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Intonation: Theory, Models, and ApplicationsAthens, Greece |
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Intonation: Theory, Models, and ApplicationsAthens, Greece |
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Italian questions are expressed, differently from English and similarly to languages like Hungarian [4], by prosodic means alone. In the Neapolitan variety, yes/no questions with early focus present a very salient pitch accent on the focused constituent, which is followed by a smaller pitch obtrusion associated to the last stressed syllable of the intonation phrase. Results of a perception study showed that the later accent is not perceived as a focal prominence, despite the fact that it is in the position of the nuclear accent in broad focus contours. A spoken corpus of yes/no questions with narrow and broad focus was later analyzed, revealing systematic phonetic differences between the focal pitch-accent and the postfocal accent. Specifically, the postfocal accent presents a more shallow melodic movement, while its peak occurs earlier in the syllable than the focal accent peak.
Bibliographic reference. D'Imperio, Mariapaola (1997): "Narrow focus and focal accent in the neapolitan variety of Italian", In INT-1997, 87-90.