Intonation and speech act type: An experimental approach to rising intonation in queclaratives

Abstract It is hypothesized that the role of rising intonation for the recognition of so-called ‘Queclaratives’ is overrated. Via a perception experiment, it is shown that pragmatic factors, more specifically Searle's (1969) ‘felicity conditions’, play a decisive role in the recognition of an utterance with declarative form as a question. Provided pragmatic cues are sufficiently strong to determine speech act status, rising intonation is shown to be virtually without impact; if, on the other hand, pragmatic cues do not favor any particular speech act type, intonation may, but need not, act as a cue for determining question-status.