Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vfjqv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T16:44:21.225Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Intonation of Polar Questions in North American (“Heritage”) Icelandic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2018

Nicole Dehé
Nicole Dehé*
Affiliation:
Universität Konstanz
*
Universität Konstanz, Fachbereich Sprachwissenschaft, Fach 186, 78457 Konstanz, Germany, [nicole.dehe@uni-konstanz.de]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Using map task data, this paper investigates the intonation of polar questions in North American (heritage) Icelandic, and compares it to the intonation of polar questions in Icelandic as spoken in Iceland and in North American English as spoken in Manitoba, Canada. The results show that intonational features typical of Icelandic polar questions are present to a considerable extent in heritage Icelandic. Furthermore, intonational features typical of North American English polar questions can frequently be observed in heritage Icelandic, too. In addition, there is a tendency for intonational features typical of Icelandic polar questions to show up in North American English polar questions produced by speakers of heritage Icelandic more often than in North American English polar questions produced by speakers without Icelandic heritage. Focusing on intonation, the present study adds to the evidence for (bidirectional) prosodic interference between a heritage language (here moribund Icelandic) and the dominant language (here North American English).*

Keywords

IcelandicNorth American Icelandicheritage languageintonationpolar questionsquestion intonation
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Germanic Linguistics , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 213 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Germanic Linguistics 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, Anne H., Bader, Miles, Bard, Ellen Gurman, Boyle, Elizabeth, Doherty, Gwyneth, Garrod, Simon, Isard, Stephen, Kowtko, Jacqueline, McAllister, Jan, Miller, Jim, Sotillo, Catherine, Thompson, Henry S., Weinert, Regina. 1991. The HCRC map task corpus. Language and Speech 34. 351–366.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Árnason, Kristján. 1985. Icelandic word stress and metrical phonology. Studia Linguistica 39. 93–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Árnason, Kristján. 1987. The stress of prefixes and suffixes in Icelandic. Nordic Prosody IV, ed. by Gregersen, Kirsten & Basbøll, Hans, 137–146. Odense: Odense University Press.Google Scholar
Árnason, Kristján. 1998. Toward an analysis of Icelandic intonation. Nordic Prosody. Proceedings of the VIIth Conference, Joensuu 1996, ed. by Werner, Stefan, 49–62. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Árnason, Kristján. 2005. Hljóð. Handbók um hljóðfræði og hljóðkerfisfræði, vol. 1. Bindi. Reykjavík: Almenna bókafélagið.Google Scholar
Árnason, Kristján. 2011. The phonology of Icelandic and Faroese. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnbjörnsdóttir, Birna. 2006. North American Icelandic: The life of a language. Winnipeg, MB: University of Manitoba Press.Google Scholar
Arnbjörnsdóttir, Birna. 2015. Reexamining Icelandic as a heritage language in North America. Germanic heritage languages in North America: Acquisition, attrition and change, ed. by Johannessen, Janne Bondi & Salmons, Joseph C., 72–93. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arvaniti, Amalia, Ladd, D. Robert, & Mennen, Inke. 2000. What is a starred tone? Evidence from Greek. Papers in laboratory phonology V: Acquisition and the lexicon, ed. by Broe, Michael B. & Pierrehumbert, Janet B., 119–131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Atterer, Michaela, & Ladd, D. Robert. 2004. On the phonetics and phonology of “segmental anchoring” of F0: Evidence from German. Journal of Phonetics 32. 177–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Christine. 1999. The intonation of English statements and questions. A compositional interpretation. New York, NY: Garland Publishing.Google Scholar
Bates, Douglas M., & Sarkar, Deepayan. 2007. lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using S4 classes. R package version 0.9975-12.Google Scholar
Beckman, Mary E., Díaz-Campos, Manuel, McGory, Julia Tevis, & Morgan, Terrell A.. 2002. Intonation across Spanish, in the Tones and Break Indices framework. Probus 14. 9–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beckman, Mary E., Hirschberg, Julia, & Shattuck-Hufnagel, Stefanie. 2005. The original ToBI system and the evolution of the ToBI framework. Prosodic typology, ed. by Jun, Sun-Ah, 9–54. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benmamoun, Elabbas, Montrul, Silvina, & Polinsky, Maria. 2013. Heritage languages and their speakers: Opportunities and challenges for linguistics. Theoretical Linguistics 39. 129–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bergmann, Christopher, Nota, Amber, Sprenger, Simone A., & Schmid, Monika S.. 2016. L2 immersion causes non-native-like L1 pronunciation in German attriters. Journal of Phonetics 58. 71–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bessason, Haraldur. 1967. A few specimens of North American-Icelandic. Scandinavian Studies 39. 115–146.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul. 2001. Praat, a system for doing phonetics by computer. GLOT International 5. 341–345.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul, & Weenink, David. 2016. Praat: Doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 6.0.21. Available at http://www.praat.org/.Google Scholar
Bullock, Barbara E. 2009. Prosody in contact in French: A case study from a heritage variety in the USA. International Journal of Bilingualism 13. 165–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burridge, Kate. 2007. Language contact and convergence in Pennsylvania German. Grammars in contact: A cross-linguistic typology, ed. by Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. & Dixon, R. M. W., 179–200. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chang, Charles B., & Yao, Yao. 2016. Toward an understanding of heritage prosody: Acoustic and perceptual properties of tone produced by heritage, native, and second language speakers of Mandarin. Heritage Language Journal 13. 134–160.Google Scholar
Dehé, Nicole. 2010. The nature and use of Icelandic prenuclear and nuclear pitch accents: Evidence from F0 alignment and syllable/segment duration. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 33. 31–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dehé, Nicole. 2015. The intonation of the Icelandic other-initiated repair expressoins Ha ‘Huh’ and Hvað segirðu/Hvað sagðirðu ‘What do/did you say’. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 38. 189–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Einarsson, Stefán. 1973. Icelandic: Grammar, texts, glossary, 2nd edn. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Fletcher, Janet, & Stirling, Lesley. 2014. Prosody and discourse in the Australian map task corpus. The Oxford handbook of corpus phonology, ed. by Durand, Jacques, Gut, Ulrike, & Kristoffersen, Gjert, 562–575. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Grice, Martine, Benzmüller, Ralf, Savino, Michelina, & Andreeva, Bistra. 1995. The intonation of queries and checks across languages: Data from map task dialogues. Proceedings of the XIIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences: ICPhS 95, ed. by Elenius, Kjell & Branderud, Peter, 648–651. Stockholm: KTH and Stockholm University.Google Scholar
Grice, Martine, & Savino, Michelina. 2003. Map tasks in Italian: Asking questions about given, accessible and new information. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 2. 153–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haugen, Einar. 1984. Die skandinavischen Sprachen. Hamburg: Buske.Google Scholar
Hedberg, Nancy, Sosa, Juan M., & Görgülü, Emrah. 2017. The meaning of intonation in yes-no questions in American English: A corpus study. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 13. 1–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helgason, Pétur. 2006. SMTC—A Swedish map task corpus. Proceedings of FONETIK 2006 (Working Papers 52), ed. by Ambrazaitis, Gilbert & Schötz, Susanne, 57–60. Lund: Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University.Google Scholar
Henriksen, Carol, & Auwera, Johan van der. 1994. The Germanic languages. König & van der Auwera 1994, 1–18.Google Scholar
Hoot, Bradley. 2012. Presentational focus in heritage and monolingual Spanish. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois at Chicago dissertation.Google Scholar
Huffines, Marion Lois. 1986. Intonation in language contact: Pennsylvania German English. Studies on the languages and the verbal behavior of the Pennsylvania Germans, ed. by Enninger, Werner, 25–36. Stuttgart: Steiner.Google Scholar
Jaeger, T. Florian. 2008. Categorical data analysis: Away from ANOVAs (transformation or not) and towards Logit Mixed Models. Journal of Memory and Language 59. 434–446.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johannessen, Janne Bondi, & Salmons, Joseph. 2015. The study of Germanic heritage languages in the Americas. Germanic heritage languages in North America: Acquisition, attrition and change, ed. by Johannessen, Janne B. & Salmons, Joseph, 1–17. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
König, Ekkehard, & (eds.), Johan van der Auwera. 1994. The Germanic languages. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kristinsson, Júníus. 1983. Vesturfaraskrá, 1870–1914; A record of emigrants from Iceland to America 1870–1914. Institute of History, Reykjavík: University of Iceland.Google Scholar
Kupisch, Tanja, Barton, Dagmar, Hailer, Katja, Klaschik, Ewgenia, Stangen, Ilse, Lein, Tatjana, & Weijer, Joost van de. 2014. Foreign accent in adult simultaneous bilinguals. Heritage Language Journal 11. 123–150.Google Scholar
Kügler, Frank. 2004. Dialectal variation in question intonation in two German dialects: The case of Swabian and Upper Saxon. Language variation in Europe: Papers from the Second International Conference on Language Variation in Europe, ICLaVE 2, ed. by Karstadt, Angela, Gunnarsson, Britt-Louise, Bergström, Lena, & Eklund, Gerd, 227–240. Uppsala: Department of Scandinavian Languages, Uppsala University.Google Scholar
Lickley, Robin J., Schepman, Astrid, & Robert Ladd, D.. 2005. Alignment of “phrase accent” lows in Dutch falling rising questions: Theoretical and methodological implications. Language and Speech 48. 157–183.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lleó, Conxita, & Rakow, Martin. 2011. Intonation targets of yes/no questions by Spanish and German monolingual and bilingual children. The development of grammar: Language acquisition and diachronic change, ed. by Rinke, Esther & Kupisch, Tanja, 263–286. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackey, William F. 2000. The description of bilingualism. The bilingualism reader, ed. by Wei, Li, 26–54. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Montrul, Silvina. 2016. The acquisition of heritage languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, Jörg. 2006. Intonation deutscher Regionalsprachen. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petrone, Caterina, & Niebuhr, Oliver. 2014. On the intonation of German intonation questions: The role of the prenuclear region. Language and Speech 57. 108–146.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pierrehumbert, Janet, & Hirschberg, Julia. 1990. The meaning of intonational contours in the interpretation of discourse. Intentions in communication, ed. by Cohen, Philip R., Morgan, Jerry, & Pollack, Martha E., 271–311. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Prieto, Pilar, Estrella, Ana, Thorson, Jill, & Vanrell, Maria del Mar. 2012. Is prosodic development correlated with grammatical and lexical development? Evidence from emerging intonation in Catalan and Spanish. Journal of Child Language 39. 221–257.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Prieto, Pilar, Thorson, Jill, Estrella, Ana, & Vanrell, Maria Del Mar. 2011. Early intonational development in Spanish: A case study. Selected proceedings of the 13th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, ed. by Ortiz-López, Luis A., 203–213. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Queen, Robin M. 2001. Bilingual intonation patterns: Evidence of language change from Turkish-German bilingual children. Language in Society 30. 55–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robles-Puente, Sergio. 2014. Prosody in contact: Spanish in Los Angeles. Los Angeles, CA: University of Southern California dissertation.Google Scholar
Savino, Michelina. 2012. The intonation of polar questions in Italian: Where is the rise? Journal of the International Phonetic Association 42. 23–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sekerina, Irina A., & Trueswell, John C.. 2011. Processing of contrastiveness by heritage Russian bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 14. 280–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverman, Kim, Beckman, Mary, Pitrelli, John, Ostendorf, Mari, Wightman, Colin, Price, Patti, Pierrehumbert, Janet, & Hirschberg, Julia. 1992. ToBI: A standard for labeling English prosody. Proceedings of the 1992 International Conference on Spoken Language Processing, ed. by Ohala, John J., 867–870. Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta.Google Scholar
Stangen, Ilse, Kupisch, Tanja, Ergün, Anna Lia Proietti, & Zielke, Marina. 2015. Foreign accent in heritage speakers of Turkish in Germany. Transfer effects in multilingual language development, ed. by Peukert, Hagen, 87–107. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Stefánsson, Vilhjálmur. 1903. English loan-nouns used in the Icelandic colony of North Dakota. Dialect Notes, vol. II, 354–362. New Haven, CT: The American Dialect Society.Google Scholar
Thorson, Jill, Borras-Comes, Joan, Crespo-Sendra, Verònica, Vanrell, Maria del Mar, & Prieto, Pilar. 2015. The acquisition of melodic form and meaning in yes-no interrogatives by Catalan and Spanish speaking children. Probus 27. 73–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 1994. Icelandic. König & van der Auwera 1994, 142–189.Google Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2007. The syntax of Icelandic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2016. Incomplete acquisition and language attrition in different settings. Paper presented at the Thirty Eighth Annual Conference of the German Linguistics Society (DGfS), held at University of Konstanz, February 24–26, 2016.Google Scholar
Thráinsson, Höskuldur, & Árnason, Kristján. 1992. Phonological variation in 20th-century Icelandic. Íslenskt mál 14. 89–128.Google Scholar