Acoustic and perceptual qualities of queclaratives in Xhosa

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of the acoustic and perceptual qualities of queclaratives in Xhosa. Queclaratives, or statements which are question-like in function, have been studied in a number of languages of the world. Many of these studies have implemented experimental techniques at acoustic and perceptual levels, however, prior to this study, this has not yet been done for a language such as Xhosa. In this paper prevalent impressionistic and experimentally based claims, differentiating statements from questions, such as word and penultimate syllable duration, speech tempo and tonal register to name but a few will be listed. It will be demonstrated that although these descriptions all refer to some kind of physical difference between statements and queclaratives each description seems to highlight a different aspect of what is supposed to represent the distinctive quality.