Downstepping sequences in Central Catalan broad and narrow focus declaratives

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between focus and downstep in Central Catalan declaratives produced with two peaks. In particular, we examine the hypothesis that broad focus is associated to a downstepped second peak whereas narrow focus blocks the downstep movement. In utterances produced with narrow focus two variables were taken into account: 1) the position of the focused material within the sentence (medial or final) and 2) the type of focus (contrast vs. new information). The results indicate that in Central Catalan broad focus is always associated with downstep but the link between narrow focus and non-downstep is not so categorical, but shows a continuum of downstep degrees. This seems to indicate that downstep is not a phonological property of an accent but a realizational option. These results are relevant for the implementation of intonation to systems of speech synthesis and speech recognition.