Structural and Prosodic Correlates of Prominence in Free Word Order Language Discourse

Production and perception experiments with native speakers of Russian, a free word order language, show that prosody and change in word order are used to mark discourse-prominent constituents. Concurrent application of these cues to prominence is possible, as evident from distinctively higher f0 and intensity maxima, and duration values associated with exsitu words, as well as their higher visibility in discourse. Distinctive acoustic-prosodic realization of ex-situ words may cue their relatively high informational load and discourse prominence, as well as (redundantly) signal that the word is leftor rightdislocated.