The prosodic role of the French particle ‘Quoi’

A previous study (Vincent 1983, 1993) observed that French discourse particles, such as quoi, là, hein, en fait may lose their original pragmatic meaning and instead structure the discourse. It found that discourse particles that do not punctuate the discourse have different prosodic properties than those that do structure the discourse. The particles that punctuate the discourse are always attached to the preceding phrase and are never preceded by a melodic break. However, in the discourse, the prosodic role of the discourse particles that punctuate the speech is still weakly justified. Therefore, in this study, I investigated the prosodic function of the extensively used French particle quoi. I have recorded twenty minutes speech of four female participants, both in a slow and fast speaking rate. I hypothesized that the rate of speech would influence the rate of the particle quoi. Moreover, I postulated that the particle quoi would be located at the end of an Intonation Phrase and at the end of an Intermediate Phrase because of a pre-boundary lengthening on the last syllable of the Intonation and Intermediate Phrases. Results showed that the particle quoi is primarily located at the end of an Intonation Phrase and can be also situated at the end of an Intermediate Phrase. The particle is a substitute of the pre-boundary lengthening of the last vowel/consonant of an Intonation Phrase. Moreover, I found that the rate of speech does not influence the rate of occurrence the particle ‘quoi.Bachelor of Art