Questions as prosodic configurations: How prosody and context shape the multiparametric acoustic nature of rhetorical questions in German
Year: 2019
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Contrary to information-seeking questions (ISQs), rhetorical questions (RQs) occur in non-neutral contexts, e.g., to criticize, challenge, or persuade the addressee. We study the influence of two attitudinal contexts (disgust and mockery) on the prosodic realization of wh-RQs (Who likes lavender?) in German relative to a non-attitudinal control condition of ISQs realized in a sincere interest context. RQs show context-specific acoustic and phonological differences, but are, overall, more strongly separated from ISQ realizations. Moreover, the way in which RQs and ISQs differ from each other as well as from statements in German suggests that German questions represent a coherent bundle of parameters – a so-called "prosodic construction" – that is constituted to a larger extent by gradual acoustic parameters than by categorical phonological ones.
Authors: Jana Neitsch, Oliver Niebuhr
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2969730951