A scaling contrast in Majorcan Catalan interrogatives

This paper reports the application of the Categorical Perception Paradigm (CP) to a pith height contrast in Majorcan Catalan. The first hypothesis is that pitch height is the primary perceptual cue in distinguishing yes-no questions from wh-questions in Majorcan Catalan. The second hypothesis predicts that, as in previous studies, the application of the CP involves the presence of order of presentation effects in the results of the discrimination task. The results show that the primary perceptual cue is the presence of upstep in yes-no questions and confirm the existence of an order of presentation effect that deserves further investigation. 1