Tonal alignment, scaling and slope in Italian question and statement tunes
Abstract
Unlike in languages such as English and Standard Italian, Neapolitan Italian yes/no questions and narrow focus statements share a rising-falling (LHL) tune (d'Imperio00b,Grice00) whose H peak alignment is a cue to tune identification (d'Imperio97c). This study acoustically tested the hypothesis that all three tonal targets of the rise-fall are timed and scaled differently in questions and statements. Moreover, slope differences for both rise and fall were also tested by employing logistic regression modeling. Two speakers of Neapolitan Italian produced utterances whose target words differed in question/statement modality, syllable structure and segmental environment. The results show that all three targets within the rise-fall are timed later in questions. By contrast, no systematic slope difference was found. The exact contribution of scaling to signaling the contrast could not be determined, though. In fact, while one speaker marked the difference by producing higher peaks for statements, the other did not produce any difference.