Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Question about Questions

From:Jesse Bangs <jaspax@...>
Date:Monday, September 17, 2001, 4:18
> That got me wondering what such an interrogative intonation would sound > like... all languages I've come in contact with so far raise the pitch > of the voice towards the end of the sentence. Is that some sort of > global constant of human communication or just another IEism? What > other ways are there in the langs of the world?
It's not even an IEism. In Romanian, a yes/no question is indicated by rising tone at the end of the sentence, as you said, but a different type of question has *falling* tone. Actually, there are other more subtle things about Romanian intonation that were really difficult for me to cope with when I went there. For some reason, their intonation patterns often resemble those used in English for perjorative sentences, so I thought I was being insulted when I was really being asked a perfectly polite question. The Yivríndi, though, don't use intonation for questions. They use a prefix ko- on the verb, just as Obrenje did. Jesse S. Bangs Pelíran jaspax@ juno.com "There is enough light for those that desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition." --Blaise Pascal