Source Title:
Questions and Answers in Linguistics
|
Volume/Issue:
Volume 4: Issue 1

Intonation of Persian declaratives: Read vs. spontaneous speech

Nima Sadat-Tehrani 1
  • 1 Centennial College, Department of English, M1G 3T8, Toronto
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1515/qal-2017-0002
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Published online:
23 Sep 2017
PDF

Abstract

This paper is an introductory investigation, comparing the intonation of Persian declaratives in read and spontaneous speech styles. The results indicate that 32% of the 254 spontaneous declaratives studied show one or more of the following intonational differences: a high or downstepped high tone at Intonational Phrase end, marking the incompleteness of the message; the existence of more pauses leading to a greater number of Intonational Phrases, pre-pause vowel lengthening, and pitch reset; a flatter contour and less pitch variation caused by a speaker’s boredom or givenness of the information content; an initial high boundary tone resulted from a low degree of assertiveness.

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Journal + Issues

Questions and Answers in Linguistics

Online ISSN:
2299-8942
First Published:
16 Apr 2015
Language:
English
Publisher:
Sciendo

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