The intonation of Glasgow English statements and yes/no questions: A phonological characterization

Although aspects common to statements and yes/no questions have frequently been noticed in the intonation of Glasgow English, there has been no consensus among researchers as to the phonetic characterization of the nuclear contour of these utterance types: some authors claim that the contours discussed end in a rise, whereas other authors propose a slump. This book presents a unified account of these radically diverging approaches by providing, within the Autosegmental Metrical Theory, a phonological representation with absence of the phrase accent and an allotonic downstepped variant of H% to mark the final mid pitch perceived. This formulation of final mid pitch in terms of a downstepped boundary tone makes it necessary to reconcile both a syntagmatic and a paradigmatic dimension of downstep. The present work is intended for professionals working in the field of intonation, but should also prove helpful for anyone else interested in dialectal prosodic differences across varieties of English.