Aproximación a la entonación de <em>A fala</em>

A Fala is the name of an Ibero-Romance language of the Galician-Portuguese branch located in Sierra de Gata (Caceres, Extremadura). It has three dialects: Valverdeiru, Lagarteiru and Manegu. There are not many descriptive studies of the language. Our goal is to determine the intonation of A Fala and its varieties, specifically the most frequent nuclear contours in declaratives, yes-no questions and wh-questions. We recorded 12 speakers in semi-spontaneous and read speech, and analyzed the main intonational contours using Autosegmental-Metrical Theory. The results show a preference for specific nuclear contours in the three sentence types, (L+)H* L%. There are differences between semi-spontaneous and read speech related to the latter’s formal character. In read speech, speakers present nuclear contours similar to those found in Central Spanish, their language of education. Pending a detailed comparison with Spanish, Galician and Portuguese, it appears that there are two intonation groups among the Fala dialects: the Valverdeiru variety displays nuclear contours that are closer to those of Central Spanish, while those found in Lagarteiru and Manegu are more similar to the Galician-Portuguese type.