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Home , Intonation (linguistics)

On the suspension of – The case of Yoruba polar intonation

WOCAL10 Leiden University June 7-12, 2021

Daniel Aremu & Frank Kügler Goethe University Frankfurt

7. Mai 2021 Roadmap

• Background on Yoruba and word order • Background on downstep and question intonation  Is downstep suspended in Yoruba ?

• Production experiment: − Tone patterns: alternation H-L / all H / all L − Sentence type: Declarative vs. declarative Question Question particle ʃé Question particle ǹʤɛ́ − F0 analysis per • Results show downstep in Declaratives AND in Questions  No downstep suspension in Yoruba polar questions  Other cues for interrogativity: higher F0 , final F0 rise, eye-brow and hand gestures

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 2 Background to Yoruba

Niger-Congo

Kwa

Yoruboid

Yoruba

• It is spoken natively by about 30 million people in Nigeria and some neighbouring countries like Togo, Reb. of Benin, etc. (African Studies Institute, University of Georgia)

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 3 Background to Yoruba

• Yoruba is a tonal language, with three discrete level tones (Connell & Ladd,1990; Laniran 1992; Laniran & Clements, 2003):

• Every syllable is associated with a tone.

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 4 Background to Yoruba Language

Syntax (Yusuf 2010): • SVO • : (Fajobi 2011; Connell & Ladd 1990) • Word order identical to declaratives (declarative question) • Morphological marking with question particle (difference in tone) − Particle ǹʤɛ́ (more formal register style) − Particle ʃé (more frequent)

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 5 Background to Yoruba Tone and Intonation

• Evidence for downstep in Yoruba has been recorded by scholars like Courtenay (1971); Welmers (1973); Hombert (1974); Connell & Ladd (1990); Laniran & Clements (2003) “the sequence HLH, whether sentence initial or preceded by L, triggers downstep, while there is no evidence that the sequence LH alone triggers downstep.” (Connell & Ladd 1990) • Trigger for downstep is an (overt or covert) L tone – contrary to many Bantu where downstep is triggered by boundaries of prosodic constituency (e.g. Zerbian & Kügler, accepted, for Tswana) • Downstep occurs in many (if not in most) Kwa and other West-African languages (e.g. Dolphyne 1994, Genzel & Kügler 2011 for Akan; Liberman et al. 1992 for Igbo; a.o.)

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 6 Question Intonation

• According to Rialland (2009), many African languages have lax question :

• Yoruba belongs to the non-lax question prosody languages (Rialland 2009) − Higher pitch register, final F0 rise − Contrary to other lax question prosody Kwa languages like Akan for instance (see Genzel & Kügler 2020)

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 7 Aim of the Study

• Hyman (2001) and Gussenhoven (2004) claim that languages with downstep in declarative sentences may have suspended downstep in sentences. "The presence vs. absence of automatic downstep in Igbo vs. Haya can be seen as an intonational difference which, in some languages, is restricted to declarative utterances (and hence suspended in interrogatives, e. g. in Twi [Ghana])." (Hyman 2001)

"Languages may suspend downstep as in the intonation-only language Danish (Gønnum 1983a) or the tone language Twi (Hyman 2001b)." (Gussenhoven 2004)

• Since previous studies have shown downstep in Yoruba declarative sentences, are there downstep suspensions in Yoruba interrogative (polar) sentences?

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 8 Factors Analysed

Tone Patterns: Alternating HL tones HLHLHL... All H tones HHHH...

All L tones LLLL...

Sentence types: Declarative – Polar declarative question / Polar question with two different question particles Speaker's information: • Six speakers (4 males & 2 females) were recorded. All are natives of Yoruba. • Age range: 27-50 years • Location/Residence: Frankfurt, Germany

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 9 Sentence Types

• Three interrogative (polar) sentences with different question markers were compared with declarative sentences: a) Declarative (D) + Questions with particle ʃé (Qs)

b) Declaratives (D) + Questions with particle Ǹʤέ (Qn)

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 10 Sentence Types

c) Declaratives + Declarative Questions (Q) (Interogatives without question particle).

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 11 Recording

• Recording location: Institute of Linguistics, Goethe University Laboratory • Rode Lavalier microphone and a Zoom H4nPro recorder were used. • Speakers were instructed to read the individual sentences (thrice or twice) as naturally as possible

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 12 Results I – Downstep in declarative Questions

Q1a: Difference between Declarative and Question in terms of downstep?

• Scaling of H tones is identical between Declarative and Question.

• The amount of downstep (F0 difference between Hx and Hx+1) is identical. • Final H in declarative questions: − Optional final F0 rise − Often, speakers use accompanying gestures to indicate interrogativity (open eye brows, open your hands)

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 13 Results II – Downstep in Questions with particle ǹʤɛ́

Q1b: Difference between Declarative and Question with question particle in terms of downstep?

• Scaling of H tones is identical between Declarative and Question with question particle ǹʤɛ.́ • Amount of downstep (F0 difference) almost identical; Initial downstep after the question particle ǹʤɛ́ is about twice as much larger

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 14 Results II – Downstep in Questions with particle ʃé

Q1c: Difference between Declarative and Question with question particle in terms of downstep?

• Scaling of H tones is higher for Questions with question ʃé particle. • Overall, downstep in Questions with question particle ʃé is larger.

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 15 Results for only H tone sentences

Q: Downtrend in all-H tone sentences?

• Scaling of H tones is higher for Questions without a morphological question marker than in declaratives. • Scaling of H tones in Questions with question particle is similar to declaratives. • Overall, no downtrend in declaratives nor in questions in all-H tone sentences.

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 16 Results for only L tone sentences

Q: Downtrend in all-L tone sentences?

• Scaling of L tones is higher for Questions without a morphological question marker than in declaratives. • Scaling of H tones in Questions with question particle is similar to declaratives (after the H-tone question marker). • Overall, final lowering is observed in both questions and declaratives.

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 17 Results – comparison of sentence types

• Similarity of F0-contours between declaratives and questions with, and without question particles. • Downstep occurs in alternating tone sequences in both declaratives and questions.

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 18 Summary – Discussion

• Claim (Hyman 2001; Gussenhoven 2004): Downstep suspension in questions • Production study on Yoruba polar question intonation • Results: (1) Downstep in declaratives (confirmed previous studies, e.g. Courtenay, 1971; Laniran & Clements 2003) (2) Downstep in questions  contrary the claim by Hyman and Gussenhoven (1) Question intonation: - Overall higher pitch register in polar questions without question particle - Similar scaling of tones in declaratives and questions with question particles  prosodic marking instead of morphological or syntactic marking  in line with Haan (2002): - Prosodic marking of question intonation in case of less other linguistic marking - Final lowering in declaratives and questions

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 19 Conclusion

No downstep suspension in Yoruba polar questions

Marking of interrogativity by means of prosodic (higher register) and morphological cues (questions particles) – but not by means of downstep suspension

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 20 Thank you ! ẸṢé púpọ

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank the speakers of this study. Special thanks to Dominik Thiele for technical assistance with recordings, and to Corinna Langer for statistical advice. Financial support from the DFG (project KU 2323/4-1) is greatly acknowledged.

Contact: Daniel Aremu: [email protected]; Frank Kügler: [email protected]

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 21 References Connell, Bruce & D. R. Ladd. 1990. Aspects of pitch realisation in Yoruba. 7(1). 1–29. Courtenay, Karen. 1971. Yoruba: A 'terraced-level' language with three tonemes. Studies in African Linguistics 2(3). 239–255. Dolphyne, Florence A. 1994. A phonetic and phonological study of and downstep in Akan (Paper, 25th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, Rutgers University). Rutgers University. Fajobi, E. 2011. The nature of Yoruba intonation: a new Experimental Study. Ms.https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=ef-yoruba- intonation.pdf&site =1 Genzel, Susanne & Frank Kügler. 2011. Phonetic Realization of Automatic (Downdrift) and Non-automatic Downstep in Akan. In Eric Zee & Wai-Sum Lee (eds.), Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS XVII), Hong Kong, 735–738. Genzel, Susanne & Frank Kügler. 2020. Production and perception of question prosody in Akan. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 50(1). 61– 92. Grønnum, N. (1983). Standard Danish sentence intonation. Phonetic data and their representation. Folia Linguistica 17, 187–220. Haan, Judith. 2002. Speaking of questions: An exploration of Dutch question intonation (LOT 52). Utrecht: LOT. Hyman, Larry M. 2001. Tone systems. In Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehard König, Wulf Oesterreicher & Wolfgang Raible (eds.), Language typology and language universals: An international handbook, 1367–1380. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Laniran, Yetunde O. 1992. Phonetic aspects of tone realisation in Igbo. Progress Reports from Oxford 5. 35–51. Laniran, Yetunde O. & George N. Clements. 2003. Downstep and high raising: interacting factors in Yoruba tone production. Journal of Phonetics 31(2). 203– 250. Liberman, Mark, J. M. Schultz, Soonhyun Hong & Vincent Okeke. 1992. The phonetics of Igbo tone. In John J. Ohala (ed.), Proceedings of the 1992 International Conference on Spoken Language Processing, 743–746. Rialland, Annie. 2009. The African lax question prosody: Its realisation and geographical distribution. Lingua 119(6). 928–949. Welmers, William E. 1973. African language structures. Berkeley: University of California Press. Zerbian, Sabine & Frank Kügler. accepted. Sequences of high tones across word boundaries in Tswana. Journal of the International Phonetic Association. Yusuf, O. 2010. Basic Linguistics for Nigerian Languages. Ijebu-Ode: Shebiotimo Publications.

7. Mai 2021 Aremu & Kügler: On the suspension of Downstep in Yoruba polar questions - WOCAL 10, Leiden 22