On the intonation of French wh-in-situ questions: What happens before the wh-word is reached?

Gryllia, Stella; Cheng, Lisa Lai‐Shen; Doetjes, Jenny

doi:10.21437/speechprosody.2016-125

Cited by 4 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Regarding the prosody associated with the wh-phrase, both broad focus questions and echo questions exhibited an accent on the wh-word quel 'which', followed by a high point (a prosodic boundary) at the end of the wh-phrase. This is very similar to the results described in Gryllia et al (2016) (see also Wunderli 1983). It differs from the results described in Baunaz & Patin (2009) and Baunaz (2016), who did not find an accent on the wh-word in questions similarly uttered following a topic change marker (see also Wunderli & Braselmann 1980, Wunderli 1982.…”

Section: Prosodic Properties Of French Wh-in-situ Information Seekingsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…According to Baunaz & Patin (2009) and Baunaz (2016), the wh-phrase does not bear any accent when a wh-in-situ question is uttered out of the blue (see also Wunderli & Braselmann 1980, Wunderli 1982. In contrast, Gryllia, Cheng & Doetjes Gryllia et al (2016) systematically found an emphatic pitch accent in questions uttered out of the blue as well as a rise at the end of the wh-phrase (see also Wunderli 1983, Zubizarreta 1998, Mathieu 2002, Engdahl 2006, Hamlaoui 2011.…”

Section: 2mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The prosody of Frenchwh-in-situ questions: Echo vs. non-echo

2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Section: Prosodic Properties Of French Wh-in-situ Information Seekingsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: 2mentioning

confidence: 99%

The prosody of Frenchwh-in-situ questions: Echo vs. non-echo

2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…24 Of course, there could be other cues to focus than prominence shifts. See Gryllia et al (2016) for a discussion of other types of cues from the prosody of in-situ wh-questions in French.…”

Section: Quantitative Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prosodic focus in English vs. French: A scope account

Klok

Goad

Wagner

2018

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We compare the use of prosodic prominence in English and French to convey focus. While previous studies have found these languages, and Germanic vs. Romance more generally, to differ in their use of prominence to encode focus (e.g., Ladd 1990;1996;Lambrecht 1994;Cruttenden 1997;, exactly what underlies the difference remains an open question. We investigate two possibilities: The difference between the languages could be due to a difference in their phonology, restricting the circumstances in which material can be prosodically reduced, as proposed in Féry (2014). Alternatively, there could be syntactic, semantic, and/or pragmatic differences concerning when prominence can be used to encode focus. We compare these hypotheses in a production study which varied the type of focus context (corrective, contrastive, parallelism) to establish the contextual conditions on when a shift in prosodic prominence can occur. The results confirm earlier claims that French uses prosodic prominence to encode focus in corrections, but fails to prosodically encode other types of focus, in contrast to English. We further find that French and English encode focus with very similar acoustic means. Our results show that both languages have the phonological/phonetic means to encode focus using prominence shifts, but differ with respect to the semantic and pragmatic circumstances in which they use them. We propose that these semantic/pragmatic differences between English and French are a result of differences in the syntactic scope possibilities of the focus operator involved in prosodic focus marking.

show abstract

“…Hermann (1942) argued that interrogatives are universally marked by the presence of a high pitch somewhere in the sentence. Subsequent studies demonstrated that high pitch may manifest itself both locally, for example, in the initial, medial, or final portion of the sentence (Benkirane, 1998; Cheng & Rooryck, 2000; Haan, 2001; Haan, Van Heuven, Pacilly, & Van Bezooijen, 1997; Gryllia, Cheng & Doetjes, 2016; Hadding-Koch, 1961; Hadding-Koch & Studdert-Kennedy, 1964; Ishihara, 2005; Iivonen, 1998; Kitagawa, 2005; Sadat Tehrani, 2008, 2011; Uldall, 1962; Yang, Gryllia, Doetjes & Cheng, 2016 September) and globally, for example, in the form of a raised register and/or the absence of F0 downtrend (Bolinger, 1982; Geluykens, 1986; Haan, 2001; Haan et al, 1997; Inkelas & Leben, 1990; Lindsey, 1985; Sadat Tehrani, 2008, 2011; Thorsen, 1980; Vaissière, 1983).…”

Section: Prosody Of Interrogativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, several other researchers (e.g., Beyssade, Delais-Roussarie, & Marandin, 2007; Hamlaoui, 2008, 2011; Zubizarreta, 2003) have argued against the idea that French wh-in-situ questions are required to have a rising intonation contour. Similar to Mandarin Chinese wh-in-situ questions, the pre-wh part (i.e., the subject and the verb) in French wh-in-situ questions is marked by F0 and durational properties as opposed to the same part in declaratives (Gryllia et al, 2016). The first syllable of declaratives with monosyllabic subjects has a longer duration in comparison with the matching wh-question.…”

Section: Prosody Of Interrogativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Persian Native Speakers Prosodically Mark Wh-in-situ Questions?

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It has been shown that prosody contributes to the contrast between declarativity and interrogativity, notably in interrogative utterances lacking lexico-syntactic features of interrogativity. Accordingly, it may be proposed that prosody plays a role in marking wh-in-situ questions in which the interrogativity feature (the wh-phrase) does not move to sentence-initial position, as, for example, in Persian. This paper examines whether prosody distinguishes Persian wh-in-situ questions from declaratives in the absence of the interrogativity feature in the sentence-initial position. To answer this question, a production experiment was designed in which wh-questions and declaratives were elicited from Persian native speakers. On the basis of the results of previous studies, we hypothesize that prosodic features mark wh-in-situ questions as opposed to declaratives at both the local (pre- and post-wh part) and global level (complete sentence). The results of the current study confirm our hypothesis that prosodic correlates mark the pre-wh part as well as the complete sentence in wh-in-situ questions. The results support theoretical concepts such as the frequency code, the universal dichotomous association between relaxation and declarativity on the one hand and tension and interrogativity on the other, the relation between prosody and pragmatics, and the relation between prosody and encoding and decoding of sentence type.

show abstract

On the intonation of French wh-in-situ questions: What happens before the wh-word is reached?

Cited by 4 publications

References 2 publications

The prosody of Frenchwh-in-situ questions: Echo vs. non-echo

The prosody of Frenchwh-in-situ questions: Echo vs. non-echo

Prosodic focus in English vs. French: A scope account

Do Persian Native Speakers Prosodically Mark Wh-in-situ Questions?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About