Couper-Kuhlen2012b
| Couper-Kuhlen2012b | |
|---|---|
| BibType | INCOLLECTION |
| Key | Couper-Kuhlen2012b |
| Author(s) | Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen |
| Title | Some truths and untruths about final intonation in conversational questions |
| Editor(s) | Jan P. de Ruiter |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, Interactional Linguistics, Prosody |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Year | 2012 |
| Language | |
| City | Cambridge, U.K. |
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| Pages | 123-145 |
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| Howpublished | |
| Book title | Questions: Formal, functional and interactional perspectives |
| Chapter | |
Abstract
It was more than half a century ago that Bolinger wrote: ‘Rising intonation is commonly associated with Qs (=questions), and on Qs of certain types … is the most conspicuous clue of questionness for the hearer’ (1957:13). Beliefs of this nature continue to live on, as witnessed by well-known compendium grammars of English which make assertions such as: polar questions have final rising intonation, while Wh-questions have final falling intonation; declarative questions necessarily have final rising intonation; recapitulatory echo questions have final rising intonation, whereas explicatory echo questions have final falling intonation (Quirk et al. 1985: 807ff., 835ff.). Yet even a cursory glance at naturally occurring English conversation will provide enough evidence to raise doubt about each of these statements. In fact, some polar questions actually have final falling intonation, some Wh-questions have final rising intonation, and some recapitulatory echo questions and even some declarative questions are produced with final falling intonation. Thus, although the statements which English grammars make concerning final intonation in questions are not wholly wrong, they are not wholly right either. In fact, there are so many exceptions that it seems rather meaningless to attempt to describe patterns of question intonation in these terms at all.
Arguably, the problem lies in the context-free nature of the generalisations being made about final intonation. The implication is that such generalisations hold independent of the actions which the questions are implementing, the sequential environments in which these actions are embedded and the epistemic stance which speakers are assuming in carrying out these actions. The problem becomes more manageable, however, if final intonational contours are thought of as tied to actions accomplished by particular syntactic forms and to particular epistemic stances embodied in these actions. Then it does become possible to discover recurrent patterns of intonational configuration in conversational questions, and these can be quite revealing.
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