La structure prosodique opère-t-elle avant ou après la syntaxe ?

Abstract

Whether in read, silent reading or spontaneous speech, the prosodic structure is always present as an obligatory linguistic object in order to allow the listener to process the information brought by the flow of syllables and access the syntactic information contained in the sentence. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the elaboration of the prosodic structuration necessarily present in the sentence actually precedes the elaboration of the other structures and particularly of the syntactic structure, whether in the generation process by the speaker or the perception process by the listener. Arguments favoring this conclusion are of various order and are based on the following facts:- The prosodic structure can exist without any words or any syntax whereas the opposite is not true. Syntax depends on the presence of prosody, but prosody does not depend on the presence of syntax; - The phonation process requires a flow of expiratory air flow which is segmented by phases of inspiration in the speaker respiration cycle; - The flow of syllables must be segmented in chunks in order to be processed by Delta brain waves. Delta waves synchronize the transfer of sequences of syllables stored in short-term memory; - In spontaneous speech, reformulations are always realized by retaking a complete stress group and not a selected word (except perhaps in stylistic applications); - The dynamic process of the prosodic structure generation shows that the speaker has to choose between a relation of dependence (rection) or independence (paratax) between the actual prosodic group (ip or IP in autosegmental-metrical terminology). This is done by specifying prosodic contours indicating a dependency relation towards another contour to occur in the immediate future (i.e. to “the right”). All these observations lead to a conclusion suggesting that the prosodic structure operates before the syntactic and the other structures of the sentence. The usual graphic representation and analysis of the prosodic structure obscures considerably this aspects, leading to believe that intonation acts as a supplement to syntax, to be processed by the listener (in reality only the reader) as another set of syntactic features.

Keywords

• prosodic structure
• syntax
• spontaneous speech
• reformulations
• repetitions