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The communicative functions of final rises in Finnish intonation.

Ogden R, Routarinne S

Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York, UK. rao1@york.ac.uk

This paper considers the communicative function of final rises in Finnish conversational talk between pairs of teenage girls. Final rises are fairly common, occurring approximately twice a minute, predominantly on declaratives and in narrative sequences. We briefly consider the interplay between voice quality (known to be a marker of transition relevance) and rising intonation in Finnish. We argue that in narrative sequences, rising terminals manage two main interactional tasks: they provide a place for a coparticipant to mark recipiency, and they project more talk by the current speaker. Using a methodology which combines phonetic observation with conversation analysis, we demonstrate participants' orientation to these functions.

Published 4 January 2006 in Phonetica, 62(2): 160-75.
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