himalayan linguistics - UCSB Linguistics - University of California ...

Genetti: Direct speech reports and the cline of prosodic integration in Dolakha Newar
In the first line, the subject noun phrase is not produced with any distinctive intonation contour.
The speech-report begins with an exclamation, which clearly sets it off as distinct from the mainline
narration. It is also prosodically offset by the production of a falling contour over a prolonged
final vowel. There are two IU boundaries within the speech report itself, giving the quoted speech
an internal prosodic structure that parallels the syntactic structure, as the IU boundaries are positioned
before and after a dependent participial clause. We see that although the direct speech
report is not entirely separated, it still has some prosodic features that set it apart from the quotative
frame.
5.2 Variation in pitch
It is also possible for distinct alterations in pitch to separate direct speech reports from surrounding
material, even in the absence of an IU boundary. This is true of the direct speech report in (11); the
pitch trace of this sentence is given in Figure 2:
(11) (1.9) māji=n “^lau õ /\
boatman=erg excl go(imp)
..ota ^parāsar risi=ta /
3sdat Parasar Risi=dat
..kho tār yeŋ-an ^bi-u” hat-cu hã \
river cross do-part give-imp say-3spst evid
‘The boatman said: “Lo! Go! Ferry Parasar Risi across the river”.’
Figure 2. Pitch trace of (11), demonstrating increased F0 at the onset of the speech report, and
falling F0 following the speech report
65