Towards an analysis of Turinese Italian intonation and theoretical implications for intonational phonology

Digitized data of a northern variety of Standard Italian declarative statements', yes/no questions' and wh-questions' was collected to describe a partial grammar of intonational morphemes in the language and provide an analysis for the utterances. Two major theories of intonational phonology are outlined and tested against the data. It is shown how Pierrehumbert's autosegmental theory best captures the data presented here with respect to intonation patterns at the boundaries. Evidence for the existence of a L, and a LH tone is put forward. In particular, it is proposed that, on the one hand, when LH tones map onto prominent syllables of/Dei they are followed by a L- phrase tone in declaratives and a Hphrase tone in yes/no interrogatives; on the other hand when the LH tones map onto prominent syllables of topics they are always followed by a H- phrase tone. Finally, the unstable mapping of the LH tone onto the FO contour found here is considered against current notions of alignment.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1999

Author dc:creator

• Besana, Sveva, 1971-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Michael Kenstowicz.

• Linguistics and Philosophy.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/9350
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/9350

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/9350