The intonation of interrogation in Palermo Italian

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In Palermo Italian yes-no interrogatives, the nuclear pitch contour varies based on the stress of the last syllable: it is rising-falling if unstressed and simply rising if stressed. This variation challenges the British-style approach to intonation, which fails to account for such context-dependent differences. Conversely, autosegmental pitch accent studies, which express nuclear pitch configurations through H(igh) and L(ow) tones, provide the necessary flexibility. These tones are organized hierarchically, serving either accentual or delimitative functions. In the accentual case, tones associate with a syllable as part of a Pitch Accent, while in the delimitative case, they link to nodes representing higher prosodic constituents, realized as boundary tones. A proposed model introduces a hierarchical structure for tones in the Pitch Accent, comprising two levels: Supertone and Tone. This extended structure clarifies inconsistencies in phonetic alignment in Palermo Italian and parallels consistent alignment in English. It also allows for a different treatment of leading tones between the two languages. The interrogative marker in Palermo Italian features a L*+H Pitch Accent, with a consistently L boundary tone at the intermediate phrase. This boundary tone is fully realized only when a postaccentual syllable is present, explaining the absence of the falling component in phrases lacking such syllables.