The complex prosody of complex wh-questions
In this paper, we investigate the prosody of wh-questions with a complex wh-phrase, focusing on the role of the presence of a lexical restriction (e.g., what book) and of D(iscourse)-linking of the wh-phrase in the distribution of the main prosodic prominence (or nuclear pitch accent [NPA]). Through...
| Autores: | , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2025 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona |
| Repositorio: | Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ddd.uab.cat:323504 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://ddd.uab.cat/record/323504 https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.5565/rev/isogloss.578 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Wh-questions Prosody Intonation Syntax Focus |
| Sumario: | In this paper, we investigate the prosody of wh-questions with a complex wh-phrase, focusing on the role of the presence of a lexical restriction (e.g., what book) and of D(iscourse)-linking of the wh-phrase in the distribution of the main prosodic prominence (or nuclear pitch accent [NPA]). Through three read-aloud production studies, we show that the presence of a lexical restriction within the wh-phrase is a necessary condition for NPA assignment to the latter; that lexically restricted wh-phrases allow for NPA assignment to both the verb and the wh-phrase; that the likelihood of NPA assignment to the wh-phrase is sensitive to the phonological heaviness of the wh-phrase, and that D-linking per se is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for such NPA assignment, such that there is no detectable correlation of NPA assignment with an interpretive effect. The distribution of NPA assignment in complex wh-questions is discussed in light of the analysis proposed by Bocci et al. (2021, 2024) for bare wh-questions. |
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