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Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2017: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' 31, Bucharest
Edited by Alexandru Nicolae and Adina Dragomirescu
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 355] 2021
► pp. 135–156

Verum focus and Romanian polar questions

| ‘Iorgu Iordan – Alexandru Rosetti’Institute of Linguistics

Most previous research on the intonation of Romanian polar questions has claimed that the neutral pattern has the main prominence (nuclear accent) on the finite verb, and a final contour characteristic of questions with early focus. I argue that this pattern is not neutral, at least in information-seeking questions, but indicates verum focus; the neutral pattern has the nuclear accent on the last prosodic word, as expected given the general prosodic properties of Romanian. The data presented will also shed some light on the conditions of use of verum focus in questions.

Keywords: verum focus, polar questions, Romanian
Article outline
  • 1.Previous research on the intonation of polar questions in Romanian
  • 2.The neutral pattern of information-seeking polar questions
  • 3.On ‘verum focus’
  • 4.Experimental evidence for the claims about the neutral intonation of Romanian polar questions
  • 5.Other uses of the EF pattern with nuclear stress on V
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 December 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.355.07giu
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