Do Persian Native Speakers Prosodically Mark Wh-in-situ Questions?
Zohreh Shiamizadeh, Johanneke Caspers, Niels O Schiller
PMID 29402163WHAT IT FOUND
Persian speakers raised pitch and made larger pitch movements before the question word, and shortened whole questions, compared with matching statements.
Pitch marking after the question word was weaker.
Key findings
01Before the question word, the first two words in questions had larger pitch movements, a higher average pitch, and a steeper upward pitch trend than in matching statements.
02Whole questions had a higher average pitch and a shorter duration than matching statements.
03After the question word, only the final pitch level differed, so the part before it carried most of the pitch marking.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The speakers were a small convenience sample of university students and lecturers in Tehran, so it may not represent Persian speakers outside that group. The study used prepared sentences in a lab task, not everyday conversation. It tested production only, not whether listeners perceive the cues. It included native speakers of standard Persian, not speakers with speech-language disorders.
Declared interests
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these pitch and duration differences as evidence for clinical assessment or therapy in Persian-speaking patients. The study recorded native speakers as they produced prepared sentences in a lab task. It did not test people with communication disorders, listener perception, or treatment outcomes.