Who's next? The melodic marking of question vs. continuation in Dutch.

The present study is concerned with functional differences between the accent-lending rise followed by sustained level pitch (GDI-notation "10," cf., 't Hart, Collier, and Cohen, 1990) and the combination of the accent-lending rise and final rise ("12") in Dutch. Theoretical analyses of the meaning of Dutch intonation claim that "10" can be interpreted as a question. In contrast, recent investigations of the relevance of intonation for turn-taking indicate that "10" signals that the speaker wants to keep the turn. The main goal of the present experimental investigation is to find evidence for the idea that speakers may use contour "10" to keep the floor. Thirty subjects were presented with short utterances bearing either a "12" or a "10" contour in three perception experiments. Results support the hypothesis that "10" is not readily interpreted as a question, as opposed to contour "12," which indicates that contour "10" may play a role in signaling turn-keeping in Dutch.