Abstract

The present paper examines the influence of focal condition on the timing of nuclear high accents in Hamburg German. The analysis of spontaneous speech data shows that in utterances produced with narrow focus the Fo peak of the focal accent occurs later than in utterances produced with wide focus. This variation is often accompanied by an increase of the Fo excursion. The question arises whether the observed timing difference can be attributed to the increase of the Fo excursion alone. If so, the shift of the Fo peak could simply be explained as an effect of additional emphasis under narrow focus. Further analysis, however, suggests that differences in tonal organization might also be important for the timing of nuclear high accents.