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We experimentally tested three hypotheses regarding the pragmatics of two tunes (one high-ending, one flat-ending) used with Greek wh-questions: (a) the high-ending tune is associated with information-seeking questions, while the flat-ending tune is also appropriate when wh-questions are not information-seeking, in which case their function can instead be akin to that of a statement; (b) the high-ending tune is more polite, and (c) more appropriate for contexts leading to information-seeking questions. The wh-questions used as experimental stimuli were elicited from four speakers in contexts likely to lead to either information-seeking or non-information-seeking uses. The speakers produced distinct tunes in response to the contexts; acoustic analysis indicates these are best analysed as L*+H L-!H% (rising), and L+H* L-L% (flat). In a perception experiment where participants heard the questions out of context, they chose answers providing information significantly more frequently after high-ending than flat-ending questions, confirming hypothesis (a). In a second experiment testing hypotheses (b) and (c), participants evaluated wh-questions for appropriateness and politeness in information- and non-information-seeking contexts. High-ending questions were rated more appropriate in information-seeking contexts, and more polite independently of context relative to their flat-ending counterparts. Finally, two follow-up experiments showed that the interpretation of the two tunes was not affected by voice characteristics of individual speakers, and confirmed a participant preference for the high-ending tune. Overall, the results support our hypotheses and lead to a compositional analysis of the meaning of the two tunes, while also showing that intonational meaning is determined by both tune and pragmatic context.

This study compares the prosodic properties of French wh-in-situ echo questions and string-identical information seeking questions in relation to focus. Thirty-six (12 $\times$ 3) wh-in-situ questions were embedded in dialogues designed to elicit (A) echo questions expressing auditory failure, (B) information seeking questions with broad focus or (C) information seeking questions with narrow focus on the wh-phrase, i.e. a focus structure similar to the one of echo questions. Analyses regarding the F0, duration and intensity of the utterances produced by 20 native speakers of French show clear prosodic differences between the three conditions. Our results indicate that part of the prosodic properties of echo questions can be attributed to the presence of narrow focus (A and C vs. B) while another part is truly characteristic of echo questions themselves (A vs. B and C). In combination with known differences regarding their pragmatics, semantics and syntax, this sets echo questions apart as a separate question type. At the same time, our results offer evidence for prosodic encoding of focus in French wh-in-situ questions, confirming and adding to existing claims regarding the prosody of focus marking in French on the one hand and the presence of focus marking in wh-interrogatives on the other.

Previous studies on the intonation of wh-in-situ questions in French have focused mainly on the utterance final movement and ignored the prosodic properties of the region preceding the wh-constituent. Yet, these latter properties are particularly interesting from a processing perspective, as they may help the listener anticipate a question before the wh-word is reached, which might facilitate parsing. In this paper we present the results of a production experiment testing the hypothesis that the prosodic properties of wh-in-situ questions differ from the prosodic properties of their declarative counterparts. The results of the production experiment verified this hypothesis. The subject and the first syllables of the verb are significantly shorter in wh-in-situ questions than in declaratives, while the last syllable of the verb is lengthened in questions. Moreover, we found that the first syllable of the wh-word systematically bears an emphatic accent or C-accent (Rossi 1985, Beyssade et al. 2004). This leads to the hypothesis that the prosodic differences on the syllables preceding the wh-word could well be a side effect of the presence of a C-accent on the wh-word.

Mandarin wh -words can have question or non-question (e.g., existential, universal quantificational) interpretations. Their interpretations in a sentence are usually not ambiguous, as the distinct interpretations need to be licensed by particular items/contexts. The starting point of our study concerns a case which allows the wh -words to remain ambiguous in a sentence: wh -words such as shénme appearing with di ǎnr . After empirically confirming that such sentences are indeed ambiguous (Study 1), we turn to the question of whether and how prosody helps disambiguate such sentences. Our production experiment (Study 2) shows that wh -declaratives differ from wh -questions in terms of prosodic properties already from the clause onset. Wh -declaratives are longer than whquestions starting from the subject and the pattern reverses at the wh -word; wh -declaratives are lower in F0 and smaller in F0 range than wh -questions at the wh -word and there is a F0 range compression in the post-wh -word region in wh -questions; wh -declaratives show larger intensity range than wh -questions at the verb and the pattern reverses at the wh -word. An implication of this study concerns the focal status of wh -words in wh -questions and wh -declaratives: wh -words are foci in wh -questions but cannot be foci in wh -declaratives.