Comprehension of Focus Types in Japanese

Distinct types of focus in Tokyo Japanese are investigated, with special attention given to their acoustic and perceptual characteristics. The results of production, prominence rating, and context retrieval tests demonstrate that prosodic differences between Informational Focus (IF) and Contrastive/Corrective Focus (CF) are subtle, but perceptible to listeners: CF involving a slightly greater F0 fall and longer duration is perceived more prominent than IF. However, it is also revealed that the perceived differences of prominence do not guide listeners to identify the focus types, implying that the prosodic differences between IF and CF in the speech signal alone do not play a functional role in terms of communication.