The opposition interrogative intoneme vs. suspended intoneme in Santiago de Cuba intonation

Abstract

Abstract: This paper focuses on the phonological opposition between two units of the Spanish intonation system: interrogative intoneme vs. suspended intoneme, and describes the phonetic features of such units in a certain variety of southeastern Cuban Spanish, the variety of Santiago de Cuba city. The study is based on a spoken corpus of spontaneous conversations; the computer program Praat is used for the extraction of fundamental frequency contours, and the structural phonological approach is assumed as framework. The analysis result reveals particularities that should lead to nuance and enrich the generally accepted conceptions about the defining features of the Spanish language intonation.