The Intonation of Wh- and Yes/No-Questions in Tokyo Japanese

Abstract

The paper reports experimental results on the intonation of wh- and yes/no-questions in Tokyo Japanese, and discusses several implications for the semantic and phonological theories of focus. The intonation of declarative sentences, wh-questions, and yes/no-questions are systematically compared. The results show that the wh-question exhibits an \(\text {F}_0\)-prominence on the wh-phrase, while the yes/no-question exhibits an \(\text {F}_0\)-prominence on the verb. It is claimed that these prominences are both focus-oriented. This proposal fits the standard semantic theory of questions (Hamblin 1973) nicely. Phonological theories of focus prosody in Tokyo Japanese are compared in the light of the results. The interaction of the notions of focus and discourse-newness/givenness is also discussed.