Abstract
Our study explores the phonological typology of polarity question melodies proposed in literature and provides quantitative data for the modeling of individual patterns. We use material from a large number of acted minidialogues produced by 34 Czech speakers.
K-means clustering together with auditory analysis and visual inspection of F0 tracks offered an insight into both categorial and continuous variation. Emerging patterns have been specified in terms of their F0 parameters and frequency of occurrence.
Although the overall variation in the data is substantial, we suppose that most of it is not random. We expect our results to serve in perception test design, in which various components of meanings other than plain request for information could be tested.