Effect of narrow focus on tonal realization in Georgian

Abstract

This article examines the prosodic correlates of focus in Georgian declarative sentences, based on speech production data. Georgian is an intonation language with flexible word order, and it is sensitive to information structure. It is shown in the paper that focus has an impact on duration but does not systematically change the tonal realization of the constituents. Most prosodic correlates of focus result from the interaction with prosodic phrasing.