Prosody As A Genre Distinguishing Feature In Ahtna: A Quantitative Approach

is article is a quantitative examination of the function of prosody in distin- guishing between the genres of oral performance and expository discourse in Ahtna, an Athabascan language of south-central Alaska. Within the framework of the intonation unit (e.g., Chafe 1987) I examine features of proso...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Berez-Kroeker, Andrea L.
Format: Text
Language:unknown
Published: Zenodo 2011
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Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.293757
https://zenodo.org/record/293757
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Summary:is article is a quantitative examination of the function of prosody in distin- guishing between the genres of oral performance and expository discourse in Ahtna, an Athabascan language of south-central Alaska. Within the framework of the intonation unit (e.g., Chafe 1987) I examine features of prosody related to both timing (intonation unit length and duration, pause duration and distribu- tion, and syllable pacing) and pitch (pitch reset, boundary tones, and intonation- al phrasing). I show to a statistically signi cant degree that most of the prosodic burden of distinguishing genre is carried by a particular intonation contour that is associated with Ahtna oral performance and causes several measurable distinctions between genres.