The melodic structure of an interrogative utterance frequently depends on the grammatical structure of the sentence in question. In addition to the enunciative sentence of the kind vous venez? which bears a particular acoustic mark of interrogation, a rise in fundamental frequency in sentence-final position, there exist also interrogative utterances signalled by inversion of word order and still others marked by lexical means, the WH-questions. It is the intonation of this latter type of sentence which we intend to examine in the Canadian-French spoken in Ontario.

The intonation of interrogative sentences has for some years been the object of important research in different languages. Wells (1945) and Trager and Smith (1951) note in English an intonation curve at the following levels: 2 - 3 - 1 - without any tonal prominence on the interrogative word. Armstrong and Ward (1926), Jones (1932) and Faure (1948) also find that this type of interrogative sentence has a descending intonation. Fries (1964) finds no specific intonation pattern in a spontaneous corpus from which he studied yes-no questions. For German, Von Essen (1956) notes two intonation patterns: one rising (question intonation) and one falling (interrogative intonation).

The derivational system of Sechelt (Coast Salish) includes stative formations serving a variety of functions, one of which is the indication of possession in certain constructions. A sampling of stative forms is offered here, along with observations on their derivation. The purpose of this study is to propose, on the basis of such a survey, a generalized conceptual definition of the stative aspect in Sechelt and to suggest reasons for certain restrictions in the use of statives in possessive structures.

This Paper discusses a particular phonological rule that occurs in several English dialects, including Canadian English. The rule will be referred to throughout as ‘Canadian Raising’ purely for mnemonic purposes; no geographical rigour is intended by the epithet ‘Canadian’—a point that is made abundantly clear in §4, where the distribution of the rule is taken up. The appropriateness of the term resides in the relative role the rule plays in Canadian English, where its effect is the most readily identifiable trait of the dialect. Thus, speakers of Canadian English are often identified by the speakers of adjoining dialects by their pronunciation of words like wife and south, which are usually mis-heard by speakers of General American as weef and sooth.

The main facts about Canadian Raising were first organized systematically three decades ago by Martin Joos, in a short article entitled “A phonological dilemma in Canadian English” (1942). Since then, they have been cursorily referred to in the literature several times (for example: Bloomfield 1948: 62; McDavid 1963: 470, etc.) and have been reorganized in a different theoretical framework (Halle 1962: 343) with no augmentation—and usually a simplification—of Joos’s observations.

The Development of generative phonology to deal with the phonological component of transformational grammars has in recent years led to many fruitful insights in the analysis and description of synchronic states of languages. It was inevitable, however, that generativists should eventually turn their attention to historical linguistics and seek to re-interpret the older laws of sound change in terms of modern rules, recognizing specifically the effects of the addition of new rules, the extension of rules by the removal of constraints, and the deletion or re-ordering of rules (King 1969: 39-63).

A Propos de la répartition des moyens interrogatifs relevés dans un corpus de français ontarien (Maury 1973) nous avions affleuré le problème de la fonction interrogative des éléments post-posés et notamment de hein?, en soulignant la variété observée dans la courbe mélodique des échantillons analysés instrumentalement.

L’étude publiée par Avis (1973) dans cette même revue à propos de eh? interrogatif en anglais—que ce eh? soit ou non spécifiquement canadien—nous a incitée à reprendre, à partir de nos données, l’examen de cet élément monophonique, qui se trouve bien évidemment exclu des manuels pédagogiques et est qualifié de façons diverses par les études analytiques—lorsqu’il s’y trouve pris en compte.

In a review of Dobson’s English Pronunciation 1500-1700, Helge Kökeritz (1961) listed the resources which he felt should be fully exploited before a comprehensive study of the development of modern English pronunciation could be attempted. They were: “major and minor orthoepists between 1550 and 1850; spellings in private documents between 1400 and 1800; rimes of all the poets between 1450 and 1750, as well as their stress patterns, with special emphasis on the rimes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and homonymie puns, mainly in the drama of these two centuries.”