THE ROLE OF PITCH RANGE IN REALISING PRAGMATIC CONTRASTS - THE CASE OF TWO QUESTION TYPES IN ITALIAN

Michelina Savino1 & Martine Grice2
1Dept. of Psychology, University of Bari; 2IfL - Phonetik, University of Cologne

ID 1093
[full paper]

In Bari Italian, the same pitch accent is used in two different types of question – those seeking information and those challenging what has been said (echo questions) However, they differ in their pitch range. A perception study was carried out, consisting of a semantically motivated identification task. Results provide preliminary evidence for the categorical perception of pitch range variation.