A contrastive study of english and spanish post-nuclear patterns

Abstract

This corpus-based paper is aimed at establishing differences and similari- ties between English and Spanish post-nuclear patterns, i.e., the type of unaccented material found in the so-called tails. Furthermore, special refer- ence is made to Gussenhoven’s work on this problem area in and about the English language; thus, establishing the working framework according to which sentences in Spanish are analysed.

As far as English is concerned, the plentiful literature available has shown a number of cases where linguistic material is left unaccented in Broad Focus situations, e.g. I’m a vegeTARian, you know. Interestingly, perhaps contrary to the prevailing belief, certain structures presenting early nuclei can also be found in Chilean Spanish