Prosody across sentence types

Maria Esipova (Bar-Ilan University)

Rudin & Rudin (2022) discuss a typological generalization that languages like English and Bulgarian, in which rising declaratives (L* H-H%) comprise some sort of non-canonical yes/no questions (YNQs), also allow for rising imperatives, used as polite/friendly requests or disinterested suggestions. In contrast, languages like Macedonian, in which rising declaratives comprise regular YNQs, don’t allow rising imperatives. I look at Russian, further expanding the typology of how languages realize various discourse-oriented meanings across sentence types. While, like in Macedonian, regular Russian YNQs are formed via an “intonation-only” strategy, said intonation doesn’t involve a rising tune, but a pitch accent of a special kind that I will call the Q-Peak. I show that the Q-Peak can also be used in friendly, but invested requests, but not in disinterested suggestions. I propose that the Q-Peak realizes an operator that asks the addressee to respond to an issue—appropriate in (some) questions and invested requests, but not in disinterested suggestions.