Alternative_question | TriviaQuestions.online

⭐ In the context of intonation, an alternative question is distinguished from a yes-or-no question by…

Alternative questions are signaled by rising pitch contours on each option presented, followed by a falling contour on the final option, which differentiates them from yes-or-no questions that typically have a single rising contour at the end.

⭐ Core Definition: Alternative question

A question is an utterance which serves as a request for information. Questions are sometimes distinguished from interrogatives, which are the grammatical forms, typically used to express them. Rhetorical questions, for instance, are interrogative in form but may not be considered bona fide questions, as they are not expected to be answered.

Questions come in a number of varieties. For instance; Polar questions are those such as the English example "Is this a polar question?", which can be answered with "yes" or "no". Alternative questions such as "Is this a polar question, or an alternative question?" present a list of possibilities to choose from. Open questions such as "What kind of question is this?" allow many possible resolutions.

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👉 Alternative question in the context of Intonation (linguistics)

In linguistics, intonation is the variation in pitch used to indicate the speaker's attitudes and emotions, to highlight or focus an expression, to signal the illocutionary act performed by a sentence, or to regulate the flow of discourse. For example, the English question "Does Maria speak Spanish or French?" is interpreted as a yes-or-no question when it is uttered with a single rising intonation contour, but is interpreted as an alternative question when uttered with a rising contour on "Spanish" and a falling contour on "French". Although intonation is primarily a matter of pitch variation, its effects almost always work hand-in-hand with other prosodic features. Intonation is distinct from tone, the phenomenon where pitch is used to distinguish words (as in Mandarin) or to mark grammatical features (as in Kinyarwanda).

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