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There is a rule used almost subconsciously by almost all English speakers (and I'm sure it applies to many other languages too) which is that yes/no questions are asked ending with a rising tone, and others are ended with a falling tone. Why is this and how did the phenomenon develop?

There is one exception to this rule that I've found - if you ask a yes/no question with a falling tone, it is still understood as a question, but that you're asking it in a very unenthusiastic or grudging way. Again, is there any obvious reason for this or did it just kind of randomly develop?

imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev
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Jez
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  • Has it been shown somewhere that this is actually the case? For example, I think in Italian we use the tone regardless: some make it falling, some rising, and sometimes falling/rising, etc... Basically what I'm curious about: did you realize this yourself or read/heard about it somewhere? – Alenanno Dec 20 '12 at 13:57
  • I heard about it on an English radio programme (which made me think about it), and certainly in my experience it always applies in English and French. – Jez Dec 20 '12 at 14:04
  • Ah I see, is the radio programme available on their site? (By the way, I didn't downvote.) – Alenanno Dec 20 '12 at 14:10
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    I'd like to see a reference too, because I don't believe this is true. – Cerberus Dec 20 '12 at 15:20
  • There is also a tendency for languages to have high rising intonation for questions beyond English, or even Indo-European languages. Maybe a broader tendency? – LaurenG Dec 20 '12 at 17:57
  • I don't believe this is true with English, but it definitely is true in other languages. Off the top of my head, Swahili is a great example where tone is critical to making a statement into a question. Perhaps it is a more subtle matter with English, but I too would like to see a link/paper claiming this. – demongolem Dec 20 '12 at 18:02
  • The intonation contour itself signals interrogation, just like the syntax. And either can be used alone, though both together is better. As usual, written English doesn't transcribe all (or even most) of actual viva voce communication. – jlawler Dec 20 '12 at 21:21
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    I know that Fry's English Delight covered this topic briefly on their "Intonation" episode. I rather enjoy the show but be warned that it is definitely made from a general audience. – acattle Dec 21 '12 at 00:54
  • Content questions tend to have wh words (where/when/who/why/what/how) which denote the sentence as a questions. Optional, but common, wh-fronting makes these words even more prominent. My guess was always that since yes/no questions don't have these, they used intonation to give a verbal clue that it is a questions. Even though verb fronting is common ("Are you ok?" vs. "You are ok?"), it is optional. That said, I have absolutely no academic proof to back up this belief. – acattle Dec 21 '12 at 01:02
  • @demongolem If you don't think this is true in English, I'd like to hear a recording of you asking a yes/no question without a rising tone at the end, or another type of question with one. – Jez Dec 21 '12 at 11:06
  • @acattle Ah yes, I think that was the programme where I heard about the rising/lowering pitch for questions thing. – Jez Dec 21 '12 at 11:14
  • Just to clarify, what dialect of English do you have in mind when you say "almost all English speakers"? The intonation systems of various dialects vary widely. – musicallinguist Dec 21 '12 at 14:41
  • if this question is English specific, shouldnt it be tagged so? –  Dec 26 '12 at 15:04

4 Answers4

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As for why intonation might be used to mark polar questions rather than content questions, my guess is that polar questions are the most frequent question type, so from a functional perspective, such a useful cue as F0 gets one more profit if it is used for the more common question type. This is just a hunch.

For the prevalence of rising pitch contour used to mark polar questions, see the references below. Rialland's papers draw attention to a common phenomenon in African languages where polar questions are marked with a falling pitch contour.

Ohala, John J. 1984. “An ethological perspective on common cross-language utilization of F0 of voice.” Phonetica 41: 1-16.

Rialland, Annie. 2007. Question prosody: an African perspective. In Gussenhoven, Carlos, and Tomas Riad (eds.), Tunes and Tones, Volume 1: Typological Studies in Word and Sentence Prosody. Berlin: Mouton deGruyter, pp. 35-62.

Rialland, Annie. 2009. The African lax question prosody: Its realisation and geographical distribution. Lingua 119.6: 928-949.

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This rule is almost universal across English speaking countries although the change in tone can be missed if you're not use to the rule, it' can be rather subtle. I don't think most people even realize they do this because it's so commonly used in daily speech. This same rule applies in yes or no questions in French.

MichaelB1985
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It's because yes-no questions are asked by listing first a positive alternative, then the negative alternative. In giving a list, each item before the last one gets a rising intonation, so the positive alternative gets a pitch rise: "Do you want to eat, or do you not want to?" When the negative alternative is suppressed, we're left with just the first list item that still has the rise in pitch at the end.

Greg Lee
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Polar questions are usually marked by fronting an auxiliary, as in: 'Did it fall?' or 'Was it big?'. Content questions are marked by query pronouns, also usually fronted, as in: 'What did he eat?'. Since the fronting is not obligatory, the question may instead be marked by pitch inflection, as in: 'It FELL?' or 'He ate WHAT?'. Even with fronting, the pitch cue is often retained.

amI
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