Questions as indirect speech acts in surprise contexts

Celle, Agnès

doi:10.1075/slcs.197.10cel

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…The surprise aspect ties in with observations that rhetorical questions may be marked by "mirativity markers" in some languages (for Basque: Alcázar, 2017). Also, rhetorical questions in English have been associated with surprise (Celle, 2018). Taken together, both the phonetic composition of (LH) * as well as pragmatic approaches explain why (LH) * evokes a different meaning than the two other accents.…”

Section: Interim Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three Kinds of Rising-Falling Contours in German wh-Questions: Evidence From Form and Function

et al. 2022

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The intonational realization of utterances is generally characterized by regional as well as inter- and intra-speaker variability in f0. Category boundaries thus remain “fuzzy” and it is non-trivial how the (continuous) acoustic space maps onto (discrete) pitch accent categories. We focus on three types of rising-falling contours, which differ in the alignment of L(ow) and H(igh) tones with respect to the stressed syllable. Most of the intonational systems on German have described two rising accent categories, e.g., L+H* and L*+H in the German ToBI system. L+H* has a high-pitched stressed syllable and a low leading tone aligned in the pre-tonic syllable; L*+H a low-pitched stressed syllable and a high trailing tone in the post-tonic syllable. There are indications for the existence of a third category which lies between these two categories, with both L and H aligned within the stressed syllable, henceforth termed (LH)*. In the present paper, we empirically investigate the distinctiveness of three rising-falling contours [L+H*, (LH)*, and L*+H, all with a subsequent low boundary tone] in German wh-questions. We employ an approach that addresses both the form and the function of the contours, also taking regional variation into account. In Experiment 1 (form), we used a delayed imitation paradigm to test whether Northern and Southern German speakers can imitate the three rising-falling contours in wh-questions as distinct contours. In Experiment 2 (function), we used a free association task to investigate whether listeners interpret the pragmatic meaning of the three contours differently. Imitation results showed that German speakers—both from the North and the South—reproduced the three contours. There was a small but significant effect of regional variety such that contours produced by speakers from the North were slightly more distinct than those by speakers from the South. In the association task, listeners from both varieties attributed distinct meanings to the (LH)* accent as opposed to the two ToBI accents L+H* and L*+H. Combined evidence from form and function suggests that three distinct contours can be found in the acoustic and perceptual space of German rising-falling contours.

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Section: Interim Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three Kinds of Rising-Falling Contours in German wh-Questions: Evidence From Form and Function

et al. 2022

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“…or What the hell is he doing? are now characterized as surprise questions too (e.g., Celle 2018;Celle et al 2019).…”

Section: An Empirical Study On the Pragmatics Of Surprise Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The pragmatics of surprise-disapproval questions: An empirical study

Trotzke

Czypionka

2022

Linguistics Vanguard

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In this paper, we investigate a type of non-canonical question that is not information-seeking, but rather expresses the speaker’s surprise and/or disapproval with respect to the event denoted by the propositional part of the question. Our work is empirically based on claims that have been put forward in the syntactic literature, and our study aims at empirically assessing those theoretical claims about the illocutionary status of surprise-disapproval questions by exploring their pragmatics.

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“…[6] Exclamative questions (Munaro & Obenauer 1999) or surprise questions (Celle 2018, Celle et al 2019 are other instances of noncanonical questions.…”

Section: Disentangling Clause Types and Speech Actsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clause type vs. speech act: Knowledge confirmation questions in Basque

Ituarte¹

2022

J. Ling.

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This article analyzes Knowledge Confirmation Questions (KCQ) in Basque, an instance of non-canonical questions that has not been analyzed yet. KCQs display three characteristic elements, namely, (i) a declarative-type syntax, (ii) an interrogative-like intonation, and (iii) the discourse particle ba; and are interpreted as follows: “Do you know that p?”. Here, I propose that the meaning contribution of KCQs derives from the interaction of these three elements. More precisely, I argue that their question-like intonation, which adds interrogative interpretation, takes scope over ba, which regulates the addressee’s Doxastic State and undergoes context shift. Basque KCQs constitute an interesting case study, because they raise some interesting questions on the syntactization of discourse and the properties of discourse particles, as they seem to contradict the assumption that discourse particles do not fall under the scope of sentential operators.

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Questions as indirect speech acts in surprise contexts

Cited by 11 publications

References 38 publications

Three Kinds of Rising-Falling Contours in German wh-Questions: Evidence From Form and Function

Three Kinds of Rising-Falling Contours in German wh-Questions: Evidence From Form and Function

The pragmatics of surprise-disapproval questions: An empirical study

Clause type vs. speech act: Knowledge confirmation questions in Basque

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