This item is not viewable because it is not yet digitized or has special access permissions. Please log in or request access.
Intonation of yes/no questions in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh
Academic Work
This paper is a preliminary investigation into the pitch on yes/no questions in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (a.k.a. Squamish). It has been commonly assumed that Salish languages do not utilize rising pitch to indicate yes/no questions, although until recently no formal studies have been done to substantiate this claim. In this paper I compare the pitch of declarative sentences to yes/no questions. I find that there is no phrase final rise in pitch for yes/no questions. Rather, both sentence types have an overall declination. But, the declination for the yes/no question is less than that of the declarative sentence. What this results in is relatively higher pitch for the predicate in the yes/no question.
AW.00091
2007
Language and Linguistics
Papers for the International Conference on Salish Languages (ICS(N)L)
42, 236-255
42, 236-255
Copyright remains with the author.
Working Papers
Do you have a comment, story, or something you would like us to know related to this item?