The Elements of Focus Intonation and its Phonetic Correlates in Persian Declarative Sentences

The aim of this contribution is to investigate the phonetics and phonology of prosodic focus in declarative sentences in Persian. To achieve this goal, we embarked on the analysis of 150 utterances produced by five male speakers using Praat software. The findings from the effects of focus on duration and F0 reveal that the mean duration and F0 of focal elements are longer and higher comparing to their unfocused counterparts, respectively. However, the comparison of mean duration and F0 of preand post-focal components with their neutral counterparts does not show any significant difference. On the other hand, drawing on AutosegmentalMetrical phonology, results show that focused elements follow the tonal pattern of (L+)^H*. Also, focal elements form a separate accentual phrase with the boundary tone of "l" which spreads up to the end of post-focal elements. Tonal patterns of ^H* and L+^H* matches the words with initial stress and the words with final stress, respectively.