Re: Conpunct

lucasso wrote:

>i like spanish use of exclamation and question mark, at the
>beginning and at
>the end of sentence...
>you know how to intone the sentence when you start reading it,
>not like in
>the rest european scripts, when reading long sentence you
>suddenly realize
>that all that you've read...
Actually, in defense of other European languages, this isn't really
a problem in English (and many of the Germanic languages - I'm not
sure about other IE languages). The unmarked intonation in English
is that of a level head and a falling nucleus ('h`n). This is
normally used in statements, in imperatives, and in wh- questions
(i.e., questions beginning with the words why, where, when, what,
which etc.). You can verify this by reading the sentences below in a
neutral way and observing the intonation contour which you use:

  statements: 'h`n
     'The shops are `open.
  WH questions: 'h`n
     'What is your `name?
  Imperatives: 'h`n
     Just 'go wash your `face!
     `Sit! -> (the head is not necessary in this example)

In these types of sentences, intonation is the unmarked 'h`n type.
The English reader would generally already know beforehand what the
intonation of these sentence types would be. Even in WH- sentences,
the English reader would know that s/he is reading a WH- question
just by seeing the first word. Yet, WH- questions generally still
have the same 'h`n intonation of normal statements and imperatives.

There are two other intonation types that I can think of that are
more marked than the 'h`n type. Yet these do not pose a problem
either because of the structure of the sentence itself. One
intonation type would be the LOW RISE ('h,n). This is where the head
is level and the nucleus rises slightly. This pattern is often found
in YES/NO questions where the speaker queries an item and expects
simple confirmation or denial. In these types of sentences, the verb
intitiates the sentence whereas in other sentence types it is
normally the subject. Thus, it would not be difficult for an English
reader to figure out the intonation of a sentence that begins with a
verb.:

     Is your 'family coming to ,visit?
     Will you com'plete the project ,today?

Now that I think about it, I believe Spanish can do without the
inverted question mark being that Spanish sentence structure alone
can tell me quite a lot about the type of sentence in question and
thereby the type of intonation needed. But perhaps that my
Anglicized mind getting the better of me.

Regards,
-Kristian- 8-)