At the interface between phonetics and pragmatics: Non local F0 effects on the perception of Cosenza Italian tunes
Caterina Petrone, Zentrum für Allgmeine Sprachwissenshaft
Analysing the tune meaning is often equivalent to analysing the meaning contribution of the “nucleus” (the intonation region starting from the last pitch accented syllable until the end of the intonation phrase). In this paper we report results from an identification task in Cosenza Italian, suggesting that listeners are able to identify the contrast between questions and statements by exploiting phonetic differences in the implementation of the rise-fall prenuclear contour. Such results mirror previous studies on Neapolitan and German and raise questions on the contribution of prenuclear F0 details to tune meaning.