Article published in:
The Phonetics–Phonology Interface: Representations and methodologies
Edited by Joaquín Romero and María Riera
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 335] 2015
► pp. 211–238

Secondary correlates of question signaling in Manchego Spanish

| University of Michigan
This paper reports on an acoustic analysis of secondary prosodic cues of question signaling (baseline slope, speech rate, stressed syllable duration), comparing declarative statements, declarative questions, and wh-questions in Peninsular Spanish. The signaling of questions has been reported as more complex than the ‘high vs. low pitch’ dichotomy often referenced in the literature. Our analysis reveals that baseline slope may be the best phonetic property for categorizing wh-questions separately from statements and declarative questions; measures of speech rate and syllable duration are not a straightforward heuristic for differentiating sentence types. The distributional and statistical results are contrary to van Heuven & Haan’s (2000, 2002) idea that there is a relative prosodic marking of question type based on the number of lexico-syntactic devices used to signal a question. We propose that the tonal categories that comprise an intonational melody may account for tempo differences within and across question types, along the lines of Gussenhoven’s (2004) effort code.
Published online: 10 November 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.335.11hen
References
Alvord, Scott M
2006 Spanish Intonation in Contact: The case of Miami Cuban bilinguals. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota.
Basilevsky, Alexander
1994 Statistical Factor Analysis and Related Methods: Theory and applications. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Beckman, Mary, Manuel Díaz-Campos, Julia McGory & Terrell A. Morgan
2002 “Intonation across Spanish in the Tones and Break Indices Framework”. Probus 14:1.9-36. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Beckman, Mary E. & Janet B. Pierrehumbert
1986 “Intonational Structure in Japanese and English”. Phonology Yearbook 3.255-309. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Boersma, Paul & David Weenink
2012 Praat: Doing phonetics by computer: Version 5.3.09 (http://​www​.praat​.org/) (Retrieved on March 12, 2012).
Cangemi, Francesco & Mariapaola D’Imperio
2011 “Local Speech Rate Differences between Questions and Statements in Italian”. Paper presented at 17th International Congress of Phonetics Sciences (ICPhS 17), Hong Kong, August 2011.
2015 “Sentence Modality and Tempo in Neapolitan Italian”. This volume.Google Scholar
Clopper, Cynthia G. & John C. Paolillo
2006 “North American English Vowels: A factor-analytic perspective”. Literary and Linguistic Computing 21:4.445-462. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dziuban, Charles D. & Edwin C. Shirkey
1974 “When is a Correlation Matrix Appropriate for Factor Analysis?: Some decision rules”. Psychological Bulletin 81:6.358-361. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Escandell-Vidal, M. Victoria
1998 “Intonation and Procedural Encoding: The case of Spanish interrogatives”. Current Issues in Relevance Theory ed. by Villy Rouchota & Andreas H. Jucker, 169-203. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1999 “Los enunciados interrogativos: Aspectos semánticos y pragmáticos”. Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española ed. by Ignacio Bosque & Violeta Demonte, 3929-3991. Madrid: Espasa.Google Scholar
2011 “‘Verum focus’ y prosodia: Cuando la duración (sí que) importa.” Oralia 14.181-201.Google Scholar
Estebas-Vilaplana, Eva & Pilar Prieto
2008 “La notación prosódica del español: Una revisión del Sp_ToBI”. Estudios de fonética experimental 17.263-283.Google Scholar
2010 “Castilian Spanish Intonation”. Prieto & Roseano, eds. 2010, 17-48.
Face, Timothy L
2004 “The Intonation of Absolute Interrogatives in Castilian Spanish”. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 23:2.65-79.Google Scholar
2005 “F0 Peak Height and the Perception of Sentence type in Castilian Spanish”. Revista de Lingüística Iberoamericana 2:6.49-65.Google Scholar
2007 “The Role of Intonational Cues in the Perception of Declaratives and Absolute Interrogatives in Castilian Spanish”. Estudios de fonología experimental 16.185-225.Google Scholar
Gussenhoven, Carlos
2004 The phonology of tone and intonation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Haan, Judith
2002 Speaking of Questions: An exploration of Dutch question intonation. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Henriksen, Nicholas
2012 “The Intonation and Signaling of Declarative Questions in Manchego Peninsular Spanish”. Language and Speech 55:4.543-576. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2013 “Style, Prosodic Variation, and the Social Meaning of Intonation”. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 43:2.153-193. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2014 “Initial Peaks and Final Falls in the Intonation of Manchego Spanish Wh-Questions”. Probus 26:1.83-133. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
House, David
2002 “Intonational and Visual Cues in the Perception of Interrogative Mode in Swedish”. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Spoken Language Processing, University of Colorado, 16-20 September 2002 ed. by Johan H. Hansen & Bryan Pellom, 1957-1960. Denver, Colo.: Casual Productions.Google Scholar
2003 “Perceiving Question Intonation: The role of pre-focal pause and delayed focal peak”. Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS 15), Barcelona, 3-9 August 2003 ed. by Maria-Josep Solé, Daniel Recasens & Joaquín Romero, 755-758. Barcelona: Casual Productions.Google Scholar
Jennrich, Robert I
1979 “Admissible Values of ɣ in Direct Oblimin Rotation”. Psychometrika 44:2.173-177. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jae-On. & Charles W. Mueller
1978a Factor Analysis: Statistical methods and practical issues. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage.Google Scholar
1978b Introduction to Factor Analysis: What it is and how to do it. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage.Google Scholar
Ladd, D. Robert
2008 Intonational phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Liu, Fang
2009 Intonational Systems of Mandarin and English: A functional approach. Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Chicago.
Navarro Tomás, Tomás
1944 Manual de entonación española. New York: Hispanic Institute in the United States.Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet B
1980 The Phonetics and Phonology of English Intonation. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Prieto, Pilar
2004 “The Search for Phonological Targets in the Tonal Space: H1 scaling and alignment in five sentence-types in Peninsular Spanish”. Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology ed. by Timothy L. Face, 29-59. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Prieto, Pilar & Paolo Roseano
eds. 2010 Transcription of Intonation of the Spanish Language. München: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
Prieto, Pilar, Maria del Mar Vanrell, Lluïsa Astruc, Elinor Payne & Brechtje Post
2012 “Phonotactic and Phrasal Properties of Speech Rhythm. Evidence from Catalan, English, and Spanish”. Speech Communication 54:6.681-702. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Quilis, Antonio
1993 Tratado de fonología y fonética españolas. Madrid: Gredos.Google Scholar
Sadock, Jerrold M. & Aranold M. Zwicky
1985 “Speech Act Distinctions in Syntax”. Language Typology and Syntactic Description ed. by Timothy Shopen, vol.1, 155-196. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schwab, Sandra & Isabelle Racine
2013 “Le débit lent des Suisses romands: Mythe ou réalité?”. Journal of French Language Studies 23:2.281-295. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Shaw, Peter J. A
2009 Multivariate Statistics for the Environmental Sciences. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Sosa, Juan Manuel
1999 La entonación del español. Madrid: Cátedra.Google Scholar
Thorsen, Nina G
1980 “A Study of the Perception of Sentence Intonation: Evidence from Danish”. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 67:3.1014-1030. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
van Heuven, Vincent J. & Judith Haan
2000 “Phonetic Correlates of Statement versus Question Intonation in Dutch”. Intonation: Analysis, Modelling and Technology ed. by Antonis Botinis, 119-143. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
2002 “Temporal Distribution of Interrogativity Markers in Dutch: A perceptual study”. Laboratory Phonology 7 ed. by Carlos Gussenhoven & Natasha Warner, 61-86. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
van Heuven, Vincent J. & Ellen van Zanten
2005 “Speech Rate as a Secondary Prosodic Characteristic of Polarity Questions in Three Languages”. Speech Communication 47:1-2.87-99. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Vanrell, Maria del Mar, Antonio Stella, Barbara Gili Fivela & Pilar Prieto
2013 “Prosodic Manifestations of the Effort Code in Catalan, Italian and Spanish Contrastive Focus”. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 43:2.195-220. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Willis, Erik
2006/7 “Utterance Signaling and Tonal Levels in Dominican Spanish Declaratives and Interrogatives”. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 5/6.179-202.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Gabriel, Christoph, Jonas Grünke & Elena Kireva
2020.  In Spanish Phonetics and Phonology in Contact [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 28], ► pp. 421 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 14 may 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.