Department of English Studies
Let’s consider the following example first:
Question: What is the difference in the way the following two sentences sound?
- What is intonation?
- Intonation is a term used to refer to the distinctive use of different patterns of pitch that carry meaningful information.
Pitch is the rate of vibration of the vocal folds. When we speak, normally the pitch of our voice is constantly changing. We describe pitch in terms of high and low.
- Two common examples of one-syllable utterances are ‘yes’ and ‘no’. We have a number of choices for saying these words using different pitch patterns.
- The two words can be said with the pitch remaining at a constant level (level intonation) which is not common, or with the pitch changing from one level to another (moving intonation) which is more natural.
- Moving Intonation:
- Rising intonation means the pitch of the voice increases over time;
- falling intonation means that the pitch decreases with time.
- If the same utterance is produced with different intonation, the meaning conveyed will be different. This difference is signaled by intonation patterns.
- In English, such different intonation patterns have different syntacticfunctions. One sentence can be a question, a declarative statement, an expression of surprise, or an expression of doubt. Compare:
- ‘right?’with a rising tone
- ‘right.’ with a falling tone
- In English, the utterance ‘It is a cat’ will be regarded as a statement when there is a fall in pitch, and the same utterance will be regarded as a question if the pitch rises.
- Stress : applied to units larger than phonemes (-> segmental phonology), i.e. syllables
- Intonation : pitch of voice plays an important part; it is constantly changing during speech; analysing intonation refers to listening to the speaker´s pitch and recognising what it is doing
- Defined in terms of high and low (arbitrary choices for end-points of the pitch scale)
- Auditory sensation experienced by the hearer
- We are not interested in all aspects of a speaker´s pitch, but in those that carry some linguistic information
- Speakers have control over their own pitch of voice, and the possibility of choice (this may have linguistic significance)
Necessary conditions for pitch differences to be linguistically relevant
- Being under speaker´s control
- Pitch differences must be perceptible (great enough to be heard by a listener as differences in pitch)
- Significance in linguistics lies in contrasts (a set of items a unit contrasts with)
Form and function of intonation
- In the shortest piece of speech – single syllable
- A continuous piece of speech beginning and ending with a pause – utterance
- One syllable utterances like “yes” and “no”
- Even in one syllable words we can either remain at a constant pitch level or change it
Importantdefinitions (Crombie, 1987)
Tonality: "dividingtheflow of speechintotonegroupsortoneunits"
Tonicity:"locatingthesyllablesonwhichmajormovements of pitch occur "
Tone: "identifyingthedirection of pitch movements "
- It is the term used for the overall behaviour of the pitch
- It can be level or moving
- The latter is more common
- Level tone does not sound natural
- When saying yes or no in a final manner, falling tone is usually used
- Whereas for questioning rising tone is used (compare yes/no and yes/no?)
Tone and tone languages
- Tone is marked before the syllable:
In this way we can also mark the high tone level and low tone level
This is not always the case for all languages i.e Chinese, where the tone can determine the meaning of the wordin question _ma ma ma
Speech may be divided into tone units (Tonality).Each tone unit is composed of:
Slide 14 Slide 15
- Any syllables between the tonic syllable and the end of the tone unit are called the tail:
look at it what did you say
both of them were here
When it is necessary to mark a stress in a tail we use a dot (•):
what did you • say both of them were •here
(pre-head) (head) tonic syllable (tail)
(PH) (H) TS (T)
Tonicity: locatingthesyllablesonwhichmajormovements of pitch occur (tonicsyllables)
Pitch movement in the tail
tonic syllable: where pitch movement begins
tail: syllables after the tonic syllable
-my \hampster likes Britney Spears
-my /hampster likes Britney Spears
-my vhampster likes Britney Spears
Complex tones and pitch height
Fall: neutral statement, conclusion
Rise: questioning, doubt, desire to continue conversation
- E.g. Have you seen Ann lately?
- Yes… (Rising intonation indicates ‘I want to continue the conversation, I am curious’)
Rise-Fall: emphatic statement, irritation, command
- Do I really have to clean my room?
Fall-Rise: surprise, scepticism
- Ann and Peter were on good terms at the party?
Level: boredom, lack of interest
- Can you remember Peter Jackson, the cost consultant for our company in Taiwan? The other day in the office I invited him for dinner, he’ll be coming tomorrow.
We shall begin by considering the fall: here is a tone unit solely composed of a tonic syllable
Things become more complicated when we add syllables
In this case there are no stressed syllables before the tonic: ‘I said’ is the pre-head
Here we have added a stressed syllable, ‘told’, before the tonic, which is called the head. Notice how the intonation rises from the pre-head
Here we have added syllables after the tonic, this is called the tail. Note how it tends to follow the intonation pattern of the tonic.
This is obviously not the only possible realisation of this sentence. If we put the main stress on ‘told’, it changes the pattern completely
In a similar way a rising tonic syllable will condition its tail: here ‘when’ is the tonic syllable
Again when we come to complex tone we find the tail following the tonic syllable: for a fall-rise the fall occurs on the tonic and the rise at the end of the tail
No matter how many syllables there are in the tail, the rise finishes on the last
While diagrams are immediate and clear, a more practical system of symbols has been developed to denote innotation
Stressed syllables in the head are noted with a vertical tick
- I want togo to the dentist´s.
Stressed syllables in the tail are noted with a dot
- I want togo to the dentists to•morrow
Double vertical lines divide tone units
Divide the following utterances into tone units and decide where the tonic or nucleus might fall in each tone unit:
1. The first student to finish can go early
2. Sadly, Maurice has gone away
3. The person who was watching me left a ticket behind
4. Alan couldn't make it so Ken took his place
//The first student to finish// can go early//
//Sadly// Maurice has gone away//
// The person who was watching me //left a ticket behind//
//Alan couldn't make it //so Ken took his place//
Intonation 1, 2, 3 & 4.
Practice pitch curves
BenjaminZander, director de la Royal Philarmonic orquesta :
Thank you very much for your attention!!!