Statements as, like, questions? (was: Re: Pitch and tense)

Barry Garcia wrote:

>Rugpretzel@aol.com writes:
>>tonight i was talking to a friend who speaks in a raised pitch whenever
>>talking about something that happened to her,
>
>Hmm, is it like she raises her voice at the end of each sentence, almost
>as if each of them are questions? I notice that that happens a lot with
>the local latino teenagers around here =).
Raising the voice at the end of statements is common among teenagers
all over the US and Canada, and seems to have a very specific discourse
function - namely to signal something like "it's still my turn to speak,
I'm just pausing for a second".  I think this is a relatively recent
innovation in American English, and I'd be very interested to know
where it comes from.

I don't raise my voice at the end of statements, but I do do something
similar to signal that it's still my turn to speak, namely inserting
an "umm..." at the end of the sentence:

        "So I'm going to the movies later today.  Umm...
        And I think I'm going to see the new Austin Powers flick.  Umm..."

That sort of thing.  Does anybody else do this, or is it a personal
affectation of mine?

Also, on a conlang-related note:  How do people's conlangs signal
discourse-related things like turn-taking, shift of topic, and so on?

Matt.

------------------------------------
Matt Pearson
mpearson@ucla.edu
UCLA Linguistics Department
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543
------------------------------------