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This paper presents the first dialectometric analysis of intonational variation of standard spoken Romanian. The data analysed (26,680 sentences) were gathered within the AMPER-ROM project and the dialectometrical analysis has been carried out with ProDis. The results are consistent with the geolinguistic descriptions of Romanian varieties. ProDis identified two major areas for yes-no questions: a central-eastern one (Moldo-Walachian), with rising contours, and a central-western one (Transylvanian, discontinuously continuing over Bukovina to Bessarabia--the Republic of Moldova--), which presents also falling contours. The study suggests that intonational areas are somehow more conservative of and (relatively) independent from segmental dialectal areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, based on an experimental corpus of 1,020 sentences, provides a description of the intonation of wh-questions in Central Catalan, which had not been studied in depth so far. The data show that wh-questions display a greater variety of intonation patterns than yes/no questions. The paper argues that each intonation pattern is preferably associated with a specific pragmatic meaning (asking for information, offering information, giving an order and so far). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]