Intonational rises and interaction structure in Sydney Aboriginal English

Despite their ubiquity in intonational research, high rising terminal (HRT) intonation contours have not been investigated in Aboriginal varieties of Australian English. This paper investigates the form, alignment and use of declarative rises in the Aboriginal English spoken in Sydney. It is shown that Aboriginal speakers used five distinct types of declarative rises: high rises, low and high-range lowonset rises, and low and high-range fall-rises. Rises of the five categories were realised differently both with regard to alignment and f0 excursion. When tested against discourse context, the rises were found to have longer trajectories in interactions with little competition for dominance, and shorter excursions when either participant was dominating the floor.