Galician intonation and Galician Spanish intonation in contact
What is it about?
The current study analyses the intonation of three types of utterances (broad focus statements, information-seeking yes-no questions and information-seeking wh-questions) in Galician and Spanish, in order to research the effects on the intonation of the prolonged contact between these two languages in Galicia. The main aims are to detect possible hybridisation processes in the intonation of these varieties and determine whether the intonation behaviour is different depending on the language used or on the language profile of the speakers.
Why is it important?
The results indicate little variability in the intonation based on the initial and habitual languages of the speakers or the language in which they produce the corpus. However, the existence of some hybrid patterns in wh-questions has been detected. The theoretical implications of these results will be discussed within the framework of hybridisation.