Abstract This paper examines the intonational characteristics of information-seeking yes-no questions in Galician, a Romance language spoken in Northwestern Spain. Data from 20 Galician-Spanish bilingual speakers were collected via an interactive communicative task and analyzed acoustically in Praat following Spanish ToBI conventions. The examination of nuclear configurations (nuclear pitch accent and the final boundary tone) showed that yes-no questions were realized primarily with final falls (57%), although final rises were also prevalent (43%). The most frequent nuclear configurations were L+H * H% (44%), H+L * L% (36%), and L * H% (9%). Statistical analysis showed that gender, age and language dominance significantly impacted the realization of nuclear configurations in Galician. Specifically, final falling contours were significantly more frequent in women, in older speakers, and in Galician-dominant participants. On the other hand, final rising contours were significantly more frequent in men, in younger speakers, and in Spanish-dominant participants. Our findings showed a higher incidence of final rising contours in Galician yes-no questions than in previous studies, which could stem from increased contact with standard Castilian Spanish and potentially indicate a change in progress.
Hudson et al. (Mon,) studied this question.