Do Different Majority Languages Lead to Different Intonational Grammars? : A Case Study of Yes/No-Questions in Heritage Russian

Abstract

Based on production data of yes/no-questions ( YNQ ), our research shows that the intonational grammar of YNQ s of heritage speakers of Russian in the United States and in Germany differs from the one of monolingual speakers in various aspects, namely considering the number of additional pitch accents on subjects and objects, the preference for H* on subjects, and, in the case of heritage speakers in the United States, an increased use of upstepped accents on the verb, a lower rate of H%, and a different alignment of rising pitch accents in intransitive questions. The differences can be categorized as differences of phonetic implementation and frequency of use. They cannot easily be attributed to transfer from the majority languages. Rather, the increased use of upsteps on the verb can be characterized as a compensation strategy to make the pitch accent on the verb the most prominent, even if an earlier accent has been realized on the subject.