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Intonation and Evidentiality in Spanish Polar Interrogatives

Bibliographic Data

ID10255672
AuthorsVictoria Escandell-Vidal (0000-0001-9364-067X, UNED, Madrid, Spain, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume60
Issue2
Pages224-241
Publication date2017-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage and Speech (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0023-8309 • E-ISSN: 1756-6053
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0023830917698178
PMID28697698
OpenAlexW2767894461
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited26

Three different nuclear pitch accents can be found in Castilian Spanish polar interrogatives. In addition to the ‘canonical’ low-rise pattern, there are two marked interrogative contours featuring high-rise and rise–fall pitch accents. The aim of this paper is to explain how each contour contributes to the interpretation of the utterance in which they occur. I argue that this contribution is to be sought at the semantic, not at the pragmatic-illocutionary, attitudinal-level. My proposal is that the low-rise contour is the expression of unspecified sentence polarity (corresponding to the interrogative operator), whereas the two marked contours add indications about the information source—that is, they encode evidential distinctions. The high-rise pattern indicates that the Self is the source of the information; the rise–fall tone indicates that Other is the source. The whole range of pragmatic interpretations that have been described in the literature can be easily accommodated into the present proposal as inferential developments of the encoded meaning together with contextual information. This view has implications for a theory of interrogatives, for the phonology of intonation and for the articulation of the semantics/pragmatics interface

Evidentiality · Interpretation (philosophy · Interrogative · Interrogative word · Intonation (linguistics · Linguistics · Meaning (existential · Pragmatics · Prosody · Semantics (computer science · Sentence · Utterance · Computer Science · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Psychology · Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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Unique citing works9
Citations per year1
Citation span2017 - 2026 (10)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 9
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