The prosodic realization of rhetorical and information-questions in German spontaneous speech

Abstract

Previous results from laboratory experiments show that German speakers use prosody to distinguish between informationseeking questions (ISQs) and rhetorical questions (RQs). In the current paper we investigate whether pitch accents and edge tones (i.e., those that were typical for RQs and ISQs in the experimental data) are also used in spontaneous speech.As compared to laboratory data, spontaneous speech data are syntactically and lexically more varied. However, notwithstanding more variation in their prosodic realization, RQs and ISQs in spontaneous speech essentially exhibit the same prosodic characteristics as RQs and ISQs in lab speech. Specifically, RQs were most often realized with an L*+H nuclear accent in both polar and wh-questions. Edge tones differed across question types. For polar ISQs, the most frequent edge tone was a high-rise H-^H%, while polar RQs were mostly realized with a high plateau (H-%) or a low-rise (L-H%). Wh-ISQs equally often ended in a low edge tone (L-%) and H-^H%, while wh-RQs most frequently terminated in L-%. RQs were furthermore produced with a slower speaking rate in both settings.Given the similarities between the results for spontaneous vs. lab speech, the use of experimental data to investigate the prosodic realization of different illocution types is validated.

The interaction of discourse markers and prosody in rhetorical questions in German

“…Like for edge tones, no comparison is possible between polar ISQs and polar RQs, because they do not share specific DiPs. Nuclear accents in utterances without DiPs ('none' in Figure 8) are in line with earlier results for the prosody of German RQs (Braun et al 2019;Braun et al 2020), in particular, we observe the occurrence of the (LþH)* nuclear accent in more than 50% of polar RQs. Since neutral denn does not occur in our set of polar RQs, no comparison is possible within polar RQs between denn and other DiPs.…”

“…Wh-RQs mostly ended in LÀ%, as opposed to more variation in wh-ISQs (in line with Braun et al 2019;Braun et al 2020). This pattern is the same across DiPs.…”

“…Naturally, since ISQs and RQs may be string-identical, the occurrence of lexical or morpho-syntactic means including DiPs is not obligatory in German RQs. Along with lexical and morpho-syntactic means, prosody distinguishes RQs from ISQs (Braun et al 2019;Braun et al 2020 for German; see the cross-linguistic overview in Dehé et al 2022). Relevant prosodic parameters include temporal cues (constituent duration, speaking rate), voice quality, and intonational markers (nuclear accents, edge tones).…”

The prosodic marking of rhetorical questions in Standard Chinese

“…RQs in Standard Chinese were produced with longer overall duration, in line with findings in a variety of typologically different languages (Beyssade & Delais-Roussarie, 2022 for French;Braun et al, 2019 for German;Dehé & Braun, 2020a for Icelandic;Dehé & Braun, 2020b for English; Dehé et al, 2018 for Icelandic;Lo et al, 2019b on Cantonese;Miura & Hara, 1995 for Japanese;Sahkai et al, 2022 for Estonian; Sorianello, 2018 for Italian). Longer duration hence seems to be a stable characteristic of RQs across languages, both occurring in lab-like settings and in RQs in spontaneous productions (Braun et al, 2020). This again ties in with durational differences in other speech acts, such as the distinction between statements and interrogatives in Standard Chinese, both for polar and wh-questions (X.…”

“…-RQs are longer (or realized with a slower speaking rate) as compared to ISQs in a variety of different languagesincluding German (Braun et al, 2019;Braun, Einfeldt, Esposito, & Dehé, 2020), English (Dehé & Braun, 2020b), Icelandic (Dehé, Braun, & Wochner, 2018;, French (Beyssade & Delais-Roussarie, 2022), Italian (Sorianello, 2018(Sorianello, , 2019, and Estonian (Sahkai, Asu, & Lippus, 2022). -For German, English, and Icelandic, more instances of breathy voice have been found for RQs as compared to ISQs (Braun et al, 2019;Dehé & Braun, 2020b;, while for Estonian, more instances of glottalized voice have been observed for RQs compared to ISQs (Sahkai et al, 2022).…”