Speech rate as a secondary prosodic characteristic of polarity questions in three languages

Questions (almost) universally differ from statements in that the former have some element of high pitch that is absent in the latter. Therefore, the difference in speech melody (intonation) is considered to be the primary prosodic correlate of the contrast. We now pursue the possibility that an other, secondary prosodic correlate may exist that signals the difference between statement and question. We noted in Manado Malay (an Austronesian language) that questions were spoken at a faster rate than the corresponding statements. We then examined speech rate in questions and statements in two Germanic languages, viz. Orkney English and Dutch. In all three languages we find faster speaking rate in questions than in statements, but with different distribution of the phenomenon over the sentence. In Manado Malay, the difference seems restricted to the boundaries of prosodic domains, in Orkney it is evenly spread over the sentence, and in Dutch it is only found in the middle portion of the sentence. Some speculation on possible causes of the rate difference between statements and questions is offered in conclusion.

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