West African languages enrich the frequency code: Multi-functional pitch and multi-dimensional prosody in Ikaan polar questions

Abstract

Cross-linguistically, statements tend to be pronounced with low or falling pitch and questions with high or rising pitch, a form-meaning pairing which has been attributed to the frequency code (Ohala, 1984). In many West African languages, however, questions are marked with a 'lax' prosody comprising falling intonation, low tones, lengthening, breathy termination, and open vowels ( Rialland, 2007). This paper presents prosody findings from Ikaan (Niger-Congo; ISO 639-3: kcf) and proposes a re-analysis of the West African lax question prosody to integrate it with the frequency code model. The paper shows that the pragmatic functions of statement and polar question are expressed prosodically in Ikaan. Audio recordings of statements and morphosyntactically identical polar questions by six speakers were annotated segmentally, tonally, and for the presence of prosodic question markers. Speakers mark questions by using higher onset pitch, wider drops to final low tones, final breathy voice and voicelessness, final vowel lengthening, vowel insertion, and increased intensity. Breathiness may further contrast with creaky voice and glottal stops in statements. Phonation mode, and the accompanying vowel lengthening and insertion, are argued to indicate friendliness and appeals for collaboration, linking phonation mode to similar functions of higher pitch in the frequency code.

Two Pragmatic Functions of Breathy Voice in American English Conversation

“…Our own previous work on American English identified two roles relevant to the functions reported below: a role for breathy voice in marking "interpolated, meta-and high-priority utterances" [17], and a role in indicating dissatisfaction [18], although follow-up work found that breathy voice over about 3 seconds, with a short halfsecond excursion to non-breathy voice, was a better indicator of the latter (J. Avila, personal communication). Also relevant to our discussion below is the involvement of breathy voice in various kinds of questions in several languages: confirmation requests in Lachixío [19], polar questions in Ikaan [20], and rhetorical questions in German [21].…”

The non-lax question prosody of Akan

“…Furthermore, the final vowel of YNQs is not characterized by an intensity decrease, which would be expected for lax voice but by an intensity increase [8], [12]. Based on their empirical findings [8] and [12] broach the issue of the adequacy of the categories lax and tense in [1] and [2]'s classification; see also [6]. [8] and [12] propose that final lengthening and the final fall in YNQs are not caused by lax voice but rather induced by tonal crowding due to an additional tonal target (L%) at the right edge of the utterance.…”

“…Out of the 6 languages of [5]'s sample only Chumburung and Deg can be described as terminating breathy. [6] shows for Ikaan, a West African Benue-Congo language of the Niger-Congo phylum spoken in Nigeria, that it uses final lengthening, breathy phonation plus voicelessness, a larger final F0 fall in combination with pitchregister raising. She further observes that intensity is overall higher in questions and mentions that intensity is not easy to integrate into the lax/tense distinction since it is not modulated by laryngeal settings.…”

Bringing indexical orders to non-arbitrary meaning: The case of pitch and politeness in English and Korean

“…While the arbitrary relationship between linguistic form and function is a founding principle of linguistics as a broader field (Saussure, 1916), there has long been interest in cases of apparent non-arbitrary meaning in language, and arguably a resurgence of interest in the last decade (e.g., Eckert, 2010;D'Onofrio, 2014;Podesva, Callier, Voigt, & Hilton, 2015;Pratt, 2018;Salffner, 2017;Kawahara, Noto, & Kumagai, 2018;Wong & Kang, 2019). The most iconic example of non-arbitrary meaning is codified in Ohala's Frequency Code (1984, 1994; see also Morton, 1977): Noises made by smaller things have higher frequencies than noises made by larger things, and through this fact of the physical world, higher pitch non-arbitrarily signals smallness and attributes associated with smallness, including deference and politeness (Ohala, 1994, p. 327).…”