Information structure and intonation in Andean Spanish

Introduction. This study examines information structure and intonation in the Andean Spanish spoken by Quechua-Spanish bilinguals in the department of Cusco, Peru. Spanish and Quechua are typologically different languages that use different strategies to convey focus. In Spanish, focus is encoded syntactically (through word order) and intonationally. Several studies on Spanish have reported intonation differences between broad and contrastive focus (De la Mota, 1997; Face, 2001, 2002). For instance, prenuclear peaks are aligned late in broad focus, whereas they are aligned mostly early in contrastive focus. Furthermore, in different Spanish varieties contrastive focus is associated with an increased duration of the stressed syllable or word, a higher intensity, a higher F0 maximum, or a wider tonal range (De la Mota, 1997; Face, 2001, 2002; Hualde, 2005). In Quechua, focus is encoded syntactically (through word order) and morphologically, through the focus particle–mi/-n (1). Focus is not encoded intonationally in Cusco Quechua (O‘Rourke, 2005).