A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD)

The Intonational Phrase is the prosodic constituent which interacts with the meaning of a sentence. Yes-no questions and wh-questions form an Intonational Phrase. There is a common non-manual marker responsible for the question type. This common non-manual marker is the Head (Tilt) Position which is used as a head forward (ht-f) in yes-no questions and head backward (ht-b) in wh-questions [Syntax 1.2.]

 

         ht-f

        hn-s

remember

(Int. Phra.)     

'Do you remember?'

(adapted from Göksel and Kelepir 2013a: 12)

 

                                      ht-b

                                         hs

            law law what there_ıs what

            (Intonational Phrase                  )

            What kind of legislation is there?

            (adapter from Göksel and Kelepir 2013a: 12)

 

 

A chin-down (or head nod) is used in a polar question to indicate a focused [Pragmatics - 4.1.] constituent. The combination of a yes/no question marker and focus marker provides, in a combinatorial manner, the narrow focus, what the question is about, in a polar question as below.  The position of eyebrows is a domain marker [Phonology - 2], while the chin-down is an edge marker [Phonology - 2] occurring at the end of the intonational phrase.

 

                                         cd

                                          re

score  as   take/consıder

(Intonational Phrase             )

'Do you consider it a score?'

            (Gökgöz and Arık 2011: 70)

 

The right edge of a declarative sentence [Syntax - 1.1.] is prosodically marked, too. In the following example, a combination of the edge markers eye-blink and single head nod occur at the right edge of the declarative sentence which here corresponds to an Intonational Phrase in prosody. 

 

          eb                                                                                                                                                            eb

                                                                                                                                                                    hn-s

palm-up                               ugly                  duck            baby               for                   palm-up

(Intonational Phrase............................................................................................................................................)

'(It is) about the ugly duckling.'

 

Above, the right edge of the Intonational Phrase is more heavily marked with a blink and a single head nod than the left edge which only includes a blink as an edge marker [Phonology - 2.].

The type of an embedded sentence, which forms a distinct Intonational Phrase, is marked by non-manual markers depending on the type of the embedding verb. For example, the ASK-type verbs require the question intonation in the embedded clause [Syntax - 3.3.]. There are three Intonational Phrases below. The edges of the first and the third intonational phrases are marked with head nod and the entire domain of the Intonational Phrase in-between is marked by head-backward (ht-b) which accompanies ASK-type verbs.

 

                                                                                    re

                                                                                ht-b

                                           hn                    hs                          hn

xxx_a    ıx_3a    yyy_{b    a}ask_b    [ıx₁    where    work]       _aask_b

(Intonational Phrase       )   (Intonational Phrase    )  (Int. Ph.)

'X asks Y where I work.'

(adapted from Hakgüder 2015a: 94)