A pragmatic perspective on the phonological values of utterance-final boundary tones in East Norwegian intonation
-
Thorstein Fretheim,
and
Wim A. van Dommelen,
Abstract
The intonation system of East Norwegian (EN) is such that a statement often sounds more like a question to a non-native listener. While it may be easy for a phonetically trained person to hear that a final pitch movement of an EN utterance is either a rise to a high, or a fall to a low target tone, such a perceived difference has no phonological significance unless it is exploited systematically for a communicative purpose. Imperative sentences are used for the performance of a variety of speech acts ranging from orders to offers. We carried out a listening comprehension test with imperatives produced with systematically varied intonation contours. Our hypothesis was that an imperative is generally softened by a perceived Low boundary tone but is heard as peremptory if the boundary tone is High. This hypothesis was borne out. Having established the existence of a phonological contrast between a Low and a High terminal boundary tone in EN utterance-final syllables, we argue that a phonologically Low boundary tone is even a grammatical property of EN utterances whose low-pitched final syllable is the result of a global intonation contour that simply precludes a final rise.
©[2012] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Introduction: Special issue on cognitive pragmatics and its interfaces in linguistics
- Pragmatic demands on the form of grammar: Theoretical and methodological limitations on the grammatical code
- Language as tools for interaction: Grammar and the dynamics of ellipsis resolution
- Differential case-marking: Syntactic descriptions and pragmatic explanations
- Word meaning and concept expressed
- Redefining logical constants as inference markers
- The relevance of tones: Prosodic meanings in utterance interpretation and in relevance theory
- A pragmatic perspective on the phonological values of utterance-final boundary tones in East Norwegian intonation
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Introduction: Special issue on cognitive pragmatics and its interfaces in linguistics
- Pragmatic demands on the form of grammar: Theoretical and methodological limitations on the grammatical code
- Language as tools for interaction: Grammar and the dynamics of ellipsis resolution
- Differential case-marking: Syntactic descriptions and pragmatic explanations
- Word meaning and concept expressed
- Redefining logical constants as inference markers
- The relevance of tones: Prosodic meanings in utterance interpretation and in relevance theory
- A pragmatic perspective on the phonological values of utterance-final boundary tones in East Norwegian intonation
