The present study addresses the unresolved issue of speech melody in Czech question-word questions (i.e., specific, information or content questions). Some renowned authors claim that these questions use the same melodic courses as statements, whereas others suggest salient modifications. We contribute to the debate with the results of an experiment, in which 24 speakers were recorded producing context-embedded utterances that formed latent question-statement pairs. The pairs under scrutiny were not obvious to the speakers but they structurally differed in just one or two phonemes and preserved identical stress-group and syllabic patterns. The analysis of the melodic contours shows that although both statements and interrogatives are generally (even if not always) produced with a falling contour, the placement of the melodic peak and its magnitude differ significantly. While statements are typically furnished with a late intonational nucleus, question-word questions more commonly display a higher early peak. Additionally, various pragmatic components of the messages are suggested that correlate with the individual tune shapes.
The study investigates how native speakers of Czech signal irony through articulation rate and speech melody modulations. Recordings of six speakers reading short ironic and non-ironic statements were analyzed. To ascertain the validity of the data, a perceptual test was administered in which respondents evaluated utterances as ironic, neutral or otherwise affective. A detailed analysis of changes in articulation rate and fundamental frequency contours took into account the linguistic classes of strategies that were used by the speakers: while some used what we call a localistic approach, others exploited a globalistic mode of signaling irony in their voice.
The article deals with the nature of current approaches to speech material and to instrumental analysis in research of prosodic phenomena. The relationship between intonation in the narrow sense of the word and frequency of the vocal folds vibration is described. One example probe is presented to demonstrate advantages and weaknesses of some modern methods. Attention is also paid to interesting intonational downtrends which have been neglected by intonologists and which, to date, have not been properly described in Czech.
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