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by csicseri
2011 days ago
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If you say it out loud, you will realize that the question "Do you want to eat pizza or pasta?" (exclusive-or case with the answer "pizza" or "pasta," i.e. in the sense "these are your two choices, which would you prefer?") is an entirely different utterance from "Do you want to eat pizza or pasta?" (inclusive-or case with the answer "yes" or "no," i.e. in the sense "would you like to go to an Italian restaurant?"). The first case is pronounced with primary stress on the first syllables of both "pizza" and "pasta," and with a high tone on "pizza" and a low tone on "pasta," indicating a contrast between the two alternatives. The second case is pronounced with primary stress on the first syllable of "pizza," secondary stress on the first syllable of "pasta," and a uniform tone over the phrase "pizza or pasta" on which is superimposed the rising tone on the last syllable of the sentence indicating a yes/no question. (To see that the latter is true, add "tonight" to the yes/no sentence - "would you like to eat pizza or pasta tonight?" The tone does not rise until the syllable "night.") You have to be very careful in reasoning about natural language based solely on the written record, since spoken language regularly includes features, such as the suprasegmentals (stress and intonation) in the above examples, that aren't recorded in the orthography. |
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