2025/05/28 by Draga Zec, Elizabeth C. Zsiga · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Language, Metaphor, and Cognition #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity
paper · doi:10.1093/9780191988080.003.0004
openalex publication_date 2025/05/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
Abstract This chapter investigates the interaction of lexical and intonational tones in the standard variety of Serbian spoken in Belgrade. An acoustic experiment was conducted, establishing two modes of such interactions. In the Declarative intonation, lexical tone is affected by intonational melody in only one specific environment: namely, in phrase-final position. However, in Prompting Questions, an interrogative intonational pattern, the intonational melody wins over the lexical tone, resulting in its complete obliteration. Thus, while in Declaratives, the interactions between lexical and intonational tones are local, in Prompting Questions, they are global in nature. This difference correlates with another difference between these two intonational patterns: while the semantic force of the Declaratives is encoded both syntactically and intonationally, Prompting Questions are indicated only by their intonational melody. This chapter captures the complex tonal interactions that characterize the intonational patterns of Declaratives and Prompting Questions in an Optimality Theory analysis, noting, however, that some of their aspects call for a functionalist perspective.