This study presents results of a study of the intonation pattern of auch- and noch-utterances in spoken German. Though the importance of prosody has been widely acknowledged for German , research in the area of focus particles is restricted to the semantics, syntax and pragmatics of these particles.

An utterance as in (1) has three possible domains of application, intonation identifies the relevant domain of application. German uses pitch accents to mark focus and focus particles are assumed to interact with the focus of an utterance. A pitch accent on Max in (1) marks this constituent as focus of the utterance, which functions as auch’s domain of application. A pitch accent on Buch marks [Max ein Buch gekauft] as focus and domain of application. However, it is also possible that the particle itself carries a pitch accent indicating that its domain of application is to its left. In that case the particle itself is the focus of the utterance and the domain of application is a contrastive topic . So there is a clear correlation between the pitch accent placement and the position of the particle’s domain of application. Given that other additive particles are assumed to function in a similar way this analysis should also apply to noch.

However, the analysis of auch and noch in spoken discourse shows that the two particles have less in common than has been generally assumed. In the case of auch intonation gives a clear indication as to the location of its domain of application. We find a clear correlation of accent placement and the position of the domain of application. The use of noch on the other hand lacks this clear correlation. Here the pitch accent is placed within the domain of application irrespective of whether noch precedes or follows its domain of application.

(2) das tut mir leid da bin ich nicht dort. Äh, würde bei Ihnen sonst noch [ein anderer Termin] unter der Woche günstig passen, wie vielleicht ein Donnerstag ?
‘I’m sorry, I won’t be there then but is there any other date during the week that would suit you?’

(3) Legst du [den gelben] noch ja.
‘you also put the yellow one, yes’

Stressed noch is rather infrequent and, other than auch, precedes its domain of application. Accent placement on noch limits the set of alternatives to tokens of the same type.

The example in (4) suggests a similar analysis for noch as for stressed auch, i.e. the domain of application as well as the remaining constituents are topic constituents and noch is the focus of the utterance. This analysis is unproblematic in the case of auch because for stressed auch - under the assumption that auch functions as an overt assertion marker- a set of alternatives to the focus could be established. However, in the case of noch the composition of the set of alternatives remains rather unclear.

In short, there are a number of differences between the two particles. They concern in particular the correlation between the intonation and the position of the particle with respect to its domain of application, the importance of the notion of focus for the interpretation of auch and noch and the way in which pitch accent on the particle itself has to be interpreted.