Wh-question or wh-declarative? Prosody makes the difference

Abstract Mandarin wh-words can have question or non-question (e.g., existential, universal quantificational) interpretations. Their interpretations in a sentence are usually not ambiguous, as the distinct interpretations need to be licensed by particular items/contexts. The starting point of our study concerns a case which allows the wh-words to remain ambiguous in a sentence: wh-words such as shenme appearing with diǎnr. After empirically confirming that such sentences are indeed ambiguous (Study 1), we turn to the question of whether and how prosody helps disambiguate such sentences. Our production experiment (Study 2) shows that wh-declaratives differ from wh-questions in terms of prosodic properties already from the clause onset. Wh-declaratives are longer than wh-questions starting from the subject and the pattern reverses at the wh-word; wh-declaratives are lower in F0 and smaller in F0 range than wh-questions at the wh-word and there is a F0 range compression in the post-wh-word region in wh-questions; wh-declaratives show larger intensity range than wh-questions at the verb and the pattern reverses at the wh-word. An implication of this study concerns the focal status of wh-words in wh-questions and wh-declaratives: wh-words are foci in wh-questions but cannot be foci in wh-declaratives.

[1]  J. Ohala.  Cross-Language Use of Pitch: An Ethological View , 1983, Phonetica.

[2]  F. Weerman,et al.  Mandarin SHENME as a superweak NPI , 2014 .

[3]  Vincent J. van Heuven,et al.  Speech rate as a secondary prosodic characteristic of polarity questions in three languages , 2005, Speech Commun..

[4]  Yi Xu,et al.  Fundamental Frequency Peak Delay in Mandarin , 2000, Phonetica.

[5]  J. Ohala,et al.  An Ethological Perspective on Common Cross-Language Utilization of F₀ of Voice , 1984, Phonetica.

[6]  Yen-hui Audrey Li,et al.  Order and Constituency in Mandarin Chinese , 1990 .

[7]  Yi Xu,et al.  Closely related languages, different ways of realizing focus , 2009, INTERSPEECH.

[8]  Fang Liu.  Intonation systems of Mandarin and English : a functional approach , 2009 .

[9]  Jo-wang Lin,et al.  On Existential Polarity-WH-0Phrases in Chinese , 1998 .

[10]  M. Tanenhaus,et al.  Context effects in syntactic ambiguity resolution: discourse and semantic influences in parsing reduced relative clauses. , 1993, Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie experimentale.

[11]  Laura A. Michaelis,et al.  Sentence Accent in Information Questions: Default and Projection , 1998 .

[12]  Emily Q. Wang,et al.  Pitch targets and their realization: Evidence from Mandarin Chinese , 2001, Speech Commun..

[13]  Jiahong Yuan,et al.  Mechanisms of Question Intonation in Mandarin , 2006, ISCSLP.

[14]  San Duanmu,et al.  Tone and Non-tone Languages: An Alternative to Language Typology and Parameters * , 2004 .

[15]  Jeroen van de Weijer,et al.  The four tones of Mandarin Chinese: Representation and acquisition , 2014 .

[16]  Joachim Jacobs.  Implikaturen und 'alte Information' in w-Fragen , 1991 .

[17]  Ping Jiang,et al.  Representation of Mandarin intonations: boundary tone revisited , 2011 .

[18]  Lisa Lai-Shen Cheng,et al.  (In)Definiteness, Polarity, and the Role of wh-morphology in Free Choice , 2006, J. Semant..

[19]  G. Lindsey,et al.  Intonation and interrogation : tonal structure and the expression of a programatic function in English and other language , 1985 .

[20]  X. Shen.  The Prosody of Mandarin Chinese , 1990 .

[21]  S A Jun,et al.  A Prosodic Analysis of Three Types of Wh-Phrases in Korean , 1996, Language and speech.

[22]  Yi Xu,et al.  Effects of tone and focus on the formation and alignment of f0contours , 1999 .

[23]  Li Aijun,et al.  CHINESE PROSODY AND PROSODIC LABELING OF SPONTANEOUS SPEECH , 2002 .

[24]  X. Shen,et al.  Relative Duration as a Perceptual Cue to Stress in Mandarin , 1993, Language and speech.

[25]  Yiya Chen,et al.  Post-focus F0 compression - Now you see it, now you don't , 2010, J. Phonetics.

[26]  Mollie E. Brooks,et al.  Generalized linear mixed models: a practical guide for ecology and evolution. , 2009, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[27]  Timothy L. Face.  The Intonation of Absolute Interrogatives in Castilian Spanish , 2004 .

[28]  M. Vion,et al.  Pitch Cues for the Recognition of Yes-No Questions in French , 2006, Journal of psycholinguistic research.

[29]  Ok Joo Lee.  The prosody of questions in Beijing Mandarin , 2005 .

[30]  Cheng-Teh James Huang,et al.  Logical Relations in Chinese and the Theory of Grammar , 1998 .

[31]  Mariapaola D'Imperio,et al.  Tempo and the perception of sentence modality , 2013 .

[32]  Hongyuan Dong,et al.  Issues In The Semantics Of Mandarin Questions , 2009 .

[33]  Zhiguo Xie.  Nonveridicality and Existential Polarity Wh-Phrases in Mandarin , 2007 .

[34]  Caroline Féry,et al.  Pitch accent scaling on given, new and focused constituents in German , 2008, J. Phonetics.

[35]  Y. Yang,et al.  The Two Sides of Wh-indeterminates in Mandarin: A Prosodic and Processing Account , 2018 .

[36]  Iris Chuoying Ouyang,et al.  Prosody and information structure in a tone language: an investigation of Mandarin Chinese , 2015 .

[37]  C. Clifton,et al.  The independence of syntactic processing , 1986 .

[38]  Kening Li.  The information structure of Mandarin Chinese : syntax and prosody , 2009 .

[39]  Yen-hui Audrey Li,et al.  Indefinite Wh in Mandarin Chinese , 1992 .

[40]  D. Bates,et al.  Mixed-Effects Models in S and S-PLUS , 2001 .

[41]  Sónia Frota,et al.  Nuclear falls and rises in European Portuguese: A phonological analysis of declarative and question intonation , 2002 .

[42]  S. Chen.  The effects of tones on speaking frequency and intensity ranges in Mandarin and Min dialects. , 2005, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[43]  D. Bates,et al.  Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4 , 2014, 1406.5823.

[44]  Bei Wang,et al.  Prosodic focus with and without post-focus compression: A typological divide within the same language family? , 2012 .

[45]  Alan Cruttenden,et al.  The de-accenting of given information: A cognitive universal? , 2006 .

[46]  Fang Hu.  A Prosodic Analysis of Wh-words in Standard Chinese , 2002 .

[47]  Xuefei Liu,et al.  How does prosody distinguish Wh-statement from Wh-question? A case study of Standard Chinese , 2016 .

[48]  Jee-Youn Shin.  Wh-Constructions in Korean: A Lexical Account , 2005 .