The prosodic syntax of German - language production and grammar

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Gerrit Kentner
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages ; General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2015 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 274137550

Prosody indisputedly affects the choice of syntactic constructions and the order of constituents within a sentence. However, for German, neither theories of grammar nor models of language production systematically incorporate prosodic influences on sentence structure. It is largely unclear which prosodic factors affect sentence construction in German, and how strong their influence is on grammatical encoding in spontaneous speech.The aim of this project is to clarify which prosodic requirements have syntactic consequences at what stage of language production. We will use language production experiments and corpora of spontaneous speech to systematically study prosodic phenomena which may condition syntactic structure, operating beyond word boundaries. The phenomena under study cover essential parts of the prosodic hierarchy (intonation phrase, phonological phrase, word/foot). For each of these levels, we study their effect on a) the choice of syntactic construction, and b) on constituent ordering.Specifically, we test the following hypotheses:i. Prosodic phrasing and choice of syntactic constructionWhen formulating a message, speakers spontaneously consider prosodic well-formedness. The choice of syntactic construction and its position in the sentence comply with a favorable prosodic phrasing.ii. Prosodic balance and word sequenceSpeakers favor constructions that can be phrased into equal-sized prosodic constituents (prosodic balance). This preference specifically affects the ordering of flexibly linearizable constituents.iii. Rhythm and syntaxSpeakers use syntactic options to optimize the linguistic rhythm that arises from the alternation of strong and weak syllables.Based on the experimental and corpus data, we evaluate models of language production and grammar. Specifically, we review which stages of grammatical encoding are affected by which prosodic conditions and how strong the prosodic effects are in comparison to other relevant factors. Finally, we discuss a) to what extent the data can be explained in terms of grammatical constraints pertaining to the syntax-phonology interface and b) which role these constraint have in language production.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants