Map Tasks in Italian : Asking Questions about Given, Accessible and New Information

Abstract This paper confirms that in Bari Italian an intonational distinction is made between polar questions asking about new information (QUERY-YN moves in the HCRC Map Task coding scheme) and those asking about given information (prototypical CHECK moves in the same coding scheme). The former, where the speaker believes that the information is not shared and therefore mutually inactive, employ a rising pitch accent (L+H*). The latter, where the speaker believes that the information is mutually active, are expressed with a falling accent (H*+L or H+L*). The situation is more complicated for moves classified as CHECKS which are asking about information which has been mentioned earlier in the dialogue as opposed to the prototypical CHECKS where the information is given immediately before the current turn. These CHECKS, asking about textually accessible as opposed to given information, as well as those asking about something which can only be inferred from the context, can have either rising or falling pitch accents. The intonational variation is related to the degree of speaker confidence that confirmation being sought in the question will be provided. Key words: Italian intonation, question intonation, pitch accent, edge tone, intonation and pragmatics, task oriented dialogue, map task, intonation and information structure, given information, new information, accessibility of information. 1. Introduction This paper takes as its starting point the fact that there is an established distinction between information-seeking and confirmation-seeking questions (e.g. Bolinger 1989). In the former the speaker believes the information being asked about is neither directly nor indirectly recoverable in any way: new information. Confirmation1. This paper has benefitted from comments received from José Ignacio Hualde, Tim Face, Barbara Gili Fivela, Marina Vigário, Pilar Prieto and Andrea Weber. We would especially like to thank Stefan Baumann for discussion and advice on the accessibility of information. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 2, 2003 153-180 Map Tasks in Italian: Asking Questions about Given, Accessible and New Information1 Martine Grice Saarland University. Institute of Phonetics Postfach 15115. 66041 Saarbrücken. Germany [email protected].de Michelina Savino University of Bari. Department of Psychology P.zza Umberto I, 1. 70121 Bari. Italy esa[email protected] Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:42 Página 153 seeking questions on the other hand are about information which the speaker believes has already been conveyed: given information. Although many studies have concentrated on English, the distinction between the two types of question is also considered to be cross-linguistic. Such a distinction has been made in the analysis of a task-oriented (HCRC Map Task) dialogue corpus in English where information-seeking questions are referred to as QUERIES and confirmation-seeking questions as CHECKS (Carletta et al. 1997). In the canonical examples given in English, QUERIES and CHECKS are syntactically distinct (Kowtko et al. 1992, Carletta et al. 1995), «Do you have a rockfall?» and «So you want me to go down two inches?», respectively2. The former uses interrogative and the latter declarative syntax. The present study investigates how far such a distinction can be made in Italian, confining our attention to questions eliciting an affirmative or negative reply: yesno or polar questions. Italian is particularly interesting since it does not have a distinct interrogative syntax in polar questions. «Vado a destra» can be translated as «I go to the right» (statement), «Do I go to the right?» (QUERY) or «(So) I go to the right?» (CHECK), depending on a combination of the context in which the question is uttered and on the choice of intonation pattern. Since intonation plays a more important role in Italian than in English in signalling illocutionary force, more attention has to be paid either directly or indirectly to the intonation when classifying moves such as QUERY and CHECK. This leads to unavoidable circularity, since the speech cannot be listened to without the intonation being taken into account, even if it is not formally analysed. That is, in Italian, the decision as to whether an utterance is a QUERY or a CHECK relied heavily on the speech file, whereas in English the speech file was an additional source of data but not the main one3. Nonetheless, in a previous study (Grice and Savino 1997) we found that distinguishing QUERIES and CHECKS by means of intonation was not straightforward, since certain CHECKS and other move types could have the same intonation pattern as QUERIES. It is our view that the problem lies in the classification of given and new information which is behind the QUERY/CHECK distinction. We therefore propose a more elaborate analysis of information structure which should throw light on the role of textual and situational context in the analysis as well as that of speaker consciousness. This study is exploratory in nature, and is meant to lay the foundations for further analysis of the dialogue corpus we are currently working with. This corpus is briefly described in section 2. Sections 3 and 4 provide a sketch of the intonation model and dialogue act classification employed. Section 5 introduces the model of information structure proposed for the analysis of the questions in the corpus, in particular whether ques154 CJL 2, 2003 Martine Grice; Michelina Savino 2. These questions refer to landmarks and routes on maps. More information on this is given in section 2. 3. Carletta et al. (1997: 25) report that coding was carried out using «[...] normal working procedures, which included access to the speech as well as the transcripts». Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:42 Página 154 tions are about given, new or accessible information. Section 6 gives examples of QUERIES and CHECKS along with their information structure analysis, starting with prototypical QUERIES and CHECKS, and following with less prototypical CHECK moves and a special type of CHECK, the ALIGN move. The notion of speaker confidence as to whether a CHECK will receive confirmation will then be used to account for differences in the intonation patterns of the less prototypical CHECKS. Section 7 deals with a further move where the information is given, in the sense that it is mentioned in the previous turn, but where the speaker challenges the dialogue partner’s assumption that it is shared. 2. Dialogue corpus The original HCRC Map Task (Anderson et al. 1991) involves verbal co-operation between two participants who each have a map. The task entails reproducing as accurately as possible the route which is printed on one map to the other map, which is without a route. The task is complicated by the fact that there are a number of discrepancies across the two maps in the presence or position of certain landmarks. A new set of maps were specially constructed for the Italian task. Since our aim was less general purpose than the HCRC group, we introduced new features in the design of the Italian maps. In particular, the landmark names were controlled for prosodic structure, such names having antepenultimate and final stress as well as the more common penultimate stress. The Italian study also differed in the way subjects were introduced to the task: they were not informed of the discrepancies between the two maps (neither were they told that the maps were identical, although this is what they assumed). This strategy enabled us to assume that the landmarks and their position constituted shared information (situationally accessible information, see section 5 below) until a discrepancy was detected (typically after 5-10 turns). It also introduced an element of surprise into the dialogue. Our corpus consists of 8 dialogues performed by 8 female and 8 male university educated speakers, all aged between 21 and 28 and born and living in Bari, the capital of Apulia in Southern Italy. An example of a pair of maps is included in the appendix. Four of the dialogues were recorded within the national AVIP project and four were recorded prior to the beginning of that project4. 3. Intonation analysis The intonation analysis employs a modified version of the ToBI transcription system (Beckman and Ayers 1994) using two tones, H (high) and L (low). When they occur in pitch accents, one tone is starred, indicating association with a metricalMap Tasks in Italian: Asking Questions about Given, Accessible and New Information CJL 2, 2003 155 4. Similar recordings have been made within the AVIP project using speakers of the Naples and Pisa varieties of Italian (for more details see Refice et al. 2000). We do not deal with these other varieties here but intend to do comparative work on these varieties in the future. Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:42 Página 155 ly strong syllable (Pierrehumbert 1980). They may also function as boundary markers for one of two phrase types: intermediate (or minor), indicated by «-» after H or L, and intonation (or major) phrase, marked with «%». See Grice et al. (in press) for a more detailed description. The pitch accents referred to in this paper are L+H*, which involves a low pitch target just before a high accented syllable (the peak being late in the accented syllable), H+L*, which involves a high pitch target immediately preceding a low accented syllable, and H*+L, a high target early in the accented syllable followed by a rapid fall (see Grice and Savino 1995b for a discussion of peak placement). In addition, H* and L* involve a high or low target, respectively, on the accented syllable, with no specification as to the pitch contour flanking it. The boundary tones referred to are Land the combination L-L%, both of which give a low pitch value at the end of the phrase, and the combination L-H% which gives a slight rise up to the endpoint. The Bari variety has been extensively studied (Grice and Savino 1995a, Savino 2001, in press), in particular the intonation used in questions (Grice and Savino 1995b, Grice et al. 1995, Grice and Savino 1997, Grice et al. 1997, Refice et al. 1997, Savino 1997). The second author, a native of the Bari variety, is responsible for the intonation labelling of this corpus along the lines of the above cited papers. In Standard Italian, it is argued that the boundary tone or a combination of nuclear pitch accent and boundary tone play a role in distinguishing questions from statements (Avesani 1990, Chapallaz 1979, D’Eugenio 1982, Canepari 1980, Agard and di Pietro 1965, Grice et al. in press). In all cited studies of Standard Italian, yes-no questions have a final rising contour, transcribed as a high boundary tone. The Bari variety is different from the Standard in that it is the pitch accent which has the distinguishing function, a property shared with a number of other Southern varieties, notably Palermo (Grice 1995) and Neapolitan (D’Imperio 1997, 1999, 2001, Caputo 1993, 1996). This study investigates how far the pitch accent distinguishes between the different question types. 4. Question types The questions occurring in our corpus were initially categorised using the coding scheme for conversational games used to describe the English HCRC Map Task corpus (Kowtko et al. 1992, Carletta et al. 1995, 1996, 1997). Conversational games are sequences of acts, referred to as moves, such as the possible sequence of QUERYREPLY-ACKNOWLEDGE moves within a QUERY game. Since each move within a given game may have a distinct intonation pattern, we confine our analysis to individual moves. The analysis here concentrates on QUERIES and CHECKS as described in 1 above, both of which are initiating moves within games of the same name. Furthermore, the QUERIES we analyse are all yes-no questions rather than whquestions. In what follows, all references to QUERIES are to the yes-no type, classified as QUERY-YN in the HCRC coding scheme. In this coding scheme there is another type of question, ALIGN, where the speaker is attempting to get evidence 156 CJL 2, 2003 Martine Grice; Michelina Savino Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:42 Página 156 that the transfer was successful so as to move onto the next game. Examples of ALIGNS might be «Have you drawn it?» or «OK?». They may seek information about new or given material within the discourse and may thus pattern with either of the above-mentioned question moves. Another move-type found in our corpus is not categorised in the HCRC Map Task coding scheme, but may be fitted into the framework as a responding move which indicates that the communication has been unsuccessful. We refer to this move as OBJECT5(Grice and Savino 1997). It is used to point out that there has been a break-down in communication, such that the game cannot continue until common ground is re-established. OBJECT moves contrast with ACKNOWLEDGE moves. These latter indicate that communication has been successful, and encourage the interlocutor to proceed with the game. In sections 6 and 7 we relate these move types to the distinction between given and new information and the notion of accessibility of information. Before doing this we give more detail, in section 5, as to what is meant by accessibility. 5. Accessibility of information One of the problems encountered in coding dialogue acts and moves according to whether they are QUERIES or CHECKS is the problem of establishing which information is new. Since we are dealing with questions, the issue is whether the speaker is asking about information which is recoverable in some way or not. To answer this we need to have a way of determining whether something mentioned earlier on in the dialogue counts as recoverable, and therefore given, and whether something mentioned earlier, say, 5 turns previously, counts as less given than something which has just been mentioned. Another problem is encountered in distinguishing between information which is recoverable from the context (and therefore to some extent given) from information which is not (and therefore completely new). It has been argued by Chafe (1994) that it is impossible to understand the distinction between given and new without taking into account consciousness (also Chafe 1974: 76). He proposed that the distinction should be viewed in terms of active and inactive information, leading to a tripartite distinction, as follows. New information — newly activated at this point in the conversation Given information — already active at this point in the conversation Accessible information — activated from a previous semiactive state (i.e. neither totally new nor totally given) Accessible information is further specified in terms of how the access is achieved. These different types of accessibility are listed below. Map Tasks in Italian: Asking Questions about Given, Accessible and New Information CJL 2, 2003 157 5. The name reflects the verb form, pronounced obJECT, in the sense that the speaker is objecting to what has been said. Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:42 Página 157 Textually accessible — active at an earlier time in the discourse Inferentially accessible — directly associated with an idea that is or was active in the discourse Situationally accessible — is associated with the non-linguistic environment (i.e. peripherally active but not focussed on at this point in the conversation) The concept of given information is thus narrowed down to that which involves currently evoked text (e.g. information which is currently active in the discourse, having been mentioned immediately prior to the current turn) as well as situationally evoked information which is focussed on (e.g. the current speaker or interlocutor) —see also Lambrecht (1994). Since our data contains few references to the second type of given information («Who am I talking to?»), we restrict our attention to given information in the sense that it is textually given. 6. Intonation, moves and information structure In this section, the intonation contours used for each type of move will be discussed and each exemplified, along with the dialogue context from which the example has been excised (where G is the route giver and F the follower). QUERY moves always ask about information which is new. CHECK moves, on the other hand, can ask about information which is either given or accessible. Each of the different kinds of givenness and accessibility discussed in section 5 is illustrated below6. 6.1. QUERY Moves: asking about new information QUERY moves ask about information which is inaccessible and neither active nor semi-active, i.e. new information. Typically QUERIES ask about the presence of landmarks on the other person’s map. These questions are asked after the speakers have established that the two maps are different. Information as to the presence of a previously unmentioned landmark is new, since it cannot be assumed to be present on the partner’s map unless the partner has said so explicitly. Queries typically have a rising-falling intonation pattern, rising up to the accented syllable and down from it, transcribed as L+H* L-L%. A typical example is given in example (1), Figure 17. 158 CJL 2, 2003 Martine Grice; Michelina Savino 6. The basenames of the associated speech files are given in angled brackets. [all files are available at www.coli.uni-sb.de/~mgrice/cjl2-wav-files] 7. In this and subsequent examples, the textual context surrounding the target utterance, along with a transcription of the accent type is given in the examples. The full tonal transcription of the target utterance is given in the figure of the same number, aligned with the speech waveform, orthographic transcription and F0 trace. Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:42 Página 158 (1) If the accented syllable is final in the phrase, the fall on that syllable is truncated substantially, as illustrated in Grice et al. (1995). Such an example is given in Figure 2, the context of which is given in example (2). (2) Map Tasks in Italian: Asking Questions about Given, Accessible and New Information CJL 2, 2003 159 [...] G: in verticale sì verso il basso passando sempre a sinistra della Via Splendida anche <pause> F: ma io non c’ho segnata la Via Splendida <pause> io ho il Giardino delle Visite G: soltanto ? F: <mm> G: e non c’è la via splendida ? F: no stagno delle libellule ho <pause> a destra del bar da Liolà G: <mm> [...] G: piega di nuovo verso destra F: sì G: a questo punto <eeh> hai un LEONE ? L+H* F: <eeh> sì sul margi+ cioè diciamo quasi a metà sulla destra [...] G: vertically yes towards the bottom always keeping to the left of Splendid Road too <pause> F: but I don’t have Splendid Road marked <pause> I have the Visitor’s Garden G: only that? F: <mm> G: and there’s no Splendid Road? F: no I have Dragonfly Pond <pause> to the right of Bar Liolà G: <mm> [...] G: turn again towards the right F: yes G: at this point <uh> do you have a lion? F: <uh> yes at the edge that is let’s say almost halfway up on the right <ita-example1.wav> G: devi fare un arco sopra la miniera F: sì sì sì sì ho capito G: hai la riserva di CINCILLÀ ? L+H* F: no G: you have to draw an arc above the mine F: yes yes yes yes I get it G: do you have the chinchilla reserve? F: no <ita-example2.wav> Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:42 Página 159 160 CJL 2, 2003 Martine Grice; Michelina Savino Figure 2. QUERY move where the final fall is truncated: The final L+H* pitch accent occurs on the final syllable of the phrase. In this case, the boundary tones are only partially realised, i.e. there is barely a fall to the underlying low edge tones (Land L%). Figure 1. Typical QUERY move. In this and all figures, from top to bottom are speech waveform, full tonal and orthographic transcriptions and F0 track. See section 3 for further explanation of tonal categories used. The distinctive prosodic feature for QUERIES is the rising pitch accent L+H*. Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:42 Página 160 The final boundary tone may be H% instead of L%, indicating a slight rise at the end of the intonation phrase. This is illustrated in example (3) (Figure 3). Here the nuclear word is rising-falling-rising and not simply rising-falling as in example (1). As already mentioned in section 3, it is the pitch accent not the boundary tone, nor even a combination of the two, which is distinct in QUERIES. Instead the boundary tone appears to have a stylistic effect. Evidence to support this observation is provided by the comparison of spontaneous and read speech. Grice et al. (1997) and Refice et al. (1997) showed that very few spontaneous yes-no questions had a final rise (under 2%, 7/52). When speakers were asked to read a transcript of these same questions embedded in an equivalent context, they produced final rises most of the time (78%), thus indicating a strong effect of speaking style on intonation phrase final boundary tones. (3) Map Tasks in Italian: Asking Questions about Given, Accessible and New Information CJL 2, 2003 161 [...] G: e poi, con una linea tratteggiata, spostati leggermente verso destra F: <mm> subito dopo la partenza? non c’è un percorso dritto subito dopo la partenza devo piegare subito a destra G: <ehm> vai sí però con una linea dritta F: <mm> G: verso destra, non non obliquo F: Stefania, cos´hai tra banane e meloni e lago Anomalo? G: nulla F: non hai un ristorante Anima mia? G: no [...] G: adesso piega verso il basso leggermente F: sì G: per due tre centimetri F: <mm> hai una dimora per ANIMALI? L+H* G: sí F: be’? G: curva ancora più sotto, in direzione della dimora per animali per due centimetri F: sí [...] G: and then, with a dashed line, move slightly towards the right F: <mm> straight after the start? I can’t draw a straight route straight after the start I have to turn to the right G: <erm> but draw a straight line anyway F: <mm> G: towards the right, not not diagonally F: Stefania, what do you have between bananas and melons and Lake nomalous? G: nothing F: don’t you have restaurant Anima Mia? G: no [...] G: now turn downwards slightly F: yes G: two or three centimetres F: <mm> do you have an animal home? G: yes F: so G: draw a curve further down towards the animal home two centimetres long F: yes <ita-example3.wav> Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:42 Página 161 (8) The difference between the target CHECK utterances in (7) and (8) appear to relate to speaker confidence as to the correctness of his or her inference which was made on the basis of situational information (in this case, the maps). In the same way CHECKS asking for confirmation about inferentially accessible information can have a rising or falling pitch accent, see example (9) (Figure 9) 168 CJL 2, 2003 Martine Grice; Michelina Savino G: adesso l´obiettivo che io ho successivamente F: Lago ANOMALO H+L* G: lago Anomalo, esattamente F: <mm> G: now the object that I have next F: Lake Anomalous G: Lake Anomalous, exactly F: <mm> **speakers know maps are not alike; the lake is on F’s map** <ita-example8.wav> Figure 8. CHECK asking about situationally accessible information with a falling pitch accent. Note halved pitch is indicated in the miscellaneous tier. Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:43 Página 168 and example (10) (Figure 10) below. In our corpus, this type of inference is typically about an action to be taken8. (9) (10) Map Tasks in Italian: Asking Questions about Given, Accessible and New Information CJL 2, 2003 169 8. The distinction between situationally and inferentially accessible information is not clear-cut. We treat situationally accessible information as a subset of inferentially accessible information, but continue to keep the two categories apart, taking inferentially accessible information to exclude situationally accessible information. 9. Note that in Italian the focal (nuclear) accent goes on the last item in the prepositional phrase ‘fino al sottomarino arabo’, even if ‘sottomarino arabo’ is not focussed. Italian only permits early focal accents if followed by full phrases and clauses (Ladd 1996; Swerts et al., 1999; see also Grice et al., in press). These are either deaccented totally or have reduced accents (reaccented, as discussed by Cruttenden, 1993). G: sali verso l’alto piega di nuovo verso l’alto F: ma sulla Casa del Bignè c’è il marabù? G: no io non ho niente F: Sottomarino Arabo ? G: sì perfetto F: <mm> G: Sottomarino Arabo F: allora salgo fino al sottomarino ARABO? L+H* G: sì G: go upwards bend again upwards F: but above Donut House is there a marabu? G: no I don’t have anything F: an Arab Submarine? G: yes perfect F: <mm> G: an Arab Submarine F: so I go RIGHT UP9to the Arab Submarine? G: yes **NB: marabu and arab submarine have not been previously mentioned, informants at this stage already know that the maps can be different, therefore questions in lines 2 and 4 are QUERIES** <ita-example9.wav> G: continua continuando F: verso il basso ? G: no continuando verso sinistra F: <ah!> in tratto ORIZZONTALE H*+L G: sì sì obliquo leggermente obliquo sì G: continue by continuing F: towards the bottom ? G: no continuing towards the left F: <ah!> horizontally (correction) G: yes yes diagonally slightly diagonally yes <ita-example10.wav> Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:43 Página 169 Before discussing a further move type, we provide in Table I a summary of the QUERY and CHECK moves and the pitch accents typically used in them in relation to the textual content of the question and to speaker confidence. 170 CJL 2, 2003 Martine Grice; Michelina Savino Figure 9. CHECK asking about inferentially accessible information with a rising pitch accent. Figure 10. CHECK asking about inferentially accessible information with a falling pitch accent. Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:43 Página 170 QUERIES typically ask about the presence or absence of landmarks on the maps. Textually similar CHECKS (i.e. those asking about the presence or absence of landmarks) have the same pitch accent. In these the landmark had already been mentioned earlier in the dialogue. The information about the landmark was therefore classified as textually accessible rather than new. Given the textual similarity between QUERIES and this type of CHECK, and the fact that they have the same pitch accent, it is possible that the landmark is inactive for the speaker, even if it has been mentioned by the interlocutor. On the other hand, CHECKS asking about information mentioned immediately before the current turn (given information) are typically about details of an action to be taken. These have the same falling pitch accent as textually similar CHECKS, where the information about the action had been mentioned earlier in the dialogue. In these cases it appears that the previously mentioned action is still active for the speaker. The choice of pitch accent appears to be strongly related to speaker confidence that the dialogue partner will provide confirmation as to the correctness of an inference made in the question. CHECKS with a falling pitch accent give the impression that they are strongly biased towards the expectation that confirmation will be provided. These are referred to in the table as confident. Far less confidence is displayed in CHECKS with a rising pitch accent, making them pattern with QUERIES, which are generally not biased at all towards a particular answer. Map Tasks in Italian: Asking Questions about Given, Accessible and New Information CJL 2, 2003 171 Table I. General trends in pitch accent types used in QUERIES and CHECKS according to the textual content of the question, and to speaker confidence that the answer will provide confirmation. Prototypical QUERIES and CHECKS are in bold face. Move Type What is being asked about? Presence/ Absence Position of Details of Action of Landmark Landmark to be taken QUERY L+H* CHECK (given info) H+L CHECK (textually accessible info) L+H* (usually H+L (usually not confident) confident) CHECK (situationally accessible info) L+H*(not confident) H+L (confident) CHECK (inferentially accessible info) L+H* (not confident) H+L (confident) Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:43 Página 171 6.3. ALIGN moves An ALIGN move «checks the other participant’s understanding or accomplishment of a goal; elicits a positive response which closes a larger game; checks alignment of both participants’ plans or position in task with respect to goal; checks attention, agreement, or readiness, e.g. ‘Ok?’ meaning Are_you_with_me?» (Kowtko et al. 1992: 4). Compared to CHECKS, ALIGNS ask for confirmation as to the success of information trasfer (they are normally performed by the instruction giver, as opposed to CHECKS, which are typically follower’s moves), so that participants can go on with the (next) game. Typical examples of ALIGN moves are expressions like «Hai capito?» (‘Have you understood?’), «Va bene?» (‘Alright?’), «Possiamo cominciare?» (‘Can we start?’), «Ci sei?» (‘Are you with me?’); all of them have the same rising pitch accent as in QUERIES, as shown in example (11) (Figure 11). (11) Like CHECKS, ALIGNS can also have falling pitch accents. Typical cases are those when the giver checks that the follower’s path is correctly aligned before starting a new series of instructions (a new instructing game), as shown in example (12). Where the pitch accent is falling the giver is confident that the series of instructions transferred have been correctly understood by the follower and thus that both partners are positionally aligned (i.e. that the partner has drawn the path near ‘Lake Anomalous’). Interestingly, it has also been suggested for Canadian English that rising and falling intonation in ALIGN moves may reflect «the level of the speaker’s confidence», Wright Hastie et al. (2002: 66), although in that case the rising and falling intonation referred to the boundary tone rather than the pitch accent. 172 CJL 2, 2003 Martine Grice; Michelina Savino G: dunque dopo questo bar / questo bar te lo devi lasciare sulla sinistra F: sì G: e quindi prosegui <eeh> verso il <eeh> un negozio di mobili Elena F: sì G: ci sei ? L+H* F: sì G: arrivata al negozio <pause> costeggi questo negozio il negozio te lo devi lasciare sempre sulla destra F: sì G: so after this bar / this bar you have to leave it on the right F: yes G: and therefore continue <er> towards <er> a furniture shop called Elena F: yes G: are you with me? F: yes G: once you get to the shop <pause> you go round this shop, this shop you have to keep it on the right F: yes <ita-example11.wav> Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:43 Página 172 (12) Map Tasks in Italian: Asking Questions about Given, Accessible and New Information CJL 2, 2003 173 G: allora fai questa circonferenza F: sì G: <eeh> e poi <ehm> devi costeggiare devi passare sotto la dimora per gli animali alla distanza di mezzo centimetro F: sì fin dove ? G: quindi / sino alla fine, insomma dalla parte sinistra dell’edificio e poi scendere <pause> con una linea verticale F: <mm> G: lievemente incurvata verso <ehm> destra in basso F: sì G: sei vicino al lago ANOMALO H+L* F: sì G: <oh> adesso segna la croce alla sinistra del lago Anomalo e siamo arrivati G: so go round it F: yes G: <er> and then <erm> you have to go along you have to go under the Animal Home at a distance of half a centimetre F: yes up to where? G: so / up to the end, I mean from the left hand side of teh building and then go down <pause> with a vertical line F: <mm> G: with a slight curve <erm> to the right at the bottom F: yes G: are you near Lake Anomalous? F: yes G: <oh> now draw a cross to the left of Lake Anomalous and we’re there <ita-example12.wav> Figure 11. ALIGN move with rising pitch accent. Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:43 Página 173 7. OBJECT moves In Bari Italian, the OBJECT moves we have examined have the same tonal analysis as QUERIES of the yes-no kind. It is not the tonal analysis but rather other parameters which appear to distinguish OBJECTS from QUERIES, viz. «breathy» voice quality and/or expanded range, both of which can signal incredulity. An example from the corpus is in (13). (13) 174 CJL 2, 2003 Martine Grice; Michelina Savino Figure 12. ALIGN move with falling pitch accent. F: no non ho capito scusa non devo raggirare il lago ? G: questa / sì devi raggirare il lago sul lato del disegno che corrisponde tra il disegno e il ristorante Anima Mia <pause> F: come Anima Mia?! G: c’e l’hai il ristorante Anima Mia? F: Anima MIA?! L+H* G: <eh> F: ANIMA?! G: <eh> F: I don’t get it, sorry, don’t I have to go round the lake ? G: this / yes you have to go round the lake on the side of the picture where you find the picture and restaurant My Soul. <pause> F: what do you mean My Soul?! G: do you have it, restaurant My Soul? F: my SOUL?! G: <yeah> F: SOUL?! G: <yeah> <ita-example13.wav> Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:43 Página 174 Although the referent ‘Anima mia’ is textually given (mentioned by the interlocutor in the previous turn), the speaker is challenging the interlocutor’s assumption that the information is shared. Examples of OBJECT moves discussed below are of the type that are categorised elsewhere as «echo questions» (inter alia Cruttenden 1986), because they echo, or repeat, all or part of what has just been said by the interlocutor, or as «challenges» where there is «an element of enquiry» as to whether the interlocutor is sure of what s/he has said (Tench 1996). Because these types of OBJECT move are considered to be a category of question in the intonation literature, they are analysed here alongside moves of questioning force. However, since they could be responding within one game as well as initiating another (sub-)game, they cannot be classified as simple questions, which have only an initiating function (Carletta et al. 1997). The OBJECT category has also been recently used in coding the Australian map task dialogues (Stirling et al., 2001), indicating that it is a move type which is not confined to Italian dialogues. 8. Summary and Conclusion We found that in Bari Italian a clear distinction is made intonationally between polar questions asking about new information and those asking about given information (specifically textually given information). Questions about truly new information, where the speaker believes that the information is not shared and therefore mutually inactive, have a rising pitch accent (L+H*). At the other end of the given-new scale, questions about truly given information, where the speaker believes that the information is mutually active, are expressed with a falling accent (H*+L Map Tasks in Italian: Asking Questions about Given, Accessible and New Information CJL 2, 2003 175 Figure 13. OBJECT move, where the speaker is challenging the dialogue partner. Cat.Jour.Ling. 2 001-283 2/7/03 15:43 Página 175 in a more contrastive setting, and H+L* otherwise). We can therefore say that QUERIES take L+H* whereas the more prototypical CHECKS take, along with statements, H*+L or H+L*. CHECK moves asking about textually, situationally and inferentially accessible information can all have either rising or falling pitch accents. This variation can be accounted for if we consider speaker confidence as to the correctness of an inference made in the question. If the speaker expects the interlocutor to provide confirmation, then the same falling pitch accent will be used as in the prototypical CHECKS. If, on the other hand, there is little or no expectation, a rising pitch accent it used, as in questions about new information (QUERIES). This explanation is supported by the fact that rising accents tend to occur more frequently after the first discrepancy has been discovered, and that tentative CHECKS asking for textually accessible information have a similar form and content to QUERIES: they ask about the presence or absence of landmarks, typically in questions of the form «Hai X?» (‘Do you have X?’). Finally, we show that confidence can override the given-new distinction if an assumption about shared information expressed in the previous turn is being challenged. This often happens just before a discrepancy in the maps is first discovered. In such a case, even textually given information can have a rising pitch accent. 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