Initial peaks and final falls in the intonation of Manchego Spanish wh-questions

Abstract

This paper investigates the phonetics and phonology of initial peaks and final falls in wh-questions produced by speakers of the variety of Spanish spoken in the Castile-La Mancha (Manchego) region of Spain. The acoustic analysis is based on speech data for nine speakers, and the goal is to identify how utterance-initial and utterance-final F 0 gestures relate to broader issues in intonational phonology and the prosodic signaling of wh-questions. The findings for left periphery constituents provide evidence for a H tone at the utterance boundary for all speakers, although the exact autosegmental representation cannot be provided due to variability in peak alignment patterns. The findings for right periphery constituents indicate two distinct speaker groups based on nuclear syllable and posttonic gestures. Specifically, the continuum of final falls is motivated by contrasting bitonal nuclear pitch accent configurations: H + L* vs. ¡L + H*. The boundary L% specification is argued for all speakers in spite of seemingly divergent posttonic gestures. The experimental findings speak to cross-linguistic issues such as prominence marking in wh-question intonation, the syntax-prosody interface in wh-questions, and the internal structure of pitch accent configurations.

A Description of Tucumán Spanish Intonation in Argentina

“…This work presents the main intonation patterns of this dialect together with phonetic variation contributing to the literature that documents intonation variation in Spanish dialects (e.g., Prieto andRoseano 2009-2013;Henriksen 2014;Henriksen and García-Amaya 2012) as well as an enhancement of the dialectological mapping of Argentina. The present work also allowed for an interlectal comparison between the intonational patterns of the Tucumán Spanish variety and the Buenos Aires Spanish variety regarding a number of pragmatic conditions, a comparison that yielded interesting results, thus confirming previous impressionistic analysis.…”

Investigating the Nature of the Left Periphery in Peninsular Spanish wh-Question Intonation

“…Most experimental work has focused on F0 movements in phrase-final position, due to their pragmatic, stylistic and regional variation (Estebas-Vilaplana and Prieto, 2010;Henriksen, 2009Henriksen, , 2013Henriksen, , 2014López-Bobo and Cuevas-Alonso, 2010;Prieto, 2004;Sosa, 1999). Navarro Tomás (1948), in his treatise on Spanish intonational structure, distinguishes 3 melodic contours used to signal wh-question intent, displayed in figure 2: a default falling contour (2a), a pragmatically motivated 'polite' contour characterized by a final rise (2b) and a circumflex contour characterized by a final rise-fall that communicates amazement or surprise (2c).…”

“…Whereas Sosa (1999, p. 148) proposed the H* + H label to describe the initial rising accent in whquestions, Prieto considered the possibility of a phonologically distinct upstepped ¡H accent on the wh-word, but left this open for further analysis. At the time of writing, Henriksen (2014) is the most recent analysis of Peninsular Spanish wh-question intonation, framing the acoustic findings within the AM framework. The speakers in Henriksen's paper produced wh-questions with a rise at the left periphery followed by a fall (H + L*) or rise-fall (L + ¡H*) on the nuclear syllable, and an L% boundary tone ( fig.…”

Syllable structure and word stress effects in Peninsular Spanish nuclear accents

“…These configurations occur in most varieties of Peninsular Spanish, documented for northern, central, and southern varieties (Prieto 2004;Henriksen 2009;Estebas-Vilaplana and Prieto 2010;López-Bobo and Cuevas-Alonso 2010;Henriksen and García-Amaya 2012;Henriksen 2013). The phonetic properties of the H þ L* and L þ ¡H* accents were examined in Henriksen (2014), where it was shown that the leading tones aligned within the last portion of the prestressed syllable and the starred tones aligned within the second half of the nuclear syllable. However, a recognized caveat was that only open syllables were included in the database of test sentences in Henriksen (2014).…”

“…The phonetic properties of the H þ L* and L þ ¡H* accents were examined in Henriksen (2014), where it was shown that the leading tones aligned within the last portion of the prestressed syllable and the starred tones aligned within the second half of the nuclear syllable. However, a recognized caveat was that only open syllables were included in the database of test sentences in Henriksen (2014). It remains to be seen whether the alignment of starred tones remains synchronous with the syllable edge when the nuclear rhyme incorporates a coda consonant.…”