Semantically-Independent but Contextually-Dependent Interpretation of Contrastive Accent

摘要: A pair of eye-tracking experiments compared the effect prominent pitch accent on pre-nominal intersective color adjectives and subsective size adjectives. Because are inherently contrastive, they may prompt comparison among a subset referents regardless presence accent. In contrast, require prosodic marking in order to be interpreted contrastively. Accent-driven contrast interpretation was tested within real-world object manipulation paradigm, where participants followed pre-recorded instructions decorate holiday trees. both Color Size experiments, (L + H*) adjective facilitated detection contrastive target (e.g., Hang red/medium star. → Next, hang YELLOW/LARGE star.). When L H* infelicitously used non-contrastive sequences tree. ball.), reliable ‘garden-path’ increase fixations incorrect competitor yellow/large tree) found but not experiment. As result, correct were visibly delayed experiment, bias toward type adjective. We argue that this due differences salience visual contrast. While present results confirm modifiers evokes an anticipatory interpretation, also suggest accentual prominence is modulated by discourse referential context, rather than inherent semantics accented words.