Integrating word order and prosody. A unified account of focus encoding in Uyghur

Çetinkaya E.

TURKIC LANGUAGES, vol.29, no.2, pp.254-272, 2025 (AHCI, Scopus)

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 29 Issue: 2
  • Publication Date: 2025
  • Journal Name: TURKIC LANGUAGES
  • Journal Indexes: Scopus, Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), IBZ Online, Index Islamicus, Linguistic Bibliography, MLA - Modern Language Association Database
  • Page Numbers: pp.254-272
  • Hacettepe University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that focus holds prosodic significance in many languages. Research on the intonation of focus in Uyghur suggests that focus is encoded with a distinct

boundary tone characterized by the highest pitch in the sentence. However, these studies do not consider the constraints between focus and word order in Uyghur. In this study, we first

address the constraints between word order and focus. Taking these constraints into account, we then explore the prosody of focus and its pragmatic subtypes. We demonstrate

that while contrastive and mirative foci in Uyghur are encoded with the most prominent boundary tone in the sentence, this pattern is not observed for informational focus. Finally,

we argue that Uyghur employs both syntactic and prosodic focusing strategies, which operate in a complementary manner.