Intonation et levée de l'ambiguïté : le cas du négatif no en anglais

Abstract

Intonation and ambiguity resolution : the case of no. Isabelle Gaudy, University of Metz At the beginning of an utterance, no can give a negative information, agree with a negative utterance or do away with a statement. So, we notice that for a single word we get three different meanings. It can therefore be considered as an ambiguous item. If we then look at its intonative representations, we notice that the patterns are quite unrelated to the positioning on the polarity of what was said before. Rather, the intonation corresponds to different disagreement attitudes. No can be modulated or flat. The latter corresponds to an indifferent and neutral negative answer. It proves more interesting to deal with the modulated no. We can indeed make out two modulations, high low on the one hand and low high on the other hand. The former is used when the utterer feels deeply involved toward the co-utterer.