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

Abstract

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.

Predicting pragmatic functions of Chinese echo questions using prosody: evidence from acoustic analysis and data modeling

“…Yet, it was reported that in French, echo questions expressing auditory failure in wh-echo questions were not marked by higher intensity. Our results were consistent with Repp and Rosin (2015) , but inconsistent with Glasbergen-Plas et al (2021) , indicating that echo questions may display divergent prosodic features in different languages even though the questions are related to the same pragmatic functions.…”

Scripted Simulated Dialogue: a new elicitation paradigm

“…Whereas some authors suppose that the wh-phrase always equals the focus in wh-questions (e.g., [15], [16]), others suppose that that the focus structure of a wh-question, at least in some languages, depends on the preceding context (e.g., [17,18]). Glasbergen-Plas [11] and Glasbergen-Plas et al [12] follow this latter point of view (see [11,Ch. 3] for discussion).…”

“…We will now illustrate how the paradigm may be used to manipulate the discourse context preceding a target utterance. To this end, we summarise a production experiment that targeted the prosody of French wh-in-situ questions elicited in different types of context [11], [12]. The study manipulated (a) the focus structure of the target sentences and (b) the distinction between echo and information seeking questions.…”

The L2 Acquisition of French Interrogatives: Pragmatic Inferences in Clefted wh-Questions

“…Questions where the wh-word remains in-situ, as in (2), do exist, but are rarer. They are echo questions, meaning that they are only felicitous when tied to previous discourse and are uttered when a speaker has misunderstood, misheard, or has encountered unexpected information (Sobin 1990;Glasbergen-Plas et al 2020).…”