‘Wh’-question intonation in Standard Colloquial Bengali

Abstract

Mycock, Xu, and Lahiri provide LFG analyses of multiple multi-clause constituent ‘wh’- question intonation patterns in Standard Colloquial Bengali (the Bengali dialect spoken in Kolkata), capturing the intonational tune–text mapping which crucially interacts with syntax, pragmatics, and semantics. Based on a new set of data, they identify the intonational contours used with ‘wh’-questions that include multiple question words and/or that comprise multiple clauses. These data reveal that a Focus accent can be ‘shared’ across a sequence of question words and that a subordinate clause forms a separate intonational unit (an Intonational Phrase) when it contains question words that take scope over a higher clause but not when they only take scope over the clause in which they appear.