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?
English doesn’t even go up at the end of sentences for all questions, just yes or no ones.
Good catch - WH-questions tend to have a pitch drop instead.
Now thinking, Portuguese and Italian seem to follow the same pattern as English.
Same for German.
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.
Can you tell me more?
Yes, I can.
/me leaves the roomSerious 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.
I read this as you emphasizing true, not pitching up.
need that exponent formatting on lemmy
Hmmm…this?
Sorry; maybe try again and think of some other cases?
No
You sure about that?
I love you guys