The Intonation Patterns of Interrogatives in Persian

Sadat‐Tehrani, Nima

doi:10.1349/ps1.1537-0852.a.389

Cited by 12 publications

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References 44 publications

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“…An IP is marked by a low or high right boundary tone (L% or H%). Within each IP, the materials following the final AP's pitch accent undergo deaccentuation in most sentence types (Sadat-Tehrani, 2011;Rahmani, Rietveld, and Gussenhoven, 2016) or post focal compression (Taheri-Aardali and Xu, 2012;Taheri-Ardali, Rahmani, and Xu, 2014). The prosodic structure of Persian declaratives is illustrated in example (1) and Figure 1 for a typical SOV sentence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intonation of Persian declaratives: Read vs. spontaneous speech

Sadat‐Tehrani

2017

Questions and Answers in Linguistics

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This paper is an introductory investigation, comparing the intonation of Persian declaratives in read and spontaneous speech styles. The results indicate that 32% of the 254 spontaneous declaratives studied show one or more of the following intonational differences: a high or downstepped high tone at Intonational Phrase end, marking the incompleteness of the message; the existence of more pauses leading to a greater number of Intonational Phrases, pre-pause vowel lengthening, and pitch reset; a flatter contour and less pitch variation caused by a speaker's boredom or givenness of the information content; an initial high boundary tone resulted from a low degree of assertiveness.Keywords: intonation, prosody, Persian, read speech, spontaneous speech, pitch track IntroductionThis research reports some preliminary observations regarding the differences between the intonational properties of read and spontaneous speech in Persian. In studies that make use of read speech (also known as lab speech), the speaker is provided with the written version of the test materials and is possibly given some instructions as to how to read them. This type of speech is usually elicited in a laboratory setting and done for a specific linguistic purpose. Spontaneous speech refers to utterances produced without any external stimulus, e.g., a natural conversation carried out between two interlocutors. The aim of this paper is to shed some light on the intonational differences between the two styles. The research on Persian intonation done in the autosegmental-metrical (AM) framework of intonation (Bruce, 1977;Pierrehumbert, 1980;Ladd, 2008) has so far implemented controlled speech (Mahjani, 2003;Jun, et al., 2003;Sadat-Tehrani, 2007;Taheri and Xu, 2012;Hosseini, 2014;and Rahmani, Rietveld, and Gussenhoven, 2016), and to the best of my knowledge, there has not been any documentation on the distinguishing characteristics of read and spontaneous speech. This paper is an initial investigation of this issue.The present paper does not intend to argue for the use of spontaneous over read data; although the use of read speech has been criticized as unnatural and unrepresentative of real speech, it has its own merit. For instance, in a laboratory setting, the researcher has full control over many variables and determines their effect on intonation patterns, which is not the case when studying unscripted speech. Also, spontaneous data may not always contain all the structures that the researcher plans to investigate -for more arguments in favour of lab speech see Xu (2010). The view here, in line with that in Wagner, Trouvain, and Zimmerer (2015), is that making use of Unauthenticated Download Date | 5/11/18 2:06 PM

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intonation of Persian declaratives: Read vs. spontaneous speech

Sadat‐Tehrani

2017

Questions and Answers in Linguistics

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“…Eighty‐one percent (242/298) of the samples did not exhibit the DS high AP boundary tone. Of these, the majority (90%) had the same intonation as the lab speech version (studied in Sadat‐Tehrani ) and had a final rise, with a few (10%) not showing this rise. An example of a typical final‐rising spontaneous YNQ, identical to a read YNQ, is provided in (3)/Figure .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Downstepped High Tone in Persian Spontaneous Speech Intonation

Sadat‐Tehrani

2018

Studia Linguistica

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This corpus-based research examines a downstepped boundary tone in Persian spontaneous declaratives and yes/no questions (YNQs), by looking at 318 minutes of spontaneous phone conversations of 21 female and 21 male speakers in three age groups, 20s, 30s, and 40s. The downstepped YNQs lack the final rise typically found in read utterances, which is associated with the non-genuineness of the interrogative and a lowered degree of the hearer's commitment to provide a reply. The downstep in declaratives, accompanied by a following pause, creates functions such as topicalization and facilitates the cognitive pre-planning of speech. There is no effect of sex and age on the production of this tone. The specific functions of this tone and its independence of adjacent tones argue for its inclusion in the grammar of Persian intonation. Additionally, this research is in itself a first-time investigation of the intonation of Persian spontaneous YNQs and shows that the majority of them share the same intonation pattern with lab produced YNQs.

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“…Hermann (1942) argued that interrogatives are universally marked by the presence of a high pitch somewhere in the sentence. Subsequent studies demonstrated that high pitch may manifest itself both locally, for example, in the initial, medial, or final portion of the sentence (Benkirane, 1998; Cheng & Rooryck, 2000; Haan, 2001; Haan, Van Heuven, Pacilly, & Van Bezooijen, 1997; Gryllia, Cheng & Doetjes, 2016; Hadding-Koch, 1961; Hadding-Koch & Studdert-Kennedy, 1964; Ishihara, 2005; Iivonen, 1998; Kitagawa, 2005; Sadat Tehrani, 2008, 2011; Uldall, 1962; Yang, Gryllia, Doetjes & Cheng, 2016 September) and globally, for example, in the form of a raised register and/or the absence of F0 downtrend (Bolinger, 1982; Geluykens, 1986; Haan, 2001; Haan et al, 1997; Inkelas & Leben, 1990; Lindsey, 1985; Sadat Tehrani, 2008, 2011; Thorsen, 1980; Vaissière, 1983).…”

Section: Prosody Of Interrogativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Persian Native Speakers Prosodically Mark Wh-in-situ Questions?

2018

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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.

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The Intonation Patterns of Interrogatives in Persian

Abstract: This paper investigates the intonational properties of different types of interrogatives in

Cited by 12 publications

References 44 publications

Intonation of Persian declaratives: Read vs. spontaneous speech

Intonation of Persian declaratives: Read vs. spontaneous speech

Downstepped High Tone in Persian Spontaneous Speech Intonation

Do Persian Native Speakers Prosodically Mark Wh-in-situ Questions?

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