El foco estrecho y amplio en las preguntas interrogativas absolutas del español de Uruguay

Abstract

This work investigates the intonational patterns used to express narrow and wide focus in absolute interrogatives in the Spanish of Montevideo. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first work to explicitly and empirically study this type of intonation on this variety of Spanish. The six participants produced four absolute interrogatives with three lexically accented words in each interrogative. Each question differed in terms of the location of the focus. The tones and boundary tones were analyzed using Sp_ToBI based on Estebas & Prieto (2008). The results demonstrate variation within speakers. The peak alignments differed from that found in Buenos Aires Spanish, a variety very similar to the one spoken in Montevideo. The results of the statistical analysis of the peak height and valleys indicate a tendency, although not statistically significant, of a higher tone on words in narrow focus.