Focus and Phrasing in French

Abstract

The present paper addresses the phonological realization of focus in French and claims that this language uses a single strategy to signal focus, namely phrasing. A second, associated claim is that the tonal variation accompanying focus is due to boundary tones, and not to pitch accents. As a correlate, it is postulated that the different syntactic strategies, often used in French to identify a focussed constituent like clefting and fronting have a phonological motivation: they enhance the phrasing. Prosodic phrasing is highly sensitive to focus structure, not only in French, but probably in all languages, judging from the large amount of literature on the subject (to cite a few examples, see Gussenhoven 1984 on English, Beckmann & Pierrehumbert 1986 and Kanerva 1990 on Chichewa). Different languages use different methods to signal phrasing, like segmental alternations (see below for French), tones (Chinese is well studied, especially w.r.t. the third tone sandhi phenomenon, see Shih 1990, among others), lengthening or absence of shortening (as in Kimatuumbi, see Odden 1997), and, of course, intonational structure. However, phrasing is just one way to express focus domains. Beside phrasing, stress is widely used, as in all Germanic and most Romance languages, but some languages also use morphological markers: Wolof, as described in Rialland & Robert (2000), is one example, Swahili another. Finally, the order of constituents is also crucial in many languages, as for example in Hungarian (see Kenesei 1986). These methods can also be combined.

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