Stress and tones as intensifying operators in German

Cosentino Gianluca

2017-01-01

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Abstract

Unlike the classic, most widely studied phenomena, prosody has been insufficiently investigated as form of linguistic intensification. This paper attempts to look upon some prosodic features as independent means of intensification in German. Accents, tones and contour choice may open up the possibility of distinguishing between intensified and unintensified predicates, however this differentiation cannot be described within a gradually increasing system, but it is only measurable within a bipolar, two-dimensional scale.