Language Contact, Language Ecology, and Intonational Variation in the Yami Community.

This study investigates socioprosodic variation in Yami, a moribund indigenous language under intense contact with Mandarin in Taiwan: 32 bilingual (Yami-dominant, balanced, Mandarin-dominant) and 5 Yami-monolingual participants were recruited. We used an Interactive Card Game to elicit semi-spontaneous speech for neutral questions (NQ), default declarative questions (DQ1), and declarative questions with lighter incredulity (DQ2). Results reveal that (1) yes/no question intonation in Yami is highly variable; (2) on a broad community level, the DQ1-DQ2 distinction is absent from Yami; and (3) there is prosodic hybridization and innovation in bilingual speech.