Ixpantepec Nieves mixtec question intonation

Abstract

Ixpantepec Nieves Mixtec (INM) is posited to have a three-way lexical tone system and lexical stress. However, no known work has investigated whether INM makes use of F0 intonationally. Our study addresses this gap and seeks to contribute to the typology of tone-intonation interactions. We recorded both polar and wh-questions. For polar questions, we analyzed the F0 from one female speaker. The speaker produced question-answer (Q&A) pairs, where the object of transitive verb phrases appeared in both the interrogative and declarative sentences, and differed in its lexical tone. The F0 of every vowel was measured to determine if lexical tones vary depending on whether they occur in an interrogative or declarative sentence of the Q&A pair. Pitch raising is the only significant difference (p < 0.01) between the Q&A pair; both high and low lexical tones have higher F0 in the interrogative compared to the declarative. For wh-questions, a qualitative analysis was done using interview data from a male and female speakers. A quantitative analysis is also underway. The Q&A pairs had similar pitch contours and absolute F0 values; thus, no wh-question intonation or tone-intonation interaction was found. Implications for intonational typology in languages with lexical tones will be discussed.