Production data have shown that one of the features distinguishing uptalk rises from question rises in New Zealand English (NZE) is the alignment point of the rise start, which is earlier in question utterances realized by younger speakers. Previous research has indicated that listeners are sensitive to this distinction in making a forced-choice decision as to whether an utterance is a statement or a question. NZE is also characterized by an ongoing merger of the NEAR and SQUARE diphthongs, with younger speakers more likely to realize the vowel in a word such as care with a closer starting point (as in [iɘ], overlapping with their realization of the NEAR vowel), whereas older speakers would have more open starting point (as in [eɘ]). The current study uses the mouse-tracking paradigm to provide evidence that the realization of SQUARE with an innovative vs. a conservative variant in a word early in an utterance affects NZE listeners’ sensitivity firstly to a rise as a potential signal of an uptalked statement and secondly to the early alignment of the rise as a signal of a question. This finding indicates that the interpretation of prosodic variability can depend on speaker characteristics imputed from other sociophonetic cues.

中文翻译：

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在伴随的社会语音线索的背景下对韵律变异性的解释

生产数据表明，新西兰英语 (NZE) 中区分上升和问题上升的特征之一是上升开始的对齐点，这是较早的年轻说话者意识到的问题话语。先前的研究表明，听者在做出关于话语是陈述还是问题的强制选择决定时对这种区别很敏感。NZE 的另一个特点是 NEAR 和 SQUARE 双元音的不断合并，年轻的说话者更有可能以更接近的起点（如在 [iɘ] 中，与他们对 NEAR 元音的实现重叠）在诸如 care 之类的词中实现元音)，而较老的说话者会有更开放的起点（如 [eɘ]）。当前的研究使用鼠标跟踪范式来提供证据表明，在话语早期的单词中使用创新与保守变体实现 SQUARE 会影响 NZE 听众的敏感度，首先是作为高调语句的潜在信号的上升和其次以提早对准上涨作为问题的信号。这一发现表明，对韵律变异性的解释可能取决于从其他社会语音线索推算的说话者特征。