By Yeimy Roberto�

New vs old information marking with intonation patterns in the Spanish in Pasto, Colombia

New vs old information marking with intonation patterns in the Spanish in Pasto, Colombia�

• Intonation and Focus Marking
• Hypothesis/Methodology
• Results and Implications

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Officially known as the Republic of Colombia

Peso

Currency

Bogotá

Capital

50 Million

Population

Courtesy: Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Cartographic Section, United Nations�Reference: Map No. 4170 Rev.4, January 2004�Notes on Countries/Territories boundaries

Colombia’s linguistic diversity

Díaz et al., 2017; Dorta Luis, 2018; Muñetón Ayala y Dorta Luis, 2017; Sierra Moreno, 2018; Velásquez-Upegui, 2013

Muñetón Ayala, 2016; Muñetón Ayala y Dorta Luis, 2015, 2017; Muñoz-Builes, 2013, 2020, 2021, Osorio y Muñoz-Builes, 2011; Velásquez-Upegui, 2013

Dorta Luis, 2018

Correa Duarte, 2012

Mena, 2014

Payeras, 2001

Velásquez-Upegui, 2013

Roberto Avilán, 2018

Landscape in Pasto

Intonation Patterns in Spanish

http://prosodia.upf.edu/sp_tobi/en/

Affirmative sentences vs Yes/No questions

From: Bucaramanga Spanish Intonation. Y Roberto. 2018

Broad focus vs Narrow Focus

From: Bucaramanga Spanish Intonation. Y Roberto. 2018

New vs. Old Information Marking

Broad Focus Sentences

What is going on?

exhibit a delayed peak (L+>H*) in prenuclear position (Hualde, 2014)

From: Nueva Gramática de la lengua Española. RAE. 2011

New vs. Old Information Marking

Narrow Focus Sentences

exhibit a moderated peak (L+H*) in nuclear position (Roessig et al., 2022)

Where should I pass by?

From: Bucaramanga Spanish Intonation. Y Roberto. 2018

Focus Marking Intonation

• Fundamental Frequency (F0) has the most reliable effects on focus marking. (Roessing et al., 2022)
• Peninsular Spanish shows a significant effect on alignment of peak and focus (Mota, 1995).
• Broad focus sentences, exhibit a delayed peak (L+>H*) in prenuclear position (Hualde, 2014)

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Focus Marking Intonation

• In Mexican Spanish, focus is L* in stressed syllable accompanied by a boundary tone. (Vasquez et al. ,2020).
• In Argentinian Spanish, focused subject is highlighted in situ via nuclear stress while focused objects generally receive nuclear or focal stress. (Gabriel, 2010)
• In Cusco Spanish, focus in the object shows peak alignment (O’Rourke & Muntendam, 2014)
• In Ecuadorian Spanish, broad focus is L* L% and narrow focus is L+H* L% (O’Rourke, 2010)

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This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

Hypothesis

• Narrow focus sentences implement intonation patterns to differ from Broad Focus sentences and highlight new information.
• Aligned accents are associated with narrow focus.
• Delayed peaks are associated with broad focus.

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Methodology

Methodology

• Audio recordings from a Reading task
• 28 Spanish monolingual participants
• 80 sentences in 5 different focus contexts
• Praat, Sp-ToBI

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Results

Results

New vs. Old Information Marking

Broad Focus Sentences

What is going on?

Broad focus sentences, exhibit a delayed peak (L+>H*) in prenuclear position (Hualde, 2014)

L+>H*

Broad Focus

• Subject L+>H* (45%)
• Verb L* and H+L* (45%)
• Object L+H* (55%)

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Broad Focus

New vs. Old Information Marking

Broad Focus Sentences

Narrow Focus Sentences

Who bought the granola?

What did the students buy?

Narrow Focus (o)

• Subject L+>H* (58%)
• Verb L+H* (49%)
• Object L+H* (45%)

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Narrow Focus (o)

Narrow Focus (s)

• Subject L+>H* (47%)
• Verb L* (34%)
• Object H+L* (36%)

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Narrow Focus (s)

Focus

Broad

• Subject with delayed peak (L+>H*)
• Verbs show lower contours.
• Objects show

aligned peaks.

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Narrow

• Subject also with delayed peak.
• Verbs and Objects are aligned.

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Object Subject

• Subject with delayed peak (L+>H*)
• Verbs use intermediate

boundary tones.

• Object show lower contours.

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Hypothesis

• Narrow focus sentences implement intonation patterns to differ from Broad Focus sentences to highlight new information. Syntactically, the last element will carry the focus (marked position), when this is not the strategy, the focus is highlighted with the use of intonation strategies.
• Aligned accents are associated with narrow focus. Not necessarily, as focus on the subject demonstrated the use of delayed peak + intermediate boundary tones and low accent in the object as part of the strategy.
• Delayed peaks are associated with broad focus. Not necessarily, as it is prevalent in the three types of focus explored

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Implications

• In the Spanish spoken in Pasto, peak alignment does not imply broad or narrow focus as it is prevalent in the three types of sentences.
• The idea that contours of verbs may provide clues to anticipate if the next word belongs to new or known information opens the door to keep on exploring production and perception of intonation.
• Narrow focus in the object behaves as expected, as the sentence is a marked position in Spanish for new information. (Zubizarreta, 1998)
• The patterns observed here are in accordance with previous studies of other Spanish varieties, considering that there is still a lot to explore about focus and intonation strategies.
• More research is needed to state/support or reject significant effects of these findings to describe the Andean Spanish intonation, specifically the use of intermediate boundary tones in Subject Focus sentences.

Email: yroberto@fsu.edu�

Thank you, please let me know your comments and questions. This will contribute greatly to my research.

Selected References:

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Díaz-Campos, M., y Tevis McGory, J. (2002). La entonación en el español de América: Un estudio acerca de ocho dialectos hispanoamericanos. Boletín de Lingüística, 18, 3–26.

Dorta, J. (ed.), (2018). La entonación declarativa e interrogativa en cinco zonas fronterizas del español. Canarias, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia y San Antonio de Texas. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Estupiñán, E. J. (2015). Patrones melódicos interrogativos del español de Cali en habla espontánea. Phonica, 11, 47-63.

Gabriel, Christoph. (2010) On focus, prosody, and word order in Argentinean Spanish: a minimalist OT account.

ReVEL. Special edition n. 4, 2010. [www.revel.inf.br/eng].

Hernández Rodríguez S. M., Alers Valentín, H., y Soto-Barba, J. (2014). Análisis contrastivo

de la entonación del español bogotano y del español de San Juan en frases entonativas simples. Forma y Función, 27(2), 157-181.

Hualde, J. I., y Prieto, P. (2016). Towards an International Prosodic Alphabet (IPrA). Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association of Laboratory Phonology, 7(1), 1–25.

Mena, W. (2014). Características de la entonación en el habla de Quibdó. [Tesis de Maestría]. Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

Mora, S., Lozano, M., Ramírez, R., Espejo, M. B., y Duarte, G. E. (2004). Caracterización léxica de los dialectos del español de Colombia según el ALEC. Publicaciones del Instituto Caro y Cuervo.

Mota, C. (1995). La representaci6n gramatical de la informacion nueva en el discurso.

Doctoral dissertation, Departamento de Filologfa Espanola, Universitat

Aut6noma de Barcelona.

Muñetón Ayala, M. A. (2016). La F0, duración e intensidad de las oraciones interrogativas absolutas en un informante varón de Medellín. Estudios de Fonética Experimental, (XXV), 167–192.

Muñetón Ayala, M., y Dorta Luis, J. (2015). La entonación declarativa e interrogativa en el español colombiano de Medellín: voz femenina vs. masculina. Boletín de filología, 50(2), (pp. 103-122).

Muñetón Ayala, M., y Dorta Luis, J. (2017). Límite prosódico y sintagmático: estudio comparativo entre zonas de Colombia e Islas Canarias (España), Estudios Filológicos, 59: 85-109.

Muñetón Ayala, M., y Dorta Luis, J. (2021). Estudio preliminar de la entonación bogotana en un corpus SVO de hablantes sin estudios superiores: F0, duración e intensidad. Lingüística, 37(1), 57-78.

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Muñoz-Builes, D. M. (2013). Análisis prosódico de un informante de Medellín en el marco de la metodología del proyecto AMPER (Atlas Multimedia de Prosodia del Espacio Románico).

Muñoz-Builes, D. M. (2020). Configuraciones nucleares en la entonación del español de Antioquia, Colombia. Anuario de Letras. Lingüística y Filología, 8(2), 39-64.

Muñoz-Builes, D. M. (2021). Variación diastrática de la entonación femenina en el español colombiano de Medellín. Lengua y Habla, (25), 201-222.

O’Rourke, E. (2010). Ecuadorian Andean Spanish Intonation. En P. Prieto y P. Roseano (Eds.), Transcription of Intonation of the Spanish Language (pp. 227–253). Lincom Europa.

Osorio, G. M., y Muñoz-Builes, D. (2011). La entonación del enunciado interrogativo en el español de la ciudad de Medellín. Lingüística y Literatura, 60, (pp. 209–225).

Pierrehumbert, J. (1980). The phonology and phonetics of English intonation [Doctoral Dissertation]. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States of America.

Rincón, Luz Mary. (2004). Middle-class Spanish of the city of Bucaramanga, Colombia. [Doctoral dissertation], Ball State University.

Rincón, L. M. (2014). Así se Habla el español en Bucaramanga. Bucaramanga, Colombia: Editorial El Libro Total.

Rincón, L. M. (2021). Estudio de espacialidad del español rural de Santander (Colombia): contextualización teórica y conceptual. Forma y Función, 34(1).

Roberto Avilán, Y. J. (2018). Acercamiento a la entonación del español de Bucaramanga [Tesis de Maestría]. Instituto Caro y Cuervo, Colombia.

Romano, A., y Contini, M. (2001). Un progetto di Atlante geoprosodico multimediale delle varietà linguistiche romanze

Sierra Moreno, P. A. (2018). Descripción de la entonación del español hablado en Bogotá [Tesis de Maestría]. Instituto Caro y Cuervo, Colombia.

Sosa, J. M. (1999). La entonación del español: Su estructura fónica, variabilidad y dialectología. Catedra.

Toledo, G. (2007). Acentos prenucleares: evidencia sobre el español. Language Design, 9, (pp. 5–34).

Toledo, G. (2008). Fonología de la frase entonativa. Estudios Filológicos, 43, (pp. 207–222).

’t Hart, J., Collier, R., y Cohen, A. (1990). A perceptual study of intonation: An experimental-phonetic approach to speech melody. Cambridge University Press.

Velásquez-Upegui, E. (2013). Entonación del español hablado en Colombia [Disertación doctoral]. El Colegio de México. Centro de Estudios Lingüísticos y Literarios.

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�Características generales del español de Pasto

• Retención general de consonantes (Albor, 1971): cuidado

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• Calló and cayó son pares mínimos (Escobar, 2011)

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• Vibrante múltiple asibilada /r/ (Lipski, 1996): carro [kar̝o]
• Alta frecuencia de uso de Quechuismos (Ruiz Vasquez, 2020, p. 210)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfJUB05LaEg&ab_channel=ColombiaBacana

�Características generales del español de Pasto

Uso de vos (Lipski, 2021):

decilo con acento pastuso

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Uso de la doble negación (Arboleda, 2019, p. 71):

nadie no entraba

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Asociación negativa (Bernal Chavez, 2016):

Lento, indigena, ingenuo, tímido, falto de confianza.

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(Bernal Chavez, 2016)

(Bernal Chavez, p. 132, 2016)

Trabajo de dialectología perceptual