I could be wrong here, but it seems to me that a common aspect amongst all languages is the tendency to raise the pitch of your voice slightly when asking a question. Especially at the end of a question sentence.

If I’m wrong about this raised pitch being common amongst all languages, at the very least do all languages change their tone slightly to indicate that a question is being asked?

I guess there needs to be some way to indicate what is and isn’t a question. Perhaps a higher pitched voice reflects uncertainty. Is this something deep rooted in humans, or just an arbitrary choice when language developed?

  • ABCDE@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    61
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    1 month ago

    English doesn’t even go up at the end of sentences for all questions, just yes or no ones.

    • Lvxferre
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 month ago

      Good catch - WH-questions tend to have a pitch drop instead.

      Now thinking, Portuguese and Italian seem to follow the same pattern as English.

      • Lvxferre
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        21
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 month ago

        Do you really think thats true?

        “Rhetorical” questions - like this one - are specially interesting because, while they follow the syntax of a genuine question, they’re pragmatically assertions. You’re implying “this is not true”, even if you’re phrasing it as a question.

        And that phrasal pitch contour that you see in yes/no questions is dictated by the pragmatical purpose of the utterance, so if the “question” is not actually a question, it doesn’t get it.

          • Lvxferre
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            1 month ago

            more [with a higher pitch]

            Yes, I can. /me leaves the room

            Serious now, this sentence is a great example because, even if phrased as a yes/no question, you’ll typically see it being used as a request - “please tell me more”. And as such you’ll often hear it without the higher pitch associated with yes/no questions.

        • otp@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          1 month ago

          They seem to have a rise-drop, at least when I say them.

          “How old are you?” is interesting because the rise is on the third-last word (“old”). But “How old is your daughter?” has the rise in the first syllable of daughter.

          • Deconceptualist@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            12
            ·
            edit-2
            1 month ago

            That’s just emphasis. You can tell because you can shift it to another word.

            • What’s your name? (more pointed)
            • How old are you? (as if it’s now suddenly of concern)
            • Where are you from? (maybe the person has an unusual accent)
            • Where are you from? (more pointed)
            • How old is your daughter? (shifting from discussing someone else’s daughter)
            • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              7
              ·
              1 month ago

              Switching the emphasis on one word can completely change the meaning of a phrase, there’s one example I love: “I never said she stole his money”

              • I never said she stole his money (someone else did)
              • I never said she stole his money (absolutely not true)
              • I never said she stole his money (I wrote it down)
              • I never said she stole his money (it was someone else)
              • I never said she stole his money (she might have just borrowed it)
              • I never said she stole his money (it was someone else’s)
              • I never said she stole his money (she stole something else)
            • Botzo@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              1 month ago

              I wonder if it’s more because we frame the question by altering the structure to indicate the appropriate response.

              We could just as well ask “you are from where?” Or “your name is what?” That matches the expected sentence structure of a response, and the natural pitch rises.

            • otp@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 month ago

              But the default stress towards the end of the question is what makes it a question.

              You can move the stress to another word for emphasis on yes-no questions, too, similarly removing the “rising intonation” that makes a question.

              E.g., “Do you want any cheese^?” vs. “Do you WANT any cheese?” (Falling intonation after “want”)

          • PrimeErective@startrek.website
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 month ago

            I’m totally with you. I think it is somewhat speaker dependent, but that is how I would say those questions.

            What’s your NAme

            How OLD (are you)?

            Where are you FROm?

            • SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 month ago

              You would never say

              "What’s YOUR name?

              “How old are YOU?”

              “Where ARE you from?”

              ?

              • PrimeErective@startrek.website
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                1 month ago

                The first two have emphasis that imply something different than a simple question. Like you are asking a bunch of people individually, and you are directing each question at a specific person.

                The last one would maybe be like, if the person did something weird, and you were sarcastically asking where the are from, to imply that they were raised by wolves, or something like that.

                Point being, yes, you can ask like that, but it has different connotations than a simple question, which I think is where you would use the rising intonation.

            • Lvxferre
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              edit-2
              1 month ago

              Do you really pronounce those with a higher pitch? Or do you pronounce them louder?

              EDIT: that is a genuine question given that a lot of people conflate stress (louder; more dB) with pitch (higher tone; more Hz), and the examples provided hint prosodic stress, not prosodic intonation, since in English prosodic stress is often used for emphasis.

        • PrimeErective@startrek.website
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 month ago

          I guess in this example, “who is your daddy?” Is the main question, which has a somewhat flat intonation, but contrasted to the emphasis in the second half of the sentence, it feels like a rise