Abstract
Speakers can use distinct intonation contours in polar questions to convey information about ‘degree of commitment.’ The present study analyzes the intonational variation in Mieres Asturian polar questions and explores whether speakers encode information about their belief states intonationally. A production experiment was designed to elicit polar questions, and the results uncovered three main intonational patterns, namely H+L* L%, H* L%, and L* L%. The data show that, while H+L* L% is used as a canonical or ‘default’ PQ-marking tune and does not encode any information about speaker belief states, H* L% and L* L% are epistemically specified, expressing a positive epistemic bias towards the proposition, and a state of disbelief on the part of the speaker, respectively.
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