Part of
Above and Beyond the Segments: Experimental linguistics and phoneticsEdited by Johanneke Caspers, Yiya Chen, Willemijn Heeren, Jos Pacilly, Niels O. Schiller and Ellen van Zanten
[Not in series 189] 2014
► pp. 109–119
Edited by Johanneke Caspers, Yiya Chen, Willemijn Heeren, Jos Pacilly, Niels O. Schiller and Ellen van Zanten
[Not in series 189] 2014
► pp. 109–119
Intonation, bias and Greek NPIs
A perception experiment
This paper explores question bias in questions with negative polarity items (Ladusaw, 1979; Krifka, 1995; Giannakidou, 2011) by means of a perception experiment. For the purpose of the experiment the Greek emphatic and non-emphatic NPI kanenas ‘no-one/nobody, anyone/anybody’ are used. The experiment tests two hypotheses. The emphatic NPI in a negative polar question creates a bias for a negative answer. So listeners are expected to answer with a negative answer rather than with a positive answer when they listen to a question that contains an emphatic NPI (Hyp. 1). The non-emphatic NPI in a negative polar question creates no specific bias for an answer. Positive and negative answers are expected to be equally chosen by listeners (Hyp. 2). Both hypotheses were verified.
References
Arvaniti, A
(2002) The intonation of yes-no questions in Greek. In M. Makri-Tsilipakou (Ed.), Selected papers on theoretical and applied linguistics (pp. 71–83). Thessaloniki: Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, School of English, Aristotle University.
Arvaniti, A., Ladd, D.R., & Mennen, I
(2006) Phonetic effects of focus and ‘tonal crowding’ in intonation: Evidence from Greek polar questions. Speech Communication, 48, 667–696. 
Baltazani, M
(2002) Quantifier scope and the role of intonation in Greek. Unpublished PhD dissertation, UCLA.
(2006) Evidence for the L- phrase accent from polar questions in Greek and the structure of non-final intermediate phrases. Paper presented at TIE2, Berlin, 7–9 September 2006.
Baltazani, M., & Jun, S.A
(1999) Focus and topic intonation in Greek.
Proceedings of the XIVth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences
, 1305–1308.
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D
(2013) Praat: doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 5.3.59, retrieved 2 October 2013 from [URL]
Chatzikonstantinou, T., Giannakidou, A., & Papadopoulou, D
(2012) Intonation, negation and scope in Greek universal quantifiers and NPI-universals. In Z. Gavriilidou, A. Efthymiou, E. Thomadaki, & P. Kambakis-Vougiouklis (Eds.), Selected papers of the 10th International Conference on Greek Linguistics (pp. 213–222). Komotini: Democritus University of Thrace.
Giannakidou, A
(1997) The landscape of polarity items. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Groningen.
(2000) Negative…concord? Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 18, 457–523.
(2011) Negative and positive polarity items. In C. Maienborn, K. von Heusinger, & P. Portner (Eds.), Semantics: An international handbook of natural language meaning (pp. 1660–1712). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Grice, M., Ladd, D.R., & Arvaniti, A
(2000) On the place of phrase accents in intonational phonology. Phonology, 17, 143–185.
Haspelmath, M
(1997) Indefinite pronouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Krifka, M
(1995) The semantics and pragmatics of polarity items. Linguistic Analysis, 25, 1–49.
to appear). Negated polarity questions as denegations of assertions. In F. Kiefer, & C. Lee (Eds.) Contrastiveness and scalar implicatures Berlin Springer
Ladd, D.R
(1981) A first look at the semantics and pragmatics of negative questions and tag questions.
Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistic Society
, 17, 164–171.
(1996) Intonational phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ladusaw, W
(1979) Polarity sensitivity as inherent scope relations. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.
Tsimpli, I.M., & Roussou, A
(1996) Negation and polarity items in Modern Greek. Linguistic Review, 13, 1–33.
Veloudis, I
(1982) Negation in Modern Greek. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Reading.