio que roncaba. ¿Quién roncaba? el hermano el novio … que a menudo inconscientemente roncaba.

4. Prosody and Syntax Align NP NP N1 PP N1 PP P NP RC P NP N2 N2 RC Selkirk, 1986 the brother of the bridegroom ][ who often unknowingly snores the brother of the bridegroom who snores prosodic discontinuity el hermano del novio][que a menudo inconscientemente roncaba el hermano del novio][que roncaba syntactic discontinuity

5. Empirical Support for the IPH • Behavioral evidence on how RCs are interpreted during silent reading • existing dataset: Hemforth et al. (submitted) • Evidence on how the N-of-N-RC construction is produced in discourse-neutral speech • elicited production experiment Do the patterns in the two datasets match up?

6. Behavioral Evidence Hemforth et al. (submitted) • Materials in English and Spanish: • with short and long RCs • N1-N2-RC placed post- and pre-verbally The guest impressed X. Ximpressed the guest. El invitado impresionó a X. X impresionó al invitado. X = the brother of the bridegroom who (often unknowingly) snores el hermano del novio que (a menudo inconscientemente) roncaba

7. Behavioral Evidence Post-VerbalObjects Pre-VerbalSubjects Hemforth et al. (submitted) Who snores? The brother (N1) • Post-Verbal Objects: • Cross-linguistic difference • RC length effect • Pre-Verbal Subjects: • RC length effect reduced • Cross-linguistic difference reduced

8. RC.] N2][RC RC.] N2][RC N2][RC RC][V N2][RC RC][V ENGLISH SPANISH The guest impressed the brother of the bridegroomwho often unknowingly snores. El invitado impresionó al hermano del novioque a menudo inconscientemente roncaba. The brother of the bridegroom who often unknowingly snoresimpressed the guest. El hermano del novio que a menudo inconscientemente roncabaimpresionó al invitado.

9. Experiment: Elicited Production • Participants, N = 8 per language • English  New York • Spanish  Madrid • Materials, N = 8  4 per language(selected from Hemforth et al.’s 32  4) • Post- and pre-verbal of identical length • RC’s right boundary with same lexical content, whether short or long The guest impressed X. Ximpressed the guest. X = the brother of the bridegroom who (often unknowingly) snores

10.  The guest impressed the brother of the bridegroom. Which bridegroom? The bridegroom who snores. The guest impressed the brother of the bridegroom who snores.  El invitado impresionó al hermano del novio. ¿Qué novio? El novio que roncaba. El invitado impresionó al hermano del novio que roncaba. 

11. Analyses: N2 & RC’s Verb • Duration: Presence of Boundary • Pitch movement: Type of Boundary The guest impressed the brother of the bridegroom ][ who … snores.] N2][RCRC.] The brother of the bridegroom ][ who … snores ][ impressed N2][RCRC.][V the guest.

12. N2 Durations Long RC Short RC 100 ms • Placement × Length InteractionF1(1,14) = 5.77, p < .05, F2(1,14) = 12.37, p < .005 • RC-Length  = 123 ms Post-Verbal • RC-Length  = 68 ms Pre-Verbal ENGLISH SPANISH Post-VerbalObjects Pre-VerbalSubjects

13. N2: Pitch Long RC Pre Short RC Post 200 ms 200 ms Long RC Short RC • Placement × Language InteractionF1(1,14) = 16.56, p < .002, F2(1,14) = 14.43, p < .002 • Placement  = 0.4 Hz/200 ms English • Placement  = 23.6 Hz/200 ms Spanish ENGLISH SPANISH Mean F0 (Hz)

14. RC Verb: Pitch Long RC Pre Short RC Post 200 ms 200 ms Long RC Short RC • Interaction: Placement × LanguageF1(1,14) = 6.05, < .05, F2(1,14) = 14.72, < .002 • Placement  = 8.7 Hz/200 ms English • Placement  = 38.6 Hz/200 ms Spanish ENGLISH SPANISH

15. Duration & Pitch: The Big Picture ENGLISH SPANISH RC.] N2][RC Post-Verbal Objects RC.] N2][RC N2][RC RC][V Pre-Verbal Subjects N2][RC RC][V

16. Summary of Data Outcomes • Pitch Movements: Type of Boundaryand Cross-Linguistic Differences • Spanish: N2 falls pre-verbally, rises post-verbally • English: N2 uniformly falls, pre- and post-verbally • Duration: Presence of Boundary and Cross-Linguistic Similarities • In both languages: Likelihood of breaks before RC is modulated by position

17. Conclusions and Speculations • Behavioral similarities and differences are indexed in the prosodic patterns of Spanish and English • But what is the source for the contrasting sentence-medial tunes in Spanish? • Are such patterns projected entirely within the syntax-prosody interface? • Or are such patterns the result of an interplay of syntax, prosody, and information structure?

18. Thanks!¡Gracias!  eva_fernandez@qc.edu dbradley@gc.cuny.edu