As if grammar, discourse and prosody don’t interact: Comparative study of hypothetical manner clauses in English and Dutch

Van Praet, Wout [UCL] Degand, Liesbeth [UCL] Van linden, An

This study examines the production of clauses introduced by the conjunction as if in spoken English and its equivalent alsof in spoken Dutch. In both languages, as if- and alsof-clauses can have different levels of grammatical and discursive (in)dependence, e.g. (1)-(4). Our aim is to provide a comparative analysis of the prosodic profiles of these clauses and examine if their different dependency statuses are signalled prosodically. (1) Het is alsof ik niet besta. (CGN) ‘It’s as if I don’t exist.’ (2) He walks around as if he owns the place. (BNC) (3) Alles prikt gewoon. Alsof je allemaal glaswol over je heen krijgt. (CGN) ‘Everything just stings. As if you’re getting glass wool all over you.’ (4) S1: Yet another flower. S2: Hm as if we haven’t got enough. (BNC) The study is usage-based and grounded in analyses of spoken data randomly extracted from the ‘British National Corpus’ (BNC) for English and the ‘Corpus Gesproken Nederlands’ (CGN) for Dutch. For each language, 250 examples were coded, to arrive at sufficiently large sets of data for the various grammatical and discursive subtypes. To investigate the interplay between grammar, discourse, and prosody, three coding schemes are used. The grammatical scheme assesses the clauses’ level of grammatical (in)dependence, based on: clefting, pronominal proportionality, and fronting [1]. The degree of discourse dependence is established based on discourse-oriented features like speech-functional value, modality, turn-taking, and co-referentiality [2-4]. The prosodic scheme, finally, probes for prosodic features potentially correlating with the different levels of grammatical and/or discursive dependence: (i) placement of (major) intonation boundaries, (ii) pitch contour of the intonation unit (IU), (iii) key (i.e. pitch level of the IU onset: Low, Mid, or High), and (iv) amount of pitch variation. Preliminary findings confirm that the different grammatical statuses and discourse uses that as if- and alsof-clauses can have correlate with different prosodic profiles. First, the level of grammatical dependence of the clause is reflected in the segmentation into IUs, with grammatically fully integrated clauses being also prosodically integrated in the same IU with their matrix. A cline is observed here from complements (1) to non-obligatory adverbials (2) to independent clause uses (i.e. dependency shifts (3) and insubordination (4)). Moreover, while the amount of pitch variation throughout the production of the clause appears to be a minor factor, key does correlate with the dependency status of the clause. Here too, a cline is found from non-obligatory adverbials (mid-low key), to dependency shifts (mid to mid-high key) to insubordination (high key). Finally, while we found no fixed intonation contour for the different clause uses in either language, Dutch insubordinate clauses were frequently uttered on a rise-fall tone, which has been associated with ‘challenging’ meanings [5]. English insubordinate clauses, by contrast, tend to be produced with a fall, especially ‘high falls’, which signal speaker engagement. Both meanings, we argue, can be linked to the ‘assumption-denying’ function that these clauses serve. References [1] Smessaert, H., B. Cornillie, D. Divjak, and K. van den Eynde. 2005. Degrees of Clause Integration. Linguistics 43: 471–529. [2] Crible, L. and L. Degand (2019). Domains and functions: A two-dimensional account of discourse markers. Discours 24: 3-35. [3] Verstraete, J-C. 2007. Rethinking the Coordinate-Subordinate Dichotomy. Interpersonal Grammar and the Analysis of Adverbial Clauses in English. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. [4] Debaisieux, J-M, ed. 2013. Analyses linguistiques sur corpus: Subordination et insubordination en français. Paris: Hermes Science publications. [5] Cruttenden, A. 1997. Intonation. Cambridge: CUP.