Editing Question (section)

==== Intonation ====
Most languages have an intonational pattern which is characteristic of questions (often involving a raised pitch at the end, as in English).

In some languages, such as [[Italian grammar|Italian]], intonation is the sole distinction.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}

In some languages, such as English, or Russian, a [[rising declarative]] is a sentence which is syntactically declarative but is understood as a question by the use of a rising intonation. For example, "You're not using this?"

On the other hand, there are English dialects (Southern Californian English, New Zealand English) in which rising declaratives (the "[[uptalk]]") do not constitute questions.<ref>[[Paul Warren (professor)|Paul Warren]]<!--https://people.wgtn.ac.nz/Paul.Warren--> (2017) "The interpretation of prosodic variability in the context of accompanying sociophonetic cues", Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology, 8(1), 11. {{doi|10.5334/labphon.92}} (Paper presented at the Third Experimental and Theoretical Approaches to Prosody workshop)

* More on uptalk of this author: Paul Warren, ''Uptalk: the phenomenon of rising intonation'', Cambridge University Press. 2016, {{ISBN|978-1107123854}} (hardcover), ([https://www.amazon.com/Uptalk-Phenomenon-Intonation-Paul-Warren-ebook/dp/B017205HLC kindle edition])</ref> However it is established that in English [[Rising declarative|there is a distinction]] between ''assertive'' rising declaratives and ''inquisitive'' rising declaratives, distinguished by their [[prosody (linguistics)|prosody]].