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ERIC Number: EJ1085357
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015
Pages: 26
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1345-8353
EISSN: N/A
Focus Intonation in Bengali
Hasan, Md. Kamrul
Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, v19 n1 p63-88 2015
This work attempts to investigate the role of prosody in the syntax of focus in Bangla. The aim of this study is to show the intonation pattern of Bangla in emphasis and focus. In order to do that, the author has looked at the pattern of focus without-i/o as well as with the same. Do they really pose any different focus intonation pattern from Lahiri and Cole (1999) and others or not--that is also examined in the course of discussion. The current study reports the finding that the focus intonation in Bangla is H*L1 rather than L*Hp as reported by Hayes and Lahiri. The intonation can be accompanied by shades of meaning. Once a particular intonation contour has been isolated, its meaning can be determined by the emotional situations within which that contour occurs. According to the speaker's momentary feeling about the subject matter, most sentences or parts of sentences can be pronounced with several different intonation contours. These attitudes can vary from surprise, to deliberation, to sharp isolation of some part of a sentence for attention, to mild intellectual detachment. Intonation in Bangla can have emotive function. This is shown by the examples and figures of (18), (24) and (25) cited in the discussion. The same kind of study of Bangla can be traced in other studies as well; such as the study of Isamu Abe (1955) and Kenneth Pike (1945) would be greater importance in this regard. The focus intonation pattern with clitics and without clitics of Bangla also can be added to form our argument. The examples of (11), (19), (20), (23), and (26) with clitics and other examples without clitics and relative figures prove this point. They follow uniform phonological shape of H*L1 of Bangla.
Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics. Department of English, Namseoul University, 21 Maeju-ri, Seonghwan-eup, Cheonan-city, Choongnam, Korea 330-707. Tel: +82-2-3290-1995; e-mail: paalkorea@yahoo.co.kr; Web site: http://paal.kr/journals/journals.html
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A