Analysis of intonational phrasing in West Greenlandic Eskimo reading text

West Greenlandic Inuit Eskimo intonation has been described previously at word, phrase, and sentence levels (Mase 1973, Rischel 1974, Nagano-Madsen 1992, 1993). The present study attempts to extend the previous descriptions of intonation in this language by analysing text reading material, with focus on the phrasing function of intonation. The phrasing function of intonation has received much attention in recent years both from theoretical and practical perspectives. In many languages, coherence among words or phrases is indicated by means of downstepping, by resetting F0 at a higher level for the next unit. Pilot work on West Greenlandic Eskimo indicates that such a phrasing function of intonation is likely to exist in this language as well. Furthermore, West Greenlandic Eskimo is known to make use of phrase-final tone to mark prosodic phrases (Mase 1973, Rischel 1974, Nagano-Madsen 1988, 1993).
In this paper, the phrasing function of intonation is analysed with reference to the following strategies: (1) use of phrase-final ton , and (2) F0 reset.