Intonation Wh Questions
Klacee Sawatzky
Since my 9 months old son started pointing to things and saying 'Ahh?' with a proper question intonation, I was wondering if all other languages have the same intonation for questions as in English (as in stressing the last word in the sentence). I am interested if it just comes naturally to human beings or is an acquired behaviour.
First, the intonation to which you are referring is most likely the intonation for yes-no questions in English, or possibly echo questions, but not other types of questions like wh-questions (questions that start with who, what, when, where, why, and how), which don't rise at the end. Just the fact that not all questions in English have the same intonation is a hint that it is an acquired behavior.
Second, stress is a grammatical construct (not an acoustic one) that does not even play a role in all languages (Japanese, e.g.). In English, the stress pattern of a sentence is independent of whether the intonation (i.e. "tune") of the sentence goes up or down on any given word or syllable. Generally, yes-no and echo questions in English can be characterized by a final rising pitch contour starting on the last stressed syllable in the sentence (not the very last word). For example, in, "You got me a BIRTHDAY gift?" the rise starts on the first syllable of "birthday", which is the last emphasized word in the sentence, but not the last word.
Finally, although typologically there does seem to be a tendency across languages for yes-no and/or echo questions to end with a rising pitch--see Ladd (1981)--there are many counterexamples. Lee (2008) lists some: varieties of Hungarian and Romanian, Bengali, Greek, Basque, and many African languages. Also, in many languages with lexical tone, including Mandarin and North Kyeongsang Korean, if the tone on the final syllable is falling, the pitch falls at the end even in yes-no and echo questions.
Unlike English, Ancient (e.g. Attic) Greek does not reorder words to formulate a question. The particle "ἆρα" does modify a statement into a question, but is not always present. In that case, I presume there would have been a way for native speakers to hear the difference, perhaps in a change in overall intonation.
Since there are no native speakers of Ancient Greek around, I imagine having a definite answer to this question is impossible. In that case I would be happy with an educated guess, or a pointer towards current scholarly debate.
As you say, reconstructing the sound of a language for which there are no longer any speakers can be very difficult, so it's unlikely that there is a definite answer to your question. However, you might start with A. M. Devine and Laurence D. Stephens, The Prosody of Greek Speech (Oxford, 1994). The authors use evidence from cross-linguistic studies to build a theory of prosody, and then apply that theory to classical Greek texts. It has a section on questions, and even if that doesn't help to answer your question, it also has a really good bibliography which might help you to track down more information.
The relevant material in Devine seems to be at pp. 452-455. Aristotle's Poetics says that in acting, words are pronounced differently to show that they are commands or questions. Question words like τίς have accents that don't change to graves the way they do in most words, indicating that they had high pitch. In other tonal languages, it's common that the pitch pattern gets modified in questions.
Some help may come from the earliest punctuation systems, which used a upward rising line to indicate a question (an early form of our question mark); the shape of this line is supposed to be a quasi-music note and to indicate to the reader that (s)he needs to fluctuate the voice. Granted these come from well into the common era and are mostly confined to the Latin west, but one could look into similar punctuation systems in the Greek east; this may give you some further information.
A different case are the yes-no-questions; in Russian these are either marked by the interrogative marker ли (but it sounds a bit elevated) or by simply pronouncing the sentence with a raised tone towards the end.
However, despite understanding how to construct questions, I'm often unsure as to which form is most appropriate in which situations. Through schooling, I currently think of each question form in the following ways:
I would tend to agree with your characterization of tone as informal (only when speaking anyway), est-ce que being fairly standard/neutral/common these days, and the inversion being more formal - although as you note, there are expressions where the inversion is natural.
At least for the first two examples you give, I would see nothing wrong with the way you asked the question. Even the third example feels just fine to me. To insist on saying pourrais-tu instead is a bit much, if you are between friends :-) But some people like to use that inversion even in everyday life. That inversion is not always perceived as completely formal, but certainly always as "correct/more correct" than est-ce que. It depends on the people and situations.
firstly. I have a 2016 Les paul studio. the low e is always a bit sharp and I've put the saddle back as far as it will go and still sharp what can I do to fix it? It's weird I can get the intonation on my SG very easilly.
secondly on a les paul junior what size are the small intonation screws? My guitar came with the normal hex key for the truss rod and a small allen key but it doesn't kit. I am not sure what that allen key is supposed to be for.
The hex key is for adjusting height of the bridge instead of turning the wheels with your fingers. You need a Gibson truss rod wrench to adjust the neck, it fits over the nut underneath the truss rod cover at the headstock.
Did you put on brand new strings before intonating them? If not, then do so first and then stretch them good several times, tune to pitch and then intonate using a good quality tuner. Tune open string, then fingered 12th fret, if sharp move saddle back, if flat move saddle forward. If the low E is still sharp then flip the saddle, but I doubt that it is sharp if it is all the way back. When you put the new strings on take a tape measure and measure the low E from the front of the nut and adjust the saddle center to 24-3/4 inches as a starting point. It should be pretty darn close. Is the Low E string height at 12th fret 5/64 or lower from top of fret to bottom of string? If it's higher than that it could be sharp too. The guitar came or is supposed to come with supplied accessories---- Truss Rod Wrench, 2.5mm hex adjustment, and polishing cloth. If you didn't get the truss rod wrench with it contact Gibson Customer Service and they will mail one to you. The truss rod wrench looks like a small pipe with a Philips screw end on it.
More often than not the Low E and A string saddles are facing the rear anyway and cannot travel anymore by flipping them if sharp. The D,G,B, E strings are facing forward and can be flipped if string is too sharp and there is no more travel.
Using the right intonation can actually change the meaning of your words. Think of your voice as a musical instrument. As you speak, your voice gets louder and softer, places emphasis on certain parts, and goes up and down the notes. The notes of your voice are called its pitch, and the change in pitch is what we call intonation.
Remember that there are other ways to use your voice and pitch to change the meaning of your words. For example, the rhythm and speed of your voice, or where you place the stress in the sentence can also change the meaning. The situations below should give you a good place to start, but always be listening for other ways you can improve the way you speak English!
High-energy emotions like happiness, excitement, fright and annoyance usually use a rising intonation. The example below, for example, can be joy, excitement or annoyance depending on the situation.
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We all need to ask questions sometimes, and intonation is highly important in such situations as the tone of your voice can be as important as words. You need to utter the words in the correct intonation to be understood clearly and convey your message to your audience easily.
Intonation is about how we say things. Our voice can rise and fall during our speech depending on the meaning we want to convey to the listener. Therefore, we can divide intonation into two patterns as rising and falling intonation.
Could you catch the difference at the end of the sentences? When you uttered the first sentence, the intonation went up at the end of the question. However, when you read the second sentence, the intonation went down. Can you guess why?
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