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Carlos Castelló Vercher
Universitat de València
Spain
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5459-7178
Vol 50 (2023), Articles
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15304/verba.50.7797
Submitted: 23-06-2021 Accepted: 31-01-2022 Published: 14-06-2023
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Abstract

Prosodic studies have attempted to analyse highlighting function of discourse markers, their segmental role in units of spoken language, and the relationship between their functions and prosodic realizations. This research focuses on the analysis of entonces ‘then’ in conversations recorded in Valencia and Madrid. For this analysis, the acoustic data (such as F0, intensity, duration, pause, adjustment and tonal inflection) have been extracted using Praat; the location of entonces in speech units (acts and turns) has been identified, and the samples have been classified according to whether entonces has an adverbial (temporal or anaphoric), connective or dialogic function. The data show that entonces usually appears prosodically highlighted with a suspended or rising contour. What is more, it usually occupies the initial position of acts and medial of the turns. Finally, the F0 is the most productive element when distinguishing discourse functions, in such a way that the connective uses show greater highlighting and the dialogic uses show higher tonal frequencies as well as marked melodic contours.