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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Format: | Text |
Language: | unknown |
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Zenodo
2011
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Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.293757 https://zenodo.org/record/293757 |
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. |
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