Intonation: Theory, Models, and Applications Athens, Greece September 18-20, 1997

An Analysis of the Intonation for a Pitch Accent Variety of the Basque Language

I. Gaminde (1), I. Hernaez (2), B. Etxebarria (2), P. Etxeberria (3)

(1) Department of Psychodidactics; (2) Department of Electronics and Telecommunications; (3) Department of Basque Philology; University of the Basque Country, Bilbo, Spain

In this paper we present the results of the analysis of the intonation for a pitch-accent variety of the Basque language. This variety is characterized by a distinctions between lexically accented words and non accented ones. This propriety have a great influence on the final intonation curve on sentences. The accent is realized as an H*L tonal melody, and conflicts between focal and lexical accents appear in the sentences construction process. Results show that different structures can be found according to the relative position of the accents. Intonation curves of declarative affirmative and questions are described.

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Bibliographic reference.  Gaminde, I. / Hernaez, I. / Etxebarria, B. / Etxeberria, P. (1997): "An analysis of the intonation for a pitch accent variety of the basque language", In INT-1997, 137-140.