THE INTONATIONAL PATTERNS USED IN HUNGARIAN STUDENTS’ SPANISH YES-NO QUESTIONS

Abstract

In the following study we present the intonational characteristics of yes-no interrogatives produced by Hungarian learners of Spanish. First, we characterize the melodic patterns of Hungarian and Spanish yes-no interrogatives, and second, we check to what extent the intonation of Spanish questions realized by Hungarian learners is influenced by their mother tongue. The presentation of intonational patterns occurring in Hungarian and Spanish yes-no questions is based on the corpora included in my doctoral dissertation and also already existing intonational descriptions, such as Varga (2002a) and Cantero & Font-Rotchés (2007). The representation of the patterns follows the protocol elaborated by Cantero & Font-Rotchés (2009). The fact that in Hungarian there is only one intonational pattern to be used in yes-no questions, the rise-fall, where the fall must occur on the penultimate syllable, and in Spanish, there are four intonational patterns, causes that Hungarian learners of Spanish produce Spanish yes-no questions rather with their native Hungarian intonation. And this hinders comprehension.