It has been shown that prosody contributes to the contrast between declarativity and interrogativity, notably in interrogative utterances lacking lexico-syntactic features of interrogativity. Accordingly, it may be proposed that prosody plays a role in marking wh-in-situ questions in which the interrogativity feature (the wh-phrase) does not move to sentence-initial position, as, for example, in Persian. This paper examines whether prosody distinguishes Persian wh-in-situ questions from declaratives in the absence of the interrogativity feature in the sentence-initial position. To answer this question, a production experiment was designed in which wh-questions and declaratives were elicited from Persian native speakers. On the basis of the results of previous studies, we hypothesize that prosodic features mark wh-in-situ questions as opposed to declaratives at both the local (pre- and post-wh part) and global level (complete sentence). The results of the current study confirm our hypothesis that prosodic correlates mark the pre-wh part as well as the complete sentence in wh-in-situ questions. The results support theoretical concepts such as the frequency code, the universal dichotomous association between relaxation and declarativity on the one hand and tension and interrogativity on the other, the relation between prosody and pragmatics, and the relation between prosody and encoding and decoding of sentence type.
It has been reported that prosody contributes to the identification of utterances which lack lexico-syntactic indicators of interrogativity but do have characteristic prosodic correlates (e.g. Vion and Colas 2006. Pitch cues for the recognition of yes-no questions in French. Journal of Psycholinguistics . In Persian wh-in-situ questions, the interrogativity device (the wh-phrase) does not move to the sentence-initial position, and the pre-wh part is characterized by specific prosodic correlates (Shiamizadeh et al. 2016. Do Persian native speakers prosodically mark wh-in-situ questions? Manuscript submitted for publication). The current experiment investigates the role of prosody in the perception of Persian wh-in-situ questions as opposed to declaratives. To this end, an experiment was designed in which Persian native speakers were asked to choose the correct sentence type after hearing only the pre-wh part of a sentence. We hypothesized that prosody guides perception of wh-in-situ questions independent of wh-phrase type. The results of the experiment corroborate our hypothesis. The outcome is discussed in terms of Ohala´s frequency code, and Bolinger´s claim about the universal dichotomous association between relaxation and declarativity on the one hand and tension and interrogativity on the other hand.
Previous literature demonstrated the influential role of prediction in processing speech [Brazil, 1981. The place of intonation in a discourse model. In C. Malcolm & M. Montgomery (Eds.), Studies in discourse analysis (pp. 146-157). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; Grosjean, 1983. How long is the sentence? Prediction and prosody in the on-line processing of language. Linguistics, 21, 501-529, 1996a. Using prosody to predict the end of sentences in English and French: Normal and brain damaged subjects. Language and Cognitive Processes, 11, 107-134; Snedeker & Trueswell, 2003. Using prosody to avoid ambiguity: Effects of speaker awareness and referential context. Journal of Memory and Language, 48, 103-130], and of prosody in predicting the eventual syntactic structure of ambiguous sentences [e.g. Snedeker & Trueswell, 2003. Using prosody to avoid ambiguity: Effects of speaker awareness and referential context. Journal of Memory and Language, 48, 103-130]. Wh-insitu questions contain temporary syntactic ambiguity. One of the languages characterised by wh-insitu questions is Persian. The current research adopted the gating paradigm [Grosjean, 1980. Spoken word recognition processes and the gating paradigm. Perception and Psychophysics , 28, 267-283] to investigate when distinctive prosodic cues of the pre-wh part enable correct identification of wh-insitu questions in Persian. A perception experiment was designed in which gated stimuli were played to Persian native speakers in a forced-choice sentence identification task. In line with our expectation, correct identification responses were given from the beginning of the sentence. The result is discussed in the context of proposals regarding the need to integrate prosody and prediction into models of language and speech processing [Beach, 1991. The interpretation of prosodic patterns at points of syntactic structure ambiguity: Evidence for cue trading relations.
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