[Lingtyp] High pitch in direct quotative speech

Fri Feb 7 18:07:45 UTC 2025

Hi Scott and others,

Thank you for these pointers! What I have gleaned from the small selection
of examples and by checking with a speaker is that it is more or less
obligatory for all direct quotative speech. However, there are definitely
inter-speaker differences in the amount of pitch shift (in one case this is
definitely related to the speaker's breathing/health issues, but I think
there is an excitedness correlation as well). What I am also seeing is that
in strings of quotative speech, not all speakers remain in the high pitch
after the first utterance, but if there are consecutive utterances of
quotative speech from *different* quoted people, the pitch is in falsetto
at the start of each utterance
In the attached praat picture (quot+nonquot2.png), you can see that the
pitch is falling towards the end of the first quoted clause, and is reset
for the second clause.
In the other attached praat picture you can see the high pitch at the
start, which then drifts down to basically the speaker's regular pitch over
the following clauses. However, I have definitely heard long stretches of
falsetto-pitch utterances when in the field, which I sadly do not have any
recordings of.
Also attaching the recordings fragments here (the speaker's name is
Christina Laiurelgar).

I'd definitely be interested in working on this more, especially once I get
a chance to make more recordings of the phenomenon.

Best,
Clemens

----
Clemens (Clé) Kūhaʻo Mayer
*he/they; hij/hen; ʻo ia*
*University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Dept. of Linguistics*
PhD Candidate
Austronesian Circle Organizer
Online Learning Coordinator
cjmayer.github.io

On Fri, Feb 7, 2025 at 5:35 AM AnderBois, Scott <scott_anderbois at brown.edu>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Thanks for the pointer here, Kees!
>
> This is definitely a topic where my colleagues and I need to do more
> research! From our work thus far, we have shown that it is indeed falsetto
> phonetically. Whether it's obligatory or not I guess is more of an analysis
> question to be resolved. Are there specific conditions under which it is
> obligatory? Or is it optional under a broader set of conditions? And if the
> latter, is there some other sort of prosodic event that is obligatory with
> falsetto as a particular way to meet that more general requirement?
>
> Without a more detailed analysis of its function/conditions for use, it's
> hard to really say. It certainly is not the case in A'ingae that all direct
> quoted speech requires falsetto, as it sounds like you're describing for
> Woleaian, Clemens. So, that's a difference.
>
> What does seem common between the two cases (and fairly unique to my
> knowledge) though are two key things:
>
> 1) that the meaning/function of falsetto is not iconic. My reading of the
> literature (e.g. as cited in the talk Kees linked) is that falsetto has
> been thought to always have an iconic function*. So, even in lgs when used
> in reported speech, like in English, it's iconically indexing something
> about the perceived qualities of the quoted speaker.
>
> 2) that that function relates to changes in perspective in some way. We
> have cases in our study that are direct quotes, but others that are not but
> where we think there's a case to be made that there is still a shift in
> narrative perspective in a broader sense. We definitely have more work to
> do to more rigorously show this though.
>
> *Pat Keating subsequently told me last year about a few cases where extra
> high lexical tones are claimed to be realized with falsetto (e.g. Sect 4.2
> of JJ Kuang's thesis has some references). This is obviously quite
> different but not iconic as well!
>
> Another thing that I'm less clear on from your original message, Clemens,
> is how the specific syllables/words/phrases where falsetto occurs are
> constrained. For A'ingae, it's a single stressed syllable near a prosodic
> boundary we think. I'm sort of imagining from your description that it
> might similarly be more limited in duration like A'ingae and constrained to
> occur, say, at the beginning or end of the quoted speech, more like a
> boundary tone than, say, falsetto in English. So that could be another key
> parallel, presumably a related one.
>
> Hope this helps! Happy to talk some time, Clemens, if it'd be helpful!
>
> Best,
> Scott
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 6, 2025 at 12:45 PM Kees Hengeveld <P.C.Hengeveld at uva.nl>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear Clemens,
>>
>> The phenomenon is also present in A'ingae, a language isolate spoken in
>> Colombia and Ecuador. A presentation by Sanker et al. describes the
>> phenomenon. You can find it here:
>> https://research.clps.brown.edu/anderbois/Handouts/SSLA_SSLA3_Slides.pdf
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://research.clps.brown.edu/anderbois/Handouts/SSLA_SSLA3_Slides.pdf__;!!PvDODwlR4mBZyAb0!R_gnadC3qrNvU--8RhabP13T2C8rQP0Rmdw28r6MLvO6BYS-xg5imGZ_VccwUkRTzXNL3mP0yhZRvDufGD-P2Ijd35KtsZk$>
>> .
>>
>> Best, Kees Hengeveld
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *Van:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> namens Stef
>> via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>> *Verzonden:* donderdag, februari 6, 2025 4:10 PM
>> *Aan:* Clemens Mayer <cjmayer at hawaii.edu>; Clemens Mayer via Lingtyp <
>> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>> *Onderwerp:* Re: [Lingtyp] High pitch in direct quotative speech
>>
>> Hi Clemens,
>>
>> That sounds fascinating, would be very interested to see your examples!
>>
>> It's, of course, quite common to have a pitch reset at the beginning of a
>> quote, but for very few languages it has been claimed that these are
>> obligatory (a lot of the time, even for languages where prosody plays a
>> role in marking reported speech, it has pragmatic functions), let alone
>> that it involves a prosodic marking feature of the kind you describe.
>>
>> Best,
>> Stef
>>
>> On 06/02/2025 15:49 CET Clemens Mayer via Lingtyp <
>> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> I'm a PhD candidate at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, working with
>> Woleaian (Oceanic-Micronesian). I've found a particular prosodical
>> phenomenon wherein direct quotative speech is always paired with high
>> falsetto pitch. This occurs regardless of speaker's and quoted person's
>> gender, and occurs across speech genres.
>> I was wondering whether any of you have seen this (type of) prosodic cue
>> as part of quotative speech. Of course happy to provide more detailed data
>> on request.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> - Clemens
>>
>> ----
>> Clemens (Clé) Kūhaʻo Mayer
>> *he/they; hij/hen; ʻo ia*
>> *University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Dept. of Linguistics*
>> PhD Candidate
>> Austronesian Circle Organizer
>> Online Learning Coordinator
>> cjmayer.github.io
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://cjmayer.github.io/__;!!PvDODwlR4mBZyAb0!R_gnadC3qrNvU--8RhabP13T2C8rQP0Rmdw28r6MLvO6BYS-xg5imGZ_VccwUkRTzXNL3mP0yhZRvDufGD-P2Ijdsza5sa8$>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing list
>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp__;!!PvDODwlR4mBZyAb0!R_gnadC3qrNvU--8RhabP13T2C8rQP0Rmdw28r6MLvO6BYS-xg5imGZ_VccwUkRTzXNL3mP0yhZRvDufGD-P2IjdpUegPTE$>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dr. Stef Spronck,
>> Lecturer in Language & communication at Utrecht University,
>> Research affiliate in Indigenous studies and General linguistics at the
>> University of Helsinki,
>> https://participationgrammar.net
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://participationgrammar.net/__;!!PvDODwlR4mBZyAb0!R_gnadC3qrNvU--8RhabP13T2C8rQP0Rmdw28r6MLvO6BYS-xg5imGZ_VccwUkRTzXNL3mP0yhZRvDufGD-P2Ijd6THiJBg$>
>>
>
>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------
> Scott AnderBois {he/him/his}
> Director, Program in Linguistics
> Associate Professor of Linguistics
> Brown University
> https://linguistics.brown.edu/
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://linguistics.brown.edu/__;!!PvDODwlR4mBZyAb0!R_gnadC3qrNvU--8RhabP13T2C8rQP0Rmdw28r6MLvO6BYS-xg5imGZ_VccwUkRTzXNL3mP0yhZRvDufGD-P2IjdlB0atTQ$>
> ----------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20250207/83d29500/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: quot+nonquot2.png
Type: image/png
Size: 470449 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20250207/83d29500/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: WOL-230125-3_75-79.png
Type: image/png
Size: 124972 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20250207/83d29500/attachment-0003.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: WOL-20230125-3-quotintonation.wav
Type: audio/wav
Size: 709036 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20250207/83d29500/attachment-0002.bin>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: WOL-20230125-3_75-79.wav
Type: audio/wav
Size: 2205828 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20250207/83d29500/attachment-0003.bin>