Workshop on Topic, Focus and Intonation, Santa Barbara, CA, July 20-21, 2001

最近的句法学和语义学研究在我们对语言中话题和焦点的理解的深度和跨语言的广度上取得了巨大的发展。与此同时，语音学家和音系学家对语调的跨语言研究也越来越感兴趣。语调的一个领域，已经被证明是一个丰富的，但相对研究不足的研究领域是焦点和主题。对各种语言的研究表明，涉及聚焦或主题化元素的话语通常与语调性质相关联，所述语调性质不同于没有任何聚焦或主题化元素的话语，例如增加的音高范围、专门的音调配置、不同的持续时间特征。这些研究表明，韵律的差异与各种主题化和焦点相关的意义差异之间存在着密切的联系，尽管最近对主题和焦点的语调特性的研究取得了进展，但我们对语调的语音和音韵与主题化和焦点的句法和语义之间的相互作用的跨语言知识仍有很大的发展空间。特别是，句法学家，语义学家，音系学家和语音学家之间的互动增加，有望在与主题化和焦点相关的意义的语调相关性研究中取得重要进展。一个关于主题，焦点和语调的研讨会将在2001年美国语言学会夏季研究所在圣巴巴拉，加利福尼亚州举行。在这次研讨会中，我们希望进一步探讨各种主题化的效果，并关注语调。特别希望这次研讨会将为致力于研究意义的语言学家和从事语调定量研究的语言学家之间的未来合作奠定基础。无论是描述性的和理论性的论文之间的关系的任何方面的语调，一方面，和主题和/或重点，另一方面，是受欢迎的。论文可能涉及任何语言的主题和/或焦点的语调方面，无论是相对较好的研究还是相对较少的文献。

Recent work in syntax and semantics has yielded dramatic developments in the depth and cross-linguistic breadth of our understanding of the role of topic and focus in language. At the same time, there has been increased interest among phoneticians and phonologists in the cross-linguistic study of intonation. One area of intonation which has proven to be a rich yet relatively understudied area of research is focus and topic. Studies of various languages have indicated that utterances involving a focused or topicalized element are typically associated with intonational properties different from utterances without any focused or topicalized elements, e.g. increased pitch range, specialized tonal configurations, different durational characteristics. These studies suggest a close link between differences in prosody and the kinds of differences in meaning associated with various kinds of topicalization and focus.Nevertheless despite recent advances in the study of intonational properties of topic and focus, there is ample room for further advancing our cross-linguistic knowledge of the interaction between the phonetics and phonology of intonation and the syntax and semantics of topicalization and focus. In particular, increased interaction between syntacticians, semanticists, phonologists and phoneticians promises to yield important progress in the study of intonational correlates of the meanings associated with topicalization and focus. A workshop on Topic, Focus and Intonation will be held at the 2001 Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute in Santa Barbara, CA. In this workshop, we hope to explore further the effects of various kinds of topicalization and focus on intonation. It is especially hoped that the workshop will lay the groundwork for future collaborative efforts between linguists devoted to the study meaning and linguistics engaged in the quantitative study of intonation. Both descriptive and theoretical papers on any aspects of the relationship between intonation, on the one hand, and topic and/or focus, on the other hand, are welcome. Papers may deal with intonational aspects of topic and/or focus in any language, whether relatively well-studied or relatively underdocumented.