An intonational grammar for Icelandic

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to shed new light on the tonal grammar of Icelandic and to complement the tone inventory as previously described in the literature (Árnason 1998). Specifically, types of pitch accents and edge tones and their combinations in neutral declaratives and questions, and in utterances containing narrow focus are addressed. Two pitch accent types (H * and L * ) and two edge tones (H-and L-) are identified, for which evidence has not been found in previous research. Moreover, the paper shows for declaratives, that along with downstep, Icelandic has upstep across Intonational Phrases. Upstep applies to a series of pitch peaks. It may occur in neutral declaratives and in utterances with final narrow focus. Overall, the results of this study provide a substantial addition to our knowledge of Icelandic intonational phonology.

The intonation of the Icelandic other-initiated repair expressionsHa‘Huh’ andHvað segirðu/Hvað sagðirðu‘What do/did you say’

“…Along with these typical patterns, both falling (L%) and rising (H%) question contours have been reported for polar and wh-questions byÁrnason (2005,2011) and Dehé (2009 However, it has to be noted again that none of these suggestions are based on a systematic analysis of spoken language data. Dehé (2009:30) states explicitly that '[f]uture research on question intonation will have to show how meaning relates to intonation'; this 'future' work is in progress at the time the present paper goes to press.…”

“…In fact, it is likely that it is not indicative of interrogative meaning at all, since other utterance types, such as declaratives, have falling f0 contours, i.e. are terminated by L%, too (Árnason 1998, 2005Dehé 2009Dehé , 2010 Another aspect to keep in mind is dialectal variation in the intonation of Icelandic. While dialectal variation has yet to be studied systematically, it has been suggested (and is a common assumption among speakers of Icelandic) that speakers in the north of Iceland have more rising terminals (H%) in declaratives than speakers in the south and that the functions of the final rise may be more neutral in the north (Árnason 1994-95:104-105, 2005:479, 2011:324).…”

Other-initiated repair in Icelandic

“…In Icelandic, however, questions commonly have falling intonation. The "preferred" nuclear question contour for both content (wh-) questions and polar (yes/no-) questions in Icelandic involves a low boundary tone, i.e., falling intonation (Dehé 2009). Although questions with final rise do occur, they have been argued to have special connotations (Árnason 1998;Árnason 2011;Dehé 2009).…”

“…The "preferred" nuclear question contour for both content (wh-) questions and polar (yes/no-) questions in Icelandic involves a low boundary tone, i.e., falling intonation (Dehé 2009). Although questions with final rise do occur, they have been argued to have special connotations (Árnason 1998;Árnason 2011;Dehé 2009). Árnason (1998) argues, for instance, that rising pitch is used in "friendly suggestions", while a low boundary tone is found in "matter of fact" questions (Árnason 1998).…”

“…Thus the use of level pitch in trouble-framing other-initiations of repair could serve to indicate incompleteness, providing the necessary cue to how the partial repetition should be interpreted. The standard falling pitch pattern is not a good candidate to indicate incompleteness; low boundary tones as those found in the ha interjection and other OIRs with falling pitch are thought to mark finality at the end of utterances in Icelandic (Árnason 1998;Árnason 2011;Dehé 2009). However, it remains unclear why the trouble-framing OIRs do not have rising pitch, giving that high boundary tones (as in rising intonation) signal non-finality or continuation in the language (Árnason 1998;Árnason 2011;Dehé 2009).…”