Fukuoka Japanese wh prosody in production and perception

The relationship between wh prosody and wh scope in Tokyo Japanese has been both empirically and theoretically controversial. This paper examines the production and perception of wh prosody in the Fukuoka dialect. Results confirm that the characteristic wh prosodic contour and the relationship between wh prosody and wh scope identified in earlier impressionistic and small-scale empirical studies can be observed in the speech of young-adult, linguistically naive speakers of this dialect. However, wh prosody and the prosody/scope relationship show variation both within and between speakers. In particular, the relationship between wh prosody and wh scope is not necessarily the same in perception and production, even for the same speaker; this is consistent with previous findings from Tokyo Japanese.