Accentuation of Domain-related information in Swedish Dialogues

The issue of the focal accentuation of contextually ‘given’ travel domain concepts in task-related Swedish dialogues is examined. An explanation for this focal accentuation is proposed using concepts within Centering theory, i.e. it is assumed that it is domain-related ‘Backward Centers’ that are associated with the prominent focal accents. The variation in the timing of the focal H ̄ is further accounted for by relating it to different orderings of the Optimality theory Align XP and Wrap XP constraints with respect to Align Focus. Support for the theoretical assumptions is obtained from a perception test using constructed manmachine Initiative-Response dialogues where the ‘machine’ Responses vary as to the type of F0 contour on the Backward Centers (focal vs non-focal and early vs. late timing of the focal H ̄ ).

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