QUESTION INTONATION AS AFFECTED BY WORD STRESS AND FOCUS IN ENGLISH

Fang Liu1 & Yi Xu2
1Department of Linguistics, The University of Chicago; 2Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London

ID 1130
[full paper]

The intonational realizations of statements and declarative questions in American English are studied by examining their interaction with focus and word stress. Five native speakers read 24 sentences eight times. Results of F0 analyses indicate that focus has no effect on the pre-focus region of either statements or questions. In the on-focus region, the pitch range of the stressed syllable is expanded in both statements and questions. The post-focus pitch range is compressed and lowered in statements, but compressed and raised in questions. Furthermore, the pitch target of the stressed syllable in a content word is high or falling in statements but rising in questions, depending on the focus condition and the stress pattern of the word. These results suggest that a particular combination of word stress, focus, and sentence type in an English utterance largely determines its local and global pitch contours.