lecture 13 intonation ii

8/22/2019 Lecture 13 Intonation II

1/20

INTONATION

(Chapter 17)


2/20

Tone-unit

When a tonic syllable is followed by a

tail, the tail continues and completes the

tone begun on the tonic syllable

The easier case is that of rising and

falling tones

The more complicated one is that with

the fall-rise and rise-fall


3/20

Fall-rise and rise-fall + a tail

Can be quite difficult to recognise when

they are extended over tails since their

characteristic pitch movements are often

broken up or distorted by the structure of

the syllables on which they occur


4/20

The pitch movementon some

If a syllable is added,the fall part of the fall-

rise is usually carriedby the 1st syll. andthe rise part by the2nd: e.g. some men


5/20

If the continuity of voicing is broken,

i.e. if there are voiceless medial cons. to cause a

break in the voicing ...

E.g. some chairs


6/20

The tonal rhyme is applied ...

Just as baloon rhymes with moon,

some chairs has tonal rhyme with

some


7/20

Tail of 2 or more syllables

Normally the pitch is expected to fall on

the tonic syllable and to remain low until

the last stressed syllable in the tail. The

pitch then rises from that point up to theend of the tone unit.

If there is no stressed syllable in the tail,

the rise happens on the final syllable(Roach, p.172)


8/20

Rise-fall case

If the tonic syllable is followed by a

single syllable in the tail, the rise part of

the tone takes place on the first (tonic)

syllable and the fall part on the second(Roach, p. 173)


9/20

High and low heads

Head = all the part of a tone unitextending from the 1st stressed syllableup to, but not including the tonic

syllable. Pitch contrasts have been discussed so

far only as possible choices of tone forthe tonic syllable

However, there are different pitchpossibilities in the head as well.


10/20

High head

High head the stressed syllable which

begins the head is high in pitch; it is

usually higher than the beginning pitch

of the tone on the tonic syllable (Roach,p. 174)


11/20

Low head

Low head the stressed syllable which

begins the head is low in pitch; it is

usually lower than the beginning pitch of

the tone on the tonic syllable


12/20

Unstressed syllables

It is usual for these to continue the pitch of the stressedsyllable that precedes them (Roach, p 174)

When there is more than one stressed syllable in the

head, there is usually a slight change in pitch from thelevel of one stressed syllable to that of the next, thechange being in the direction of the beginning pitch ofthe tone of the tonic syllable

When a high head is followed by a rise, the stressedsyllables tend to move downwards towards thebeginning pitch of the tone in the tonic syllable


13/20

Declination

The intonation pattern starting at a fairly

high pitch, with a gradual dropping down

of pitch during the utterance, is the most

basic, normal, unmarked intonationpattern; this movement is often called

declination.


14/20

Marks and

Used for two different purposes: to indicatestress, either primary or secondary

In intonation: the mark indicates the

stressed syllable in the high head and themark indicates the stressed syllable in thelow head

A much more important difference isbetween the tonic stress and non-tonicstressed syllables


15/20

Intonation is carried by the stressed

syllables of a tone-unit and the pitch of

unstressed syllables is either predictable

from that of stressed syllables or is of solittle importance that it is not marked at

all.


16/20

Problems in analysing the form of

intonation

1) identifying the tonic syllable:

it is the only syllable in the tone-unitthat carries a movement in pitch

BUT:

a) When the tonic syllable is followed bya tail, the tone is carried by the tonic

+ tail together so that often no pitchmovement can be detected on thetonic syllable itself


17/20

b) One of the tones is the level tone so

that in such cases the tonic syllable is

identified only as the most prominent

syllable.

c) It sometimes seems as if some tone-

units contain not one but two tonic

syllables, the first having the a fall on itand the other having a rise (R., p.177)


18/20

2) Identifying tone-unit boundaries

Grammar: utterances can contain one or

more sentences; the boundary between

them can be identified on grammatical

grounds

Suprasegmental phonology:

Utterances may be divided into tone-units

that can be identified on

phonetic/phonological grounds


19/20

It is possible to detect a sudden change in

pitch level at the end of one tone-unit and the

beginning of the following (speakers tend to

return home to a particular pitch level tobegin the new tone-unit)

Rhythmical grounds: within the tone-unit

speech has a regular rhythm which is broken

or interrupted at the tone-unit boundary


20/20

lecture 13 intonation ii

Documents