摘要
重音(accent)是自然语言的构成要素之一,其合理分布对于话语的听觉自然性和语义解释都有重要影响,其相关研究是实现高质量的文语转换(Text-to-Speech)的重要基础。现有研究显示,自然语言的重音分布受到韵律、词类、句法、语义和语用等多种因素的共同制约。主要分布原则(如实词重读虚词不重读、重音居后、内论元优先重读、新信息优先重读等)已被普遍接受,一些具体因素也有一定研究。在重音的语义解释方面,现有的焦点投射理论还有待进一步完善。
Accent is one of the essential components of natural language. Their proper distribution plays an important role in the naturalness and interpretation of natural utterances. Studies of accent therefore constitute an important basis for advanced Text-to-Speech projects. The current thesis makes an overall introduction and survey of the western studies on the distribution and interpretation of the accents of natural languages so as to serve as a reference for the improvement of domestic research in the field. On the whole, the theoretical study of accent is heavily referred to the concept of focus in the western studies. According to the number of the lexical items included in it, a focus抯 domain is divided into two categories, i.e., narrow domains with mostly only one lexical item and broad domains with more than one item. Accent distribution and interpretation problems with a narrow focus domain are immediately clear: a direct one-to-one correspondence exists between focus and accent in a narrow domain. However, in a broad focus domain, the economy principle (and assumably some prosodic principles as well) will usually preclude such a direct correspondence, which means, instead of falling upon all the lexical items, accent percolates to only one or some of them in a broad domain. This at the same time means, accent on a single or some lexical items may well project to a focus of a much larger domain, sometimes even to the whole sentence concerned. There then arise the problems of accent distribution and interpretation of natural languages. Therefore, the process of accent distribution is considered as mainly a process of accent percolation in a broad focus domain. So far, four major principles in regulating accent percolation have been identified: namely, (i) accent is assigned to content words but not function words; (ii) accent is assigned to the rightmost stressable vowel (NSR); (iii) accent is assigned to internal argument; (iv) accent is assigned to lexical items bearing new information, etc. As those four
出处
《现代外语》
CSSCI
北大核心
2003年第1期93-103,共11页
Modern Foreign Languages
关键词
重音
焦点
范域
渗漏
投射
accent, focus, domain, percolation, projection
