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The following handle holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation:
http://hdl.handle.net/1887/60911
Author: Shiamizadeh, Z.
Title: Prosody and processing of wh-in-situ questions in standard Persian
Issue Date: 2018-04-04
English Summary
The contrast between statements and questions is functionally prominent in everyday communication. Utterances require no sign to be recognized as statements.
On the other hand, questions may be signaled lexically, for example by the insertion of wh-phrases and/or other syntactic mechanisms, such as inversion of the subject and finite verb. However, lexico-syntactic features are not the sole indicators of interrogativity (Haan, 2001). The literature on question intonation specifies that intonation also plays a diagnostic role in characterizing questions (e.g. Hermann, 1942; Haan, 2001). It has been demonstrated that the marking of prosodic interrogativity is stronger when lexico-syntactic features of interrogativity are absent or are fewer50 in the sentence (e.g. Lindblom, 1990). This finding can be extended to interrogatives where the lexico-syntactic interrogativity feature occurs later in the sentence, as in wh-in-situ questions. Persian is one of the languages characterized by wh-in-situ questions.
This dissertation investigates the role of prosody in characterizing the production and cueing the perception of wh-in-situ questions in the absence of the syntactic interrogativity marker (the wh-phrase) in sentence-initial position.
Following a production experiment, three perception experiments were conducted to examine the contribution of prosody to the identification of wh-in-situ questions before the wh-phrase is uttered by the speaker in Persian.
Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the dissertation, a summary of the theoretical background, the research questions and associated hypotheses. Chapter 2 investigates whether specific prosody characterizes the pre-wh part, the post-wh part and the complete sentence in wh-questions as opposed to declaratives. It does so using a question-response task, which was designed to elicit declaratives and wh- questions from Persian native speakers. The results reveal that a higher F0 onset, a raised level of pitch register, a steeper F0 uptrend, a greater F0 excursion size of the pre-wh words and a shorter duration mark the pre-wh part in wh-questions.
Regarding the complete sentence, a decreased duration and a raised register level are characteristic prosodic correlates of wh-questions as opposed to declaratives. The prosodic correlates in the post-wh part do not play a significant role in marking wh- questions, except for the F0 offset which is higher in questions.
Following the production experiment, three perception experiments were run to explore the role of prosody in identifying wh-questions as opposed to statements. Chapter 3 presents the results of a perception experiment conducted to answer the question as to whether the prosody of the pre-wh part guides the identification of wh-in-situ questions. Part of the sentences elicited in the production experiment forms the base of the material for the perception experiment. A forced-
50 There is one lexico-syntactic feature of interrogativity, namely the auxiliary “did” in the English yes-no question “Did he study last night?”. In contrast, the English wh-question “When did he study last night?”
has two lexico-syntactic features of interrogativity: the wh-phrase “when” and the auxiliary verb “did”.
Thus, the number of lexico-syntactic features of interrogativity is smaller in the yes-no question in comparison to the wh-question.
110 Prosody and processing of wh-in-situ questions in standard Persian
choice sentence identification task was designed in which the pre-wh part of declaratives and wh-in-situ questions was played to Persian native speakers.
Listeners were required to decide whether what they heard is going to be a wh- question or a declarative as quickly as possible. The results showed that wh- questions can be correctly distinguished from declaratives in 90.3% of cases. It may be concluded that the prosodic characteristics of the pre-wh part of the sentence can cue the identification of wh-in-situ questions as opposed to declaratives. In line with the results of Vion and Colas (2006), a RM-ANOVA showed that the reaction time (RT) to declaratives was shorter than the RT to questions.
As a follow-up to the previous perception experiment in Chapter 3, Chapter 4 examines where in the pre-wh part of a sentence Persian native speakers are able to perceive the correct sentence type. To this end, a perception experiment employing the gating paradigm was run (Grosjean, 1980). Part of the sentences elicited in the production experiment formed the base of the material of the perception experiment. The pre-wh part of the sentences was divided into seven gates. The gated stimuli were played to Persian native speakers in a forced-choice sentence identification task. After hearing each gate, they were instructed to opt for either declarative or wh-question as the sentence type as quickly as possible, and also report how confident they were about their decision on a 5-point scale. The results showed that upon hearing the first gate, where the F0 onset is introduced, listeners can already recognize the sentence type above chance level (75.6%). A RM-ANOVA revealed that identification improves, the confidence rating increases and the RT decreases as more discriminating prosodic information is presented. At the last gate, where the pre-wh part was completely presented, the peak of the correct recognition of the sentence type (91.5%) and the confidence rating (4.4 on a scale of 5) was achieved. The RT was also shortest (0.23 sec) at gate 7. Similar to the results of the previous perception experiment (Chapter 3) and Vion and Colas’
(2006) study, declaratives have a decreased RT in comparison to questions.
Chapters 3 and 4 show that sentence type can be identified on the basis of the prosody of the pre-wh part, before the occurrence of the lexical cue to sentence type. The findings in Chapters 3 and 4 lead us to investigate the relative contribution of the F0 and durational cues to the correct recognition of the sentence type.
Therefore, another perception experiment was run, as presented in Chapter 5.
Similar to the previous perception experiments, a sentence identification task was designed and conducted. Part of the sentences elicited in the production experiment forms the basis of the material of this perception experiment. The F0 onset, the excursion size of the pre-wh words and the duration of the pre-wh part of wh- questions as well as statements were manipulated. Persian native speakers listened to the pre-wh part of declaratives and wh-in-situ questions. Upon hearing each stimulus, they were asked to decide as quickly as possible whether what they heard is going to be a wh-question or a declarative. The results revealed a primary role for the F0 and a secondary role for duration in prosodic contrast perception. A RM- ANOVA showed that sentence type identification was augmented and RT was decreased in the matching cue condition in comparison to the mismatching cue condition. In the matching cue condition, the F0 and the durational cues match while in the mismatching cue condition the F0 and the durational cues do not.
English summary 111
Chapter 6 revisits the research questions and draws conclusions from the main results of the dissertation. This chapter also provides suggestions for further research.
