The encoding of epistemic operations in two Romance languages: The interplay between intonation and discourse markers

Abstract For years, linguists have noted that intonation patterns and discourse markers encode similar pragmatic meanings across languages. The present study investigates whether a functional compensatory distribution can be documented across languages by focusing on the expression of epistemic commitment in two Romance languages which have been reported to have either a rich or a very reduced inventory of intonational patterns (e.g., Catalan vs. Friulian). A total of 30 speakers (15 per language) participated in an oral Discourse Completion Task designed to elicit assertions with three degrees of speaker commitment. The results showed that while Catalan used specific intonation patterns for the expression of low and intensified commitment statements, Friulian speakers used only one type of pitch contour to express both types of epistemic commitment. In contrast, Friulian speakers made more frequent use of a more varied set of epistemic discourse markers for the two types of biased statements than their Catalan-speaking peers. This result suggests that a trade-off strategy can be observed between intonation and discourse markers across these two languages. This ultimately shows the need to integrate the study of intonational meaning with other parts of the grammar inside a more unified approach in comparative analyses of language.