Intonation and Focus in West Greenlandic

This contribution investigates focus realisation by means of intonation in West Greenlandic, concentrating on prefinal constituents. It finds that focus is realised in two ways in this language: Focussed words are realised with a complete tonal contour more often than ‘given’ words, and are usually also marked in terms of pitch range. However, variation occurs with regard to speaker, constituent and focus type. Based on these findings, the article argues for a distinction between different focus types as well as it underlines the importance of a theoretical modelling of pitch range modifications.