Post-focus-compression (PFC) in Tibeto- Burman Languages: Is PFC a Genetic Feature? Bei Wang
[email protected] Minzu University of China Acknowledgement Yi Xu (University College London) Qifan Ding (Mandarin), Liu Lu (Bai), Qingyi Song (Tujia), Xueqiao Li (Bai), Yuanyuan Zhang (Wu, Gulin), Xiaxia Zhang (Lasha Tibetan, Qiang), Fanglan Li (Nanchang), Qian Wu (Li, Hainan Tsat), Baofeng Wang (Buyi), Shaobo Sun (Mogolian, Jing), Ling Wang (Deang, Wa, Ando Tibetan), Wei Lai (Shanghai), Miaomiao Yang (Hmong), Sisi Chen (4 Wu dialects), Qiaoyun Yin (Deang), Chao Wang (Xian), Qubi Erlian (Lolo), Erkbulan (Kazakhstan) National Social Science Foundation of China (18BYY079) National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 60905062) Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of Ministry of Education of China (NCET-12-0584) “111” Project of Minzu University Contents Post-focus-compression (PFC) in Beijing Mandarin and Taiwanese Worldwide Distribution of PFC Distribution of PFC in Tibeto-Burman Languages General Discussion on the origin of PFC Focus is to highlight part of a sentence against the rest of the sentence as motivated by a particular discourse situation. Focus can be realized prosodically. (Bolinger, 1958; Eady & Cooper, 1986; Ladd, 1996; Xu, 1999, 2005 among many others) Initial Focus Medial Focus Final Focus 250 Initial Focus: Who is stoking the kitten? ) 200z H Medial Focus: What is mom doing on the kitten? ( Neutral 0 Final Focus: What is mom stoking? 150F Neutral Focus: What do you see? 100 Ma Monol maingual Beimojing Mandarimaon mi 50 mother stoke kitten Normalized time Post-focus-compression (PFC): F0 and intensity is compressed in post-focal words.