This paper investigates the perceptual cues used by Catalan listeners to distinguish between information-seeking and incredulity yes/no questions. Two experiments examined the potential contribution of pitch height of the boundary tone and duration of the last syllable as primary cues in distinguishing sentence types. The results show that a difference in pitch scaling of the boundary tone HH% is the strongest cue for perceptually distinguishing between the two interpretations. Identification results and the absence of a consistent peak in Reaction Time measurements suggest that this perceptual contrast may be gradient rather than categorical in nature.
Index Terms: yes-no questions, incredulity questions, gradient contrast, categorical contrast, tonal perception, Catalan language.
Cite as: Crespo-Sendra, V., Vanrell, M.d.M., Prieto, P. (2010) Information-seeking questions and incredulity questions: gradient or categorical contrast? Proc. Speech Prosody 2010, paper 164
@inproceedings{cresposendra10_speechprosody,
author={Verònica Crespo-Sendra and Maria del Mar Vanrell and Pilar Prieto},
title={{Information-seeking questions and incredulity questions: gradient or categorical contrast?}},
year=2010,
booktitle={Proc. Speech Prosody 2010},
pages={paper 164}
}