Linear Lengthening in Iwaidja

An Event-Quantifying Intonation at the Phonology to Semantics/Pragmatics Interface

Bibliographic Data

ID5901066
AuthorsPatrick Caudal (0000-0002-0003-3780, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Robert Mailhammer (0000-0003-0628-9813, Western Sydney University)
Year2022
Volume7
Issue3
Pages209
Publication date2022-08-08
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguages (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/languages7030209
OpenAlexW4295725514
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited36

This paper investigates the meaning of a specific intonation contour called linear lengthening intonation (LLI), which is found in the northern Australian language Iwaidja. Using an experimental field work approach, we analysed approximately 4000 utterances. We demonstrate that the semantics of LLI is broadly event-quantificational as well as temporally scalar. LLI imposes aspectual selectional restrictions on the verbs it combines with (they must be durative, i.e., cannot describe 'punctual', atomic events), and requires the event description effected by said verbs to exceed a contextually determined relative scalar meaning. Iwaidja differs from other northern Australian languages with similar intonation patterns in that it does not seem to have any argument NP-related incremental or event scalar meaning. This suggests that LLI is a decidedly grammatical, language-specific device and not a purely iconic kind of expression (even though it also possibly has an iconic dimension

Argument (complex analysis · Dimension (graph theory · Event (particle physics · Event structure · Intonation (linguistics · Linguistics · Meaning (existential · Phonology · Physics · Pragmatics · Scalar (mathematics · Semantics (computer science · Computer Science · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Mathematics · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation