Direct and indirect answers in French C. Beyssade, J.-M. Marandin, C. Portes, B. Hemforth
Introduction The role of question-answer pairs to study the relationship between informational focus and prosody. To show the importance of the notion of discourse strategy, which has to do, not only with focus and QUD, but also with the way conveyed information is structured (in at-issue content vs. projected content) and the way a topic may be promoted. 1
Introduction (2) The relation between information status and accent is governed by rules that may be complicated, but are deterministic, so that with respect to a particular context exactly one placement of the accent is felicitous. (1) a. A: Who did John praise? B: John praised MARY. (# JOHN praised Mary. / # John PRAISED Mary). b. A: Who praised Mary? B: JOHN praised Mary. (# John PRAISED Mary./ # John praised MARY). 2
Introduction (3) An oversimplification. Our thesis is that the placement of accents in an utterance corresponds to an active choice of the speaker. The accent placement is not entirely determined by the preceeding context, but prosody is also used by the speaker to give information about the way the conversation has to go on. Prosody is not only a backward looking device, but it is also a forward looking device. 3
Outline Background: no consensus in French (contrary to English) about the prosodic realisation of informational focus. 1) A production experiment 2) Results: two marks (IA and NPA), which can combine 3) One question but various answering strategies 4) The meaning of NPA 5) The meaning of IA 6) Conclusion 4
Background (1) The prosodic form of answers varies with the question in French Broad question: (2) A: Qu est-ce qui s est passé? What happened? B: [Marie est venue] F Marie came. Constituent question: (3) A: Qui est venu? Who came? B: [Marie] F est venue. Marie came. Consensus: a prosodic difference between (2B) and (3B). No consensus: the nature of the difference. 5
Background (2) Two types of prosodic markings in the litterature: the placement of the nuclear pitch accent (NPA) of the nuclear contour (NC), which is a tonal event (Di Cristo 1999), whose variations convey different pragmatic interpretations an initial accentuation (IA) which may form an accentual arc with the following rising accent, or trigger a high plateau up to the following accent. IA or high plateau are generally implemented quite high in the pitch range (Astesano et al. 2007) 6
Background (3) Three different analyses H1. Nuclear Pitch Accent (NPA) anchors at the right edge of the informational focus. (Beyssade & al. 2004, 2010) H2. Initial accent (IA) anchors at the left edge of the informational focus. (German & D Imperio 2010) H3. Both marks combine and indicate the left and right edges of the informational focus. (Bipolarization, Di Cristo 1999) 7
Part 1 A production experiment 8
1. A production experiment We focus on the informational focus (IF) Informational Focus is identified with XP(s) resolving a question Issue: What is the prosodic realization of XPs resolving questions in French? A production experiment an Focus to Accent approach 9
1. A production experiment (2) Task = read aloud answers as if actually participating in the dialogue. (14 participants, 112 target answers) Context Richard is a policeman. He has to treat various documents (films, leaflets, K7s) seized in a terrorist cache. (4) Constituent Question A: Qu'as-tu visionné la nuit dernière? What did you screen last night? B: J'ai visionné les vidéos la nuit dernière. I screened the videos last night (5) Broad Question A: Où en es-tu dans ton enquête? What s up with your investigation? B : J'ai visionné les vidéos la nuit dernière. I screened the videos last night 10
Part 2 Results 11
2. Results (1) 12
2. Results (2) Same proportion of IA in answers to broad vs. constituent questions. IA on Object Broad Question Constituent Questions 32,7 34,6 13
2. Results (3) 14
2. Results (4) H1 (NPA at the right edge of the IF) = partly confirmed Answers to constituent Q: 60% NPA on Object Answers to broad Q: 70% NPA at the end H2 (IA at the left edge of the IF) = not confirmed But 83,6% of the answers to constituent Q show NPA or/and IA on that Object. 15
2. Results (5) Pattern Answers to a constituent Q Answers to a broad Q 1 NPA-obj + IA-obj 11% 13,5% 2 NPA-obj 49% 17,3% 3 NPA-end + IA-obj 23,6% 19,2% 4 NPA-end 16,4% 50% 16
2. How interpret the results? We suggest to associate each pattern with a specific answering strategy. If NPA and IA are independent prosodic cues, is there a division of labor between them? Can we compare the function of NPA and IA in French to Accent A and Accent B in English? (Jackendoff 1972, Buring 2003) 17
Part 3 One question but various answering strategies 18
3. Answering strategies Discourse trees (1) Dialogue and discourse may be represented as trees (a.o. Roberts 1996, Büring 2003). Discourse trees are build from minimal entities, which are pairs of utterances of type questionquestion or question-answer. Question Question Question Answer 19
3. Answering strategies Discourse trees (2) Question How was the concert? Question Question Was the sound good? How was the audience? Answer No, it was awful. Answer They were enthusiastic. 20
3. Answering strategies Discourse trees (3) In discourse trees, - assertions are always leaves, - questions may be either explicit or implicit. Each assertive sentence can be viewed as the answer to an explicit or to an implicit question. 21
3. Answering strategies Congruent answers (Krifka 2001) In Q-A pairs, one can distinguish between - congruent answers, which resolve the question - Non congruent answers such as partial answers, which are under-informative (6) A.: Where are John and Mary? B.: Mary is in the kitchen. overinformative answers (7) A.: Where are John and Mary? B.: Everybody is out. 22
3. Answering strategies Direct / indirect answers To account for the actual gamut of felicitous ways of answering, we add the distinction between direct and indirect ways of answering. Two types of answering strategies 23
3. Answering strategies Direct / indirect answers - direct strategy: the answer resolves the explicit question in the pair and there is no accommodation of an implicit question. - Indirect strategy: the speaker changes the context of utterance by accommodating an implicit question, which is distinct from the explicit question in the pair. Accommodation of an implicit question = indirect answering strategy 24
3. Answering strategies Indirect answers When an implicit question is accommodated, it can be either a sub-question or a superquestion. Explicit Q Implicit Q Implicit Q Explicit Q Answer Answer So an indirect answer may resolve the explicit question, modulo some inferences. 25
3. Answering strategies In the context of an explicit broad question, Speaker may decide to accommodate an implicit constituent question Indirect answering strategy. In the context of an explicit constituent question, Speaker may decide to accommodate an implicit broad question Indirect answering strategy. 26
3. Answering strategies (Büring 2003) In English, when an implicit question is accommodated, Speaker has to use a prosodic mark, (T/B accent). Who ate what? What did Fred eat? Fred(B) ate the beans(a) Strategy 1 Who ate what? What did Fred eat? Fred(A) ate the beans(b) Strategy 2 27
3. Answering strategies (Büring 2003) B accent indicates that the sequence is part of a larger discourse which the competent speaker can only guess at, using the information provided by the location accents in the sentence. Native speakers will typically attribute to the answer with a B accent some sort of indication that other people ate other things. On the contrary, the answer involving only an A accent lacks any such indication. Accent B says something about the possible discourse continuations. 28
3. Answering strategies Our proposal Analyze NPA and IA in French à la manière of A and B accents in Büring (2003). NPA indicates the congruence with QUD or with an implicit question. IA indicates that the sequence is part of a larger discourse. 29
Part 4 Meaning of NPA anchoring in French 30
4. Meaning of NPA How to answer a broad question? Directly with a final NPA which indicates the congruence with the explicit question. (8) A: Où en es-tu dans ton enquête? What s up with your investigation? B: J ai visionné les vidéos la nuit dernière] NPA. I screened the videos last night. The most frequent pattern: 69,2% of all answers to broad questions (patterns 3 & 4). 31
4. Meaning of NPA How to answer a broad question? Indirectly with NPA on Object. (9) A: Où en es-tu dans ton enquête? What s up with your investigation? B: J ai visionné les vidéos ] NPA la nuit dernière. I screened the videos last night. 30,8% of all answers to broad questions (patterns 1 & 2). 32
4. Meaning of NPA How to answer a broad question? The speaker accommodates a constituent question which is related to the broad one. Broad Q: What s up with your investigation? Wh-Q: What did you screen last night? Answer: I screened the videos ] NPA last night. 33
4. Meaning of NPA How to answer a constituent question? Directly, with NPA on the Object which indicates the congruence with the constituent question. (10) A: Qu as-tu visionné la nuit dernière? What did you screen last night? B: J ai visionné les vidéos ] NPA la nuit dernière. I screened the videos last night. 60% of all answers to partial questions (patterns 1 & 2). 34
4. Meaning of NPA How to answer a constituent question? Indirectly, with NPA at the end. (11) A: Qu as-tu visionné la nuit dernière? What did you screen last night? B: J ai visionné les vidéos la nuit dernière] NPA I screened the videos last night. 40% of all answers to wh-questions (patterns 3 & 4). 35
4. Meaning of NPA How to answer a constituent question? The speaker accommodates a broad question higher in the tree. Broad Q: What s up with your investigation? Wh-Q: What did you screen last night? Answer: I screened the videos last night ] NPA 36
Part 5 Meaning of IA in French 37
5. Meaning of IA Proposal (1) In congruent answers with the explicit Q: IA sets off the Object as a potentially thematic element, to be elaborated in the following discourse (a forward looking device, optional). 19,2% answer to broad-q (NPAend+IA) 11% answer to wh-q (NPAobject+IA) 38
5. Meaning of IA Proposal (2) In non congruent answers with the explicit Q: IA also sets off the Object. But it indicates that the Q-A pair is part of a larger sequence. It is a forward looking device. 13,5% answer to broad-q (NPAobject+IA) 23,6% answer to wh-q (NPAend+IA). The second most frequent pattern for answers to wh-q. Change the expected focus in a topic. 39
5. Meaning of IA in indirect answers to a wh-question The speaker accommodates a broad question higher in the D-tree and IA sets off the Object which resolves the wh-question, explicit in discourse. Broad question: What s up with your investigation? wh- Q: What did you screen last night? Answer: I screened the VIdeos last night ] NPA 40
6. Conclusion Congruence vs. coherence (1) Non congruent answers with explicit Q don t result in incoherent discourses. Even in a context including an explicit question, Speaker can accommodate an implicit question and produce an indirect answer. The only constraint for this implicit question is that it should be related to the explicit one. 41
6. Conclusion Congruence vs. coherence (2) The paradigm we assumed initially: Broad question: (1) A: Qu est-ce qui s est passé? What happened? B: i. Marie est venue ] NPA ii. # Marie ] NPA est venue Marie came Partial question: (2) A: Qui est venu? Who came? B: i. Marie ] NPA est venue ii. #Marie est venue ] NPA The paradigm we accounted for: Broad question: (1 ) A: Qu est-ce qui s est passé? B: a. Marie est venue] NPA b. MArie est venue] NPA c. Marie] NPA est venue d. MArie] NPA est venue Partial question: (2 ) A: Qui est arrivée? B: a. Marie] NPA est arrivée b. MArie est arrivée] NPA c. Marie est arrivée] NPA d. MArie] NPA est arrivée 42
Thanks. 43
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