A short report on intonation phrase boundaries in German

This short report presents an experimental exploration of the intonation of German embedded clauses, based on the data of an Austrian speaker of German. The right edge of an intonation phrase is indicated by upstep and byedge tones with this speaker. A right edge of an intonation phrase is regularly found at the right edge of clauses, including embedded clauses, though not preceding medial left edges of clauses. This cannot be captured by the proposal of Downing (1970) to the effect that only root clauses form obligatory intonation phrases, and suggests that clauses affect intonation phrase formation even when they are syntactically more deeply embedded. A brief account in Optimality Theory is presented that relates the present findings to those discussed by Downing. The account generalizes the interaction of Alignment and Wrapping from phonological phrases to intonation phrases.

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