Echo questions in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

Brazilian Portuguese (BP) can have the wh-element in-situ with two types of sentence intonation: (a) the rising intonation of a yes/no question, in which case it is interpreted as an echo question, and (b) the falling intonation, similar to that of a declarative sentence, in which case it is interpreted as an ordinary question. Kato (2013) analyzed the falling intonation type as a fake wh-in-situ, with a short movement of the wh-element to a lower focus position, inspired by Miyagawa's (2001) proposal for Japanese whereas the rising intonation type was analyzed in accordance with Kayne's (1994) proposal, with the whole TP containing the wh-element moving to Spec of C. In this article we maintain the analysis of the wh-in-situ with falling intonation as a fake in-situ but analyze the echo question as a short yes/ no indirect question. The languages used to support this analysis of BP are English, French, and Japanese.

Prosodic correlates of mirative and new information focus in Spanish wh-in-situ questions

“…In Ecuadorian Spanish, pitch range exclusively distinguishes between the two(Huttenlauch et al 2016). 9 A similar prosodic combination is also reported in Catalan and Italian(Gili Fivela et al 2015.10 In Brazilian Portuguese, neutral INF questions have falling intonation, while echo ones are rising(Kato 2019). …”

Intonation correlates of canonical and non-canonical wh-in-situ questions in Spanish

“…For example, in Brazilian Portuguese, canonical questions are fronted and have final falling intonation, unlike non-canonical echo questions, which are not fronted (i.e. in-situ) and tend to end in a rise (Kato 2019). In Italian, in-situ non-canonical questions are characterised by an upstepped rising nuclear pitch accent (L+¡H*); they also carry sentence prominence, reach a more elevated High, and have an expanded pitch range compared to information-seeking questions, which are fronted (henceforth, INF) (Badan & Crocco 2019).…”