Prosodic Prominence in Polar Questions and Exclamatives

Abstract

This study investigates prosodic prominence in string-identical verb-first exclamatives and questions in German. It presents results from three production experiments comparing polar exclamatives/questions with different finite verbs [auxiliary, lexical verb (unergative)] and/or subjects (d-pronoun, full phrase) in order to explore the prominence-lending characteristics of various lexical, syntactic and semantic factors, which seem to be relevant for prosodic prominence in exclamations but not in other speech acts. The results show that clause-initial finite verbs are accented much more often in exclamatives than in questions, indicating that the C-position is an attractor for prosodic prominence in exclamatives. Furthermore, d-pronouns are accented very frequently in exclamatives but virtually never in polar questions. Given full subjects are also accented more often in exclamatives than in questions. With respect to verb type, the findings show that finite auxiliaries are only accented in exclamatives, but that lexical verbs are also accented in questions. Thus, the lexical verbs tested in this study may carry an accent irrespective of clause-initial or clause-final position and independently of speech act. While some of the findings can be explained by semantic-pragmatic factors, not all of them can. We suggest that exclamations have a prosodic constructional default, which is determined by the speech act type: it comprises a requirement for the accentuation of certain elements in the clause, a low speaking rate and a reduced sensitivity to information-structural requirements for low prosodic prominence.

Information-structural surprises? Contrast, givenness, and (the lack of) accent shift and deaccentuation in non-assertive speech acts

“…So, polar exclamatives do not seem to come by default with more prominent accents than with less prominent accents. This assumption is corroborated by the observation that the arguably very prominent L*+H accent hardly ever occurred in the polar exclamatives elicited by Repp and Seeliger (2020).…”

“…In terms of continuous utterance-level characteristics, exclamations come with a slower speaking rate than other speech acts. Altmann (1993) observes this for exclamations with a declarative structure in comparison to assertions, Repp (2020) for wh-exclamatives in comparison to string-identical wh-questions, and Repp and Seeliger (2020) for polar exclamatives in comparison to polar questions. The difference with the questions might partly be due to the faster speaking rate of questions (in comparison to assertions, see above).…”

“…It has been characterized as having a higher and later pitch peak when compared to the nuclear accent in assertions (Oppenrieder, 1988;Batliner, 1988aBatliner, , 1988b, suggesting that the accent might be more similar to an L+H* accent than an H* accent. However, Repp and Seeliger (2020) report for polar exclamatives that H* accents were more frequent than L+H* accents. Furthermore, they found that utterance length influences the choice of accent: L+H* accents occurred more often in short than in long exclamatives.…”

“…The most common attractors are (a) subject d-pronouns, such as der 'he' in (1) (Repp, 2020;, (b) scalar expressions such as the gradable adjective kleine 'small' in (1) (Altmann, 1993;d'Avis, 2002;Oppenrieder, 1988;Rosengren, 1992Rosengren, , 1997, and (c) the syntactic C position when filled with a finite verb (i.e., the finite verb in clauseinitial or clause-second position) (Altmann, 1993;Repp, 2020;. The presence of several attractors for a prominent accent might explain the observation by Repp and Seeliger (2020) that speakers overall realized a higher number of accents in exclamatives than in questions.…”

“…The bundle of prosodic features that characterize exclamatives (i.e., the realization of an exclamative accent, a slower speaking rate, and a falling contour) have been proposed to constitute a constructional prosodic default by Repp and Seeliger (2020). This default furthermore comprises a reduced sensitivity to information-structural requirements.…”