Alternative questions in Urdu

From the speech signal to semantics

Abstract

This paper extends LFG’s abilities to include information coming directly from the speech signal (B¨ogel 2015, 2022; Butt & Biezma 2022). We do this by developing an analysis and concomitant computational implementation for alternative vs. polar questions in Urdu. The implementation allows for a seamless integration of data from the speech signal into a semantic analysis of questions. We build on, but also go beyond, Butt & Biezma (2022), who included a semantic and pragmatic analysis, but did not demonstrate how exactly this could be arrived at on the basis of their c- and f-structural analyses. As far as we are aware, LFG is to date the only theoretical linguistic approach that is able to connect syntactic, semantic and pragmatic representations holistically with information coming directly from the speech signal.