A great deal has been written on the intonation of questions. Some people have said that for a question to be heard as such, we need a rising tone (as you may infer from the picture). But we have already studied a couple of examples that contradict this assertion. We may well say Are you Claire? with a fall on Claire, which would perfectly be understood as a kind of seeking-information question, as though we were inviting our interlocutor to expand on some other info. This is but one example. You may find more theory on the Internet.
If you click here, you will find a downloadable file containing some explanations of meanings that can be attached to questions and other types of utterances on the basis of the intonation choices (mainly tones) in them. Remember that the system we're using is called Discourse Intonation and that other systems may use alternative names and offer alternative explanations for the choices. The file just referred to will be available for ten days as of publication of this posting. Hurry up and get it! Then, get back to this page and make your comments or ask any questions.
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I'm sorry to tell you that Scribd (the page hosting the file) asks you to have a Facebook account or a Scribd account. It's easy to have either. Another option can be to do some copying and then pasting onto a Word doc. But this will require further editing (for instance, reducing font type and size). So I'd advise you to try opening an account in one of the ways suggested and use it later on for other purposes.
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So following Nico's suggestion, here's the link that will take you to the file right away, without any subscription or sign-in requirements. If an error message pops up or a notice says that the file is damaged or anything, just click on the address bar once to get it highlighted and then press enter. It will now be shown correctly. To download, proceed as usual.
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I'm sorry to tell you that Scribd (the page hosting the file) asks you to have a Facebook account or a Scribd account. It's easy to have either. Another option can be to do some copying and then pasting onto a Word doc. But this will require further editing (for instance, reducing font type and size). So I'd advise you to try opening an account in one of the ways suggested and use it later on for other purposes.
...
So following Nico's suggestion, here's the link that will take you to the file right away, without any subscription or sign-in requirements. If an error message pops up or a notice says that the file is damaged or anything, just click on the address bar once to get it highlighted and then press enter. It will now be shown correctly. To download, proceed as usual.
