Acoustic patterns and communicative functions of phrase-final F0 rises in German: activating and restricting contours

Acoustic features and communicative functions of phrase-final F(0) rises starting before an accented-vowel onset are analysed in a corpus of German unscripted speech. Two conversational conditions are examined: turn-yielding and turn-holding. The most important feature distinguishing rises in these two conditions is the range proportion, which differentiates between two patterns as follows: (1) raised pitch on the accented syllable and restrained pitch movement in the tail of the contour, (2) lowered pitch on the accented syllable and extended pitch movement in the tail. The first pattern is seen as a restrictive gesture, e.g. preventing the dialogue partner from turn taking. The second one is viewed as an activating gesture, inviting the coparticipant to contribute.