Abstract
This thesis presents a formal characterisation of prosodic structure and intonation in
Maltese. It also examines selected structures of Maltese English, specifically structures
having an interrogative function, in order to determine areas of influence of Maltese on
Maltese English.
Apart from accent-related rising and falling nuclear tunes, Maltese possesses two accentrelated
post-nuclear tunes. A tonal entity specific to structures such as vocatives,
imperatives and tags is also identified. This vocative contour is similar to the postnuclear
tunes in many respects.
In order to account for the fact that the specific choice of post-nuclear tune depends on
that of the preceding nuclear tune, a distinction between independent and dependent
domains is postulated. A proposal to deal with post-nuclear entities as being extrametrical
to the phonological phrase (P-phrase) containing the nuclear tune, but crucially occurring
within the same intonational phrase (I-phrase), successfully incorporates the
aforementioned characteristics of Maltese intonational phonology. The vocative contour
is analysed along similar lines. I advance the claim that the focus domain in Maltese is
the P-phrase rather than the I-phrase.
The distinctness of the falling nuclear statement tune from the falling vocative contour is
adequately captured by an analysis in terms of H(igh) and L(ow) tones (Ts) which are
attached either to accented syllables (T*) or to boundaries (T%). However, in order to
capture the differences in implementation of the nuclear question tune from the postnuclear
statement tune, both of which have a rising contour, an extension of the
framework is employed. This involves the reinterpretation of boundary tones in terms of
whether they attach to phonological phrase (P-phrase) boundaries (Tp) or to intonational
phrase (I-phrase) boundaries (Tt). This extension to the framework successfully allows
for a
representation of the Maltese tunes described here.
The influence of Maltese on Maltese English is evident at the levels of both prosodic
structure and intonation. The account of prosodic structure and intonation of Maltese
throws light on areas of the influence of Maltese on Maltese English at these levels of
structure.
