Investigating the role of prosody in disambiguating speech acts to acquire attitude verbs’ subcategorization properties in Singapore Mandarin

Abstract

In Mandarin, in questions (termed ‘wh-questions’ going forward) where the matrix verb embeds a declarative complement, the wh-element takes wide scope over the matrix clause, while in assertions (termed ‘wh-assertions’ going forward) where the matrix verb embeds an interrogative complement, the wh-element takes narrow scope over the embedded clause. However, due to Mandarin’s wh-in-situ nature, the wh-element stays in the same position regardless of the scope it takes, making wh-questions and wh-assertions string- and tone-identical and hence ambiguous. This ambiguity has implications for Mandarin attitude verb acquisition, as learners need to learn what syntactic frames the verbs can occur with. However, since it is ambiguous whether the matrix verb embeds an interrogative or a declarative complement, learners have to find strategies other than syntax to identify the complement type. Therefore, this paper examines whether prosody could be used as a tool to resolve this ambiguity. Two experiments were conducted. The first experiment is a production study that compared the prosodic patterns of native Singapore Mandarin speakers when producing wh-questions and wh-assertions. Context sentences primed participants to produce these sentences with the intended interpretations. Results showed no significant differences in the prosodic marking of the two speech acts, suggesting they are not prosodically marked in Singapore Mandarin. The second experiment is a perception study that compared native Singapore Mandarin listeners’ perception of the speech act of wh-questions and wh-assertions. Participants had to deduce the matrix verbs of these sentences, which were masked. This would reveal what they perceived the embedded clause type to be based on the subcategorization properties of the verb. Results showed that participants were unable to use prosody to disambiguate between wh-questions and wh-assertions or deduce the masked verb accurately, suggesting that Singapore Mandarin-speaking adults may not have acquired the subcategorization properties of attitude verbs through prosody.