2. Eva Fernández & Dianne Bradley Queens College & Graduate Center CUNY in collaboration with José Manuel Igoa & Celia Teira Universidad Autónoma de Madrid May 1, 20045 th SUNY/CUNY/NYU MiniStony Brook, NY CUNY GC QC Acoustic Correlates of Phrasing Patterns in English and Spanish Sentences Containing the RC Attachment Construction

3. The Implicit Prosody Hypothesis (IPH) “In silent reading,a default prosodic contour is projected onto the stimulus,and it may influence syntactic ambiguity resolution” (Fodor 1998, 2002) the brother of the bridegroom who snores the brother of the bridegroom ][ who snores

4. The RC Attachment Ambiguity  Preferred site for attachment varies by… language: Spanish higher than English length of RC: long higher than short The guest impressed the brother of the bridegroom who snores. Who snores?the brotherthe bridegroom El invitado impresionó al hermano del novio que roncaba. ¿Quién roncaba?el hermanoel novio N1 N2 RC … who often unknowingly snores. … que a menudo inconscientemente roncaba.

5. Prosody and Syntax Align the brother of the bridegroom ][ who often unknowingly snores the brother of the bridegroom who snores NP N1PP NPP RCN2 NP N1PP NPP RC N2 el hermano del novio ][ que a menudo inconscientemente roncaba el hermano del novio ][ que roncaba prosodic discontinuity syntactic discontinuity Selkirk, 1986

6. Empirical Support for the IPH  Behavioral evidence on how RCs are interpreted during silent reading existing dataset: Hemforth et al. (submitted)  Evidence on how the N-of-N-RC construction is produced in discourse-neutral speech elicited production experiment  Do the patterns in the two datasets match up?

7.  Materials in English and Spanish: with short and long RCs N1-N2-RC placed post- and pre-verbally Behavioral Evidence The guest impressed X.X impressed the guest. El invitado impresionó a X.X impresionó al invitado. X =the brother of the bridegroom who (often unknowingly) snores el hermano del novio que (a menudo inconscientemente) roncaba Hemforth et al. (submitted)

8. Behavioral Evidence Post-Verbal Objects Pre-Verbal Subjects Who snores? The brother (N1)  Post-Verbal Objects: Cross-linguistic difference RC length effect  Pre-Verbal Subjects: RC length effect reduced Cross-linguistic difference reduced Hemforth et al. (submitted)

9. N2][RC RC.] N2][RC RC][V ENGLISH SPANISH The guest impressed the brother of the bridegroom who often unknowingly snores. El invitado impresionó al hermano del novio que a menudo inconscientemente roncaba. The brother of the bridegroom who often unknowingly snores impressed the guest. El hermano del novio que a menudo inconscientemente roncaba impresionó al invitado.

10. Experiment: Elicited Production  Participants, N = 8 per language English  New York Spanish  Madrid  Materials, N = 8  4 per language (selected from Hemforth et al.’s 32  4) Post- and pre-verbal of identical length RC’s right boundary with same lexical content, whether short or long The guest impressed X.X impressed the guest. X =the brother of the bridegroom who (often unknowingly) snores

11.  The guest impressed the brother of the bridegroom. Which bridegroom? The bridegroom who snores. El invitado impresionó al hermano del novio. ¿Qué novio? El novio que roncaba. The guest impressed the brother of the bridegroom who snores. El invitado impresionó al hermano del novio que roncaba.

12. Analyses: N2 & RC’s Verb  Duration: Presence of Boundary  Pitch movement: Type of Boundary The guest impressed the brother of the bridegroom ][ who … snores.] N2][RCRC.] The brother of the bridegroom ][ who … snores ][ impressed N2][RCRC. ][V the guest.

13. ENGLISHSPANISH Pre-Verbal Subjects Long RC Short RC 100 ms N2 Durations  Placement × Length Interaction F 1 (1,14) = 5.77, p <.05, F 2 (1,14) = 12.37, p <.005 RC-Length  = 123 ms Post-Verbal RC-Length  = 68 ms Pre-Verbal Post-Verbal Objects

14. Mean F0 (Hz) ENGLISHSPANISH 200 ms N2: Pitch  Placement × Language Interaction F 1 (1,14) = 16.56, p <.002, F 2 (1,14) = 14.43, p <.002 Placement  =  0.4 Hz/200 ms English Placement  = 23.6 Hz/200 ms Spanish 200 ms Long RC Short RC Post Pre Long RC Short RC

15. RC Verb: Pitch  Interaction: Placement × Language F 1 (1,14) = 6.05, <.05, F 2 (1,14) = 14.72, <.002 Placement  =  8.7 Hz/200 ms English Placement  =  38.6 Hz/200 ms Spanish ENGLISHSPANISH 200 ms Long RC Short RC Post Pre Long RC Short RC

16. N2][RC RC.] N2][RC RC][V ENGLISHSPANISH Pre-Verbal Subjects Post-Verbal Objects Duration & Pitch: The Big Picture

17. Summary of Data Outcomes  Pitch Movements: Type of Boundary and Cross-Linguistic Differences Spanish: N2 falls pre-verbally, rises post-verbally English: N2 uniformly falls, pre- and post-verbally  Duration: Presence of Boundary and Cross-Linguistic Similarities In both languages: Likelihood of breaks before RC is modulated by position

18. Conclusions and Speculations  Behavioral similarities and differences are indexed in the prosodic patterns of Spanish and English  But what is the source for the contrasting sentence-medial tunes in Spanish? Are such patterns projected entirely within the syntax-prosody interface? Or are such patterns the result of an interplay of syntax, prosody, and information structure?

19. Thanks! ¡Gracias!  eva_fernandez@qc.edu dbradley@gc.cuny.edu