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PHONETICS

AND
PHONOLOGY III

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PROGAM

Unit 11
Prominence, Pitch, Loudness, Length, Quality, Stress.
English rhythm vs. Spanish rhythm. - Stressed-time vs. Syllable-time - English versus Spanish accent.
Levels of stress
Accentuation in connected speech <-(Stress Shift) -> Rhythmical modifications.
Word stress and morphology; suffixation
Stress according to grammatical category
Accentuation in compounds
Nucleolus placement: The traditional model.
Newness and Givennes.
LLI rule. Exceptions to the LLI rule (Last lexical item)

Unit 22
Intonation. Why Intonation is meaningful? Why Intonation is grammatical? Why Intonation is attitudinal?
Attitude and Meaning.
Falling and Rising Tones in Statements and different Question Forms.
Statements, WH-Questions, Yes/No Questions, Question Tags.
Breath groups/tone groups
The Fall or High Drop; The Slump or Low Drop; The Rise or TakeOff; The Climb or High Bounce; The
Switchback or Fall-Rise; The Jackknife or Rise-Fall; The Long Jump.

Unit 3
Emphasis and Intonation
Contrast and Intonation
Intonation among the anglophone speakers
The importance of the second language intonation practice
Intonation in other patterns. Commands and Interjections
How does Pragmatics affect the way speakers outline their utterances?

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Word Stress and Sentence Accent by Hector Ortiz Lira
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Intonation Of Colloquial English by O Connor and Arnold // Englñish Phonetics and Phonology by Peter Roach //
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INDEX

PROGAM ........................................................................... 2 Contrastive Focus .......................................................... 16


Pronouns and Demonstratives ...................................... 16
INDEX ................................................................................ 3 Prepositions................................................................... 16
BASIC CONCEPTS ............................................................... 4 WH + to be .................................................................... 16
Empty words and pro-forms ......................................... 16
THE PROSODIC FEATURES .................................................. 4 Nucleus on last noun ..................................................... 16
Accenting old material .................................................. 16
PROMINENCE .......................................................................4 Knowledge: shared, common and imputed .................. 17
STRESS ................................................................................5 TONE ............................................................................... 17
Elements which produce prominence ..........................5 Word groups ............................................................. 17
Level of stress ..............................................................5 Tune .......................................................................... 17
Word Stress Notation ..................................................6 The Seven Basic Tunes or General Patterns .................. 17
The distinctive function of stress .................................6 1. Low Fall.......................................................... 17
Stress Shift ...................................................................7 2. High Fall ......................................................... 17
Rules ............................................................................7 3. Rise Fall .......................................................... 17
Stress in English Simple Words ....................................8 4. Low Rise......................................................... 17
RHYTHM..............................................................................8 5. High Rise ........................................................ 17
6. Fall Rise .......................................................... 17
Types of Rhythm: .........................................................8
7. Mid Level ....................................................... 17
Units of rhythm ............................................................9 Tune parts ..................................................................... 18
INTONATION ........................................................................9  Nucleus .......................................................... 18
The anatomy of English Intonation .............................9  Tail ................................................................. 18
The Functions of Intonation. ......................................10  Head .............................................................. 18
THE THREE TS ....................................................................10 o Low Head.................................................. 18
TONALITY (OR CHUNKING) ....................................................10 o High Head ................................................. 18
The Intonation Phrase (IP) ........................................... 10 o Falling Head .............................................. 18
Chunking ....................................................................11 o Rising Head ............................................... 18
TONICITY ...........................................................................11  Pre Head ........................................................ 18
Nuclear Accent ..........................................................11 o Low Pre Head ........................................... 18
Nucleus Placement Theory: The Traditional Model ...... 12 o High Pre Head........................................... 18
LLI Rule.......................................................................... 12 Tone Groups .................................................................. 18
Newness and Giveness ................................................. 12 The Low Drop or Slump ............................................ 18
Given information ......................................................... 12 The High Drop .......................................................... 18
Nucleus placement and Giveness ................................. 13 The Take-Off ............................................................ 18
LlI Rule Exceptions ........................................................ 13 The Low Bounce ....................................................... 18
Basic principles ..........................................................15 The Switchback ........................................................ 18
On a stressed syllable ................................................... 15 The Long Jump ......................................................... 19
On or near the last word ............................................... 15 The High Bounce or Climb ........................................ 19
Content and Function words ........................................ 15 The Jacknife.............................................................. 19
Information status: The old and the New ..................... 16 The High Dive ........................................................... 19
Synonyms ...................................................................... 16 The Terrace .............................................................. 19
Broad and Narrow Focus .............................................. 16

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BASIC CONCEPTS
Syllable: Is an unit of sound that contains one vowel sound.

THE PROSODIC FEATURES

The term prosody and its adjective prosodic is concerned with those elements of speech that are not individual vowels and consonants but are
properties of syllables and larger units of speech. These contribute to such linguistic functions as intonation, tone, stress, and rhythm. Prosody
may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of the speaker; the form of the utterance (statement,
question, or command); the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus; or other elements of language that may not be
encoded by grammar or by choice of vocabulary.

Prominence
The term prominence refers to the emphasis we give to some parts of an utterance when we speak. Word stress is a feature used to give
prominence to one or more syllables within a word.

Prominence Accent Stress


Is exclusively a phonetic notion used to refer Has phonological status Has phonological status
to the general distinctiveness of an
utterance of any length

Feature of the utterance i.e accent is an Feature of the word i.e stress is a potentian
exponent of stress for accent since depending on the context
the word can or cannot bare accent .
Feature of prominence whose main Feature of prominence in which the
perceptual component is pitch change. That dominant perceptual component is loudness
is why it is sometimes called pitch accent.
Not all prominent syllables are accented The majority of accented syllables are
prominent

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Stress

It is a cover term for the combined effects of pitch, loudness, quality and length – the result is of which is a syllable prominence.

Stress from the point of view of:


 Production: It is what the speaker does in producing stressed syllables. It is generally believed to depend on the speaker using more
muscular energy than what it is used for unstressed syllables.

 Perception: It is what characteristics of sounds make a syllable seem to a listener to be stressed. Many different sounds are
important in making a syllable stressed.

Elements which produce prominence

Element Articulatory point of view Auditorily Point of view


(How they are produced) (How the listener perceives them)
Pitch The tenser the vocal folds, the faster they vibrate, and the It is that quality of a sound in terms of which it can be placed
(Sound higher the note that is produced. on a scale running from high to low or acute to grave.
Frequency)
Length Is the property of a sound that enables us, using our ears to
(Duration) place it in a scale going from long to short.
Loudness It is caused by greater muscular energy and breath force Is the property of a sound which enables us to place it on a
(Intensity) scale going from loud to soft. So the speakers feel extra
energy and the listener hear it as extra loudness.
Quality It depends on the shape of the resonators and cavities Is the feature that differentiates two sounds that have the
(mainly the mouth), whose function is to modify the same pitch, loudness and length.
almost inaudible note produced at the vocal folds.

Correlates Syllables
Pitch High/acute ------ low/grave
Loudness loud ------------- soft
Length long ------------- short
Quality strong ---------- weak

In every word of two or more syllables, one of the syllables is stronger than the other, what makes a syllable sound emphasized or stressed.
A combination of three features creates syllable stress:
* Length: the vowel in the stressed syllable is longer.
* Pitch: the stressed syllable has a higher pitch.
* Clear vowel: the stressed syllable has a full, clear vowel.

Level of stress

1) Primary Stress: Is the prominence that results from the pitch movement, or tone.
 The IPA symbol used to mark primary stress is [ˈ]
 It occurs with any of the strong vowels.
 Stress on the first syllable: snippet - /ˈsnipit/
 Stress on the second syllable: exist - / igˈzist/

2) Secondary stress: is an intermediate degree of stress that occurs when in a word we already have a primary stress but there is a
strong vowel in another syllable that sounds too strong to be unstressed, but not strong enough to be the stressed syllable.
 The IPA symbol used to mark secondary stress is [ˌ]
 For example in the word “Pronunciation” we have five syllables: prə nʌn sɪ eɪ ʃən
The 4th syllable /eɪ/ has the greatest degree of prominence and so will be marked as stressed /prənʌnsɪˈeɪʃən/
The first, third and fifth syllables all contain weak vowels so they are unstressed.
The remaining one, the 2nd, has the strong vowel /ʌ/ and sounds too strong to be unstressed, but not strong enough to be
the stressed syllable: /prəˌnʌnsɪˈeɪʃən/.

3) Unestressed Syllables: Is the absence of any recognizable amount of prominence.


They occur when there is a /ə/ or /ɪ/ /ʊ/ + consonant.
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Word Stress Notation
The tonetic-stress marking system invented by Kingdom in 1939 is one of the most widely used in intonation courses produced in Britain.
These marks have been recommended y the IPA for over 70 years. Stress marks are placed either before or on top of each syllable bearing the
stress. Several sub-systems can be identified:

Used at Josefina Contte Institute in Corrientes

Used at Dardo Rocha Institute in Chaco

The distinctive function of stress

A) Same spelling
In English stress may distinguish between pairs of words of identical spelling and identical or similar phonemic pattern. This function may
operate both in simple words and nouns + modifiers.

 Nouns and adjectives take stress on the first syllable.


 Verbs take stress on the second syllable

In the case of simple words the tendency is for nouns and/or adjectives to be stressed on the first syllable, and verbs on the last:

Accent: (n) /‘æks ənt/; (v)/æk ‘sent/ Conduct: (n) /‘kɒn dʌkt/; (v) /kən ‘dʌkt/
Contrast: (n) /‘kɒn trɑːst/; (v) /kən ‘trɑːst/ Object: (n) /‘ɒb dʒekt/; (v) /əb ‘dʒekt/
Extract: (n) /‘eks trækt/; (V) /ɪk ‘strækt/ Protest: (n) /‘prəʊt est/; (v) /prə ‘test/
Present: (n) (adj) /‘prez ənt/; (v) /pri ‘zent/ Suspect: (n) (adj) /‘sʌsp ekt/; (v) /sə ‘spekt/
Subject: (n) (adj) /‘sʌb dʒekt/; (v) /səb ‘dʒekt/ Desert: (n) /‘dez ət/; (v) /di ‘zɜːt/
Convict: (n) /‘kɒn vɪkt/; (v) /kən ‘vɪkt/ Permit: (n) /‘pɜːm ɪt/; (v) /pə ‘mɪt/
Contract: (n) /‘kɒn trækt/; (v) /kən ‘trækt/ Rebel: (n) /‘reb əl/; (v) /rɪ ‘bel/
Progress: (n) /‘prəʊ ɡres/; (v) /prəʊ ‘ɡres/ Export: (n) /‘eks pɔːt/; (v) /ɪk ‘spɔːt/
Survey: (n) /‘sɜːv eɪ/; (v) /sə ‘veɪ/ Record: (n) (adj) /‘rek ɔːd/; (v) /ri ‘kɔːd/
Project: (n) /‘prɒdʒ ekt /; (v) /prə ‘dʒekt/

There are few cases where stress does not function distinctively, i.e. verbs and nouns/adjectives have the same phonemic and stressed
forms, e.g. address, comment, concrete, deposit, express, process, answer.

B) Noun Phrases and Compounds


As to nouns + modifiers, different accentual patterns may distinguish between noun phrases and established compound. For instance, a
green’house denotes a house painted that colour; but a ‘greenhouse is a special building used for growing plants.
A ‘blackbird: a kind of bird: Turdus merula.
A black’bird: any bird which is black.
‘English Teacher: a teacher of English.
English ‘Teacher: a native teacher of English.

C) two-word verbs vs nouns


Many two-word verbs give origin to nouns. Only the placement of stress distinguishes the verb from the noun.

Verb Noun
Hold-‘up a ‘hold-up
Let-‘down a ‘let-down
Take-‘off a ‘take-off
Walk-‘over a ‘walk-over

Verb + participle: it would be a verb if the participle is stressed.


Verb + participle: it would be a noun if the verb is stressed.
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More information on compounds
Compound nouns are generally stressed on the first element. However, there are compounds which are pronounced with a stress on the
last element. One group of expressions of this type comprises those where the first element names the material or ingredient out of which
a thing is made.
A rubber ‘duck - paper ‘plates - cheese ‘sandwiches – apple ‘crumble – a pork ‘pie
(They have primary and secondary stress)

Exceptions: Expressions involving cake, juice, water e.g. ‘almond cake; ‘orange juice; ‘barley water.
In names of thoroughfares, note that all take late stress except street, which takes early stress.
Melrose ‘Road; Lavender ‘Crescent; Oxford ‘Circus; King’s ‘Avenue (they have primary and secondary stress)
‘Gover Street.

Stress Shift3
Some words seem to change their stress pattern in connected speech; the position of the stress is shifted when the words is followed in a
phrase by a more strongly stressed word. Words which are likely to undergo stress shift are marked ◂ in the dictionary.
It is claimed that English speech tends towards a regular alteration between stronger and weaker, and tends to adjust stress level to bring
this about. Stresses are altered according to the context. (By Diana Finch)

Rules
Many words in English have no systematic rules for stressed and unstressed syllables. Other words have rules that are too complicated to
be useful.
You can sometimes determine where stress falls in a word on the basis of its part of speech. In other words, recognizing that a word is a
noun or a verb can sometimes help you with syllable stress.
1) Compound nouns: stress the first word in the compound more than second word. ‘Airport.
2) Two-noun compound: stress often falls on the first noun (or the main syllable of the first noun). Com’puter lab.
3) Reflexive pronouns: stress –self or –selves. Her’self.
4) Ten and teen numbers: stress the –teen syllables. Four’teen.
5) Verb + prefix and a base: stress the base or the second element. Over’look.
6) Two-word phrasal verbs: stress the participle, or second element, more strongly. Shut ‘up. Sometimes phrasal verbs have noun
equivalents. ‘Take-out
7) Compound adverbs indicating location or direction: stress the second part of the compound adverb. Down’town.
8) Two-syllable words used as both nouns and verbs: stress the first in nouns and the second syllable in verbs. ‘Present; pre’sent.
9) Suffixes (-ic; -ify; -graphy; -ical; -ogy; -ious/-eous; -ial; -ity; -tion/-sion; -ian): stress the syllables inmediately the second syllable
before the suffixes. ‘Official.
10) Suffixes (-ee; -eer; -ese; -esque; -ique and –ette): Stress the syllable with each of the suffixes. Tech’nique.
11) –ate suffix: stress the second sylable before the suffix. Su’bordinate. Verbs end in the –ate suffix are common in scientific,
academic, and business contexts. However, the second syllable before the suffix should be stressed (‘Estimate), even if an –ed
(‘Estimated) or –ing (‘Estimating) is added. The stress shifts to another syllable only when –ion is added (Esti’mation).

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See more at Word Stress and Sentence Accent by Hector Ortiz Lira pp15
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Stress in English Simple Words
Simple Words are those made up of a single grammatical unit (Called stem), eg: photograph.
Complex words: are those formed adding affixes (Prefixes or suffixes) to simple words, eg: photography
For EFL purposes though, Complex words are considered simple too.

Phonemes Stressed Prominent Non-Prominent Comments


Strong Vowels (long)
i:
a:
ɔː May be stressed (Primary or secondary) or unstressed.
u: They always make the syllable prominent
ɜː
all diphthongs

Strong Vowels (short)


ɪ *
e
æ
May be stressed (Primary or secondary) or unstressed
ɒ
ʊ *
ʌ

Weak vowels
Unstressable vowel cannot occur with neither primary
i
nor secondary stress
ɪ
May be stressed (Primary or secondary) or unstressed
ʊ
u Unstressable vowel cannot occur with neither primary
ə nor secondary stress

Rhythm

It has traditionally been concerned as the way in which accented and unaccented syllables follow each other in the utterance.
Auditory point of view: It is described as the general impression caused by the prominent and non-prominent parts, and the way in which
they succeed each other in an utterance. According to Roach, the notion of rhythm involves some noticeable event happening at regular
intervals of time.

Types of Rhythm:

 Stress-timed implies that stressed syllable will tend to occur at relatively regular intervals whether they are separated by
unstressed syllables or not, this would not be the case of mechanical speech.

 Syllable-timed: they are the syllables, either accented or unaccented, which tend to occur at more or less regular time intervals
and the time between stressed syllables will be shorter or longer in proportion to the number or unstressed syllables.

Spanish Rhythm can be said to have a syllable-timed rhythm because the time taken to produce a Spanish utterance will be proportionate to
the number of syllables it contains.
English Rhythm has a stress-timed rhythm because the accented syllables tend to occur at fairly regular intervals.

Spanish rhythm has some characteristics in common with English rhythm, very much the same type of words (content-function words) are
able to be accented in Spanish, this leads to easily identifiable rhythmic groups, each one containing an accented syllable with or without
the addition of unaccented ones.

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One of the differences between Spanish rhythm and English rhythm lies in the fact that Spanish vowel weakening in terms of quality and
quantity is very slight compared with English.

In actual speech the accented syllables are separated from each other by equal units of time, or in technical terms those rhythmic beats are
Isochronous.

Units of rhythm
 Foot: it is a unit of rhythm and begins with a stressed syllable. Moreover, it includes all following unstressed syllable up to the
following stressed syllable
 Pause: It is a feature which may either be grammatically predictable, and will therefore fit in naturally with the rhythmic groups,
or may break them up in unpredictable places – particularly in spontaneous speech.
There are two classifications for pauses:
 Predictable pauses: They are required for the speaker to take breath, or for the separation of grammatical units will
coincide with rhythmic group boundaries.
 Unpredictable pauses: They are produced by hesitations, false starts, etc, they may occur at any place in the utterance.

Intonation

Intonation is the melody of speech. Intonation studies how the pitch (tone) of the voice rises and falls, and how the speaker use this
variation.

Intonation Tone
It is more of a fluctuation of one’s voice. Being a fluctuation, it is Tone is shown or heard in how something is being said. It is more
characterized as the downward or upward movement of the voice like an attitude rather than being a voice pattern. It is somebody’s
or sound. general sound may he sound happy, upset, excited, angry or
ecstatic among other moods.

Tone languages Intonation languages


Substituting one distinctive tone for another on a particular word English do not use tone lexically so the choice of tone does not
or morpheme can cause a change in the dictionary (lexical) alter the lexical identity of the word.
meaning of a word or morpheme, or in some aspect of its English makes use of tone intonationally.
grammatical categorisation. Intonation is used to:
Eg: Mandarin Chinese 1- Break the utterance into chunks.
2- Distinguishing between clause types (question, statement…)
3- Focusing the listener’s attention in some parts of the utterance.
4- Differencing old and new information.

The anatomy of English Intonation

 Intonation is Significant
Utterances said with different tones and intonation; differ from each other in meaning.

 Intonation is Systematic
There is a limited number of pitch patterns in any language, so we use them to produce meaningful effects.

 Intonation is Characteristic

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The pitch patterns of English have neither the same pitch patterns of other languages, nor they produce the same effect as they
are in another language.

The Functions of Intonation.

 The Attitudinal Function. English speakers use tone to express attitudes and emotions (shock, surprise, anger, interest,
seriousness or sarcasms, etc.)
 The Grammatical Function. We use intonation to mark the beginning and end of grammatical units (clause, sentence, etc.). This is
the demarcative function and we do this by tonality. On the other hand, we use intonation to distinguish clause types (question or
statements). This is the syntactic function and we do this by tone.
 The Focusing/Accentual/Informational Function. Intonation helps speakers to know what information is new and what is already
known, so we have to emphasize some parts and not others. We do this by tonicity.
 The Discourse/Cohesive Function. Intonation shows how sequences of clauses and sentences go together in spoken discourse. It
functions like the division of written text into sentences and paragraphs. We are able to mark the end of the IP or whether we
want to keep talking or not.
 The Psychological Function. Intonation helps us with the organization of speech into units that are easy to memorize, to perform.
We do this by tonality because we have to split up units to understand and memorize.
 The Indexical Function. Intonation may act as a marker of personal or social identity. For example, mothers, lawyers, lovers,
officials, etc. have their characteristic intonation.

The Three Ts
As regard Intonation, English speakers face three types of decision when they speak: how to break the material up into chunks, which part
will be accented and what tones will be used. These linguistics intonation systems are known as Tonality, Tonicity and Tone.

Quick Overview
Tonality Tonicity Tone
It is the division of speech into IPs usually Is the decision over which words are going It is the use of pitch in language to
they coincide with syntactic units. to stand out within each tone unit. distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning
– that is to say to distinguish or inflect
words.

Tonality (or chunking)


It is the division of the spoken material into chunks. These chunks are known as intonation phrases or IPs. Each IP in an utterance
(statement) has its own intonation pattern (or “tune”). The speaker should present the material as two or three pieces of information
rather than as a single piece.

The Intonation Phrase (IP)4

For the purpose of analysing intonation a unit generally greater in size than the syllable is needed, and this unit is called a TONE UNIT.
To study the continuous pitch variations, the connected speech is divided into units of speech. In this way, we can perceive where ____
ends and where the next one begins. The phonological units devised for this is called TONE UNIT.

The structure of the Tone Unit


 The nucleus / tonic syllable (a syllable which carries a tone).
 The head (it starts with the first stressed syllable up to the nucleus or tonic syllable).
 The pre-head (it is composed of any unstressed syllables in a tone unit preceding the nucleus).
 The tail (continuous the pitch movement initiated by the nucleus, any syllable between the nucleus and the end of the tone unit
are called the TAIL.
 The onset (the first stressed syllable in the tone unit.

I’ll phone you tomo rrow


Pre-head Onset – Head Nucleus Tail

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Also called Tone Unit.
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Chunking

Signalling the structure:


An intonation break (the boundary between two successive intonation phrases) generally corresponds to a syntactic boundary. Regularly
we place an intonation break into sentences, clauses, phrases, words.
Sometimes lists can be ambiguous in meaning.

Choosing the size of the chunks:


Each intonation phrase presents one piece of information. The speaker has to break the message up into chunks of information, into IPs.
Also, the chunks reflect the speaker’s decision about focus the size of an IP is linked to the decisions the speaker makes about how many
words and syllables, to accent.
Tonality varies according to the style of speech.

Chunking and grammar: First, there is normally an intonation break at every sentence boundary. Second, each clause tends to be said as a
separate IP. So, if a sentence consists of several clauses, there will usually be an intonation break at each clause boundary. Third, if a new
sentence involves a change of grammatical subject, the subject tends to have its own IP. Forth, there is usually an intonation break between
coordinate clauses. However, if the coordinate clause is ellipted, there is no intonation break.

Adverbials
 Ordinary adverbs and adverbials (those who modify verb or adjective) do not have their own IP.
 Adverbials at the beginning of a clause form have a separate IP.
 In the middle of a clause, an adverbial may have its own IP, before and after it.
 Adverbs at the end of a clause may be adverbs of manner that modify the verb. Such adverbs tend to bear the nucleus.
 Sentence adverbials modify the whole clause or sentence; usually they have their own IP.
 If there are several final adverbials, they are separated by intonation breaks.

Heavy noun phrases


 A NP is likely to have its own IP if it is heavy (a long consisting of several words).
 A separate IP for the subject of a clause is more frequently found in reading aloud or in formal speeches rather than in everyday
conversations
 Objects are followed by an intonation break if they are heavy too.

· Topics: Theme and Rheme


The first element in a clause is the topic or theme, while the remainder is the comment or rheme.

· Relative clauses
Defining Non-defining
Does not have its own separate IP Does have its own IP
More frequent in conversation Not frequent in conversation

Tonicity
 The speaker accents the words which he consider important for the meaning they wish to convey (communicate). These are the
words on which the hearer focuses its attention. The speaker adds pitch prominence (a change in pitch, or the beginning of a pitch
movement) to the rhythm prominence.
 The speaker focuses the accent in the nucleus, which is the most important accent in the IP and it indicates the end of the focused
part of the material.
 The nucleus is marked out by being the place where the pitch change or the pitch movement for the nuclear tone begins. The
nucleus is usually placed at the end of the IP, but it can go somewhere else. If the nucleus of the IP is not at the end, the part that
follows the nucleus is called tail; if the nucleus is located at the end of the IP, there is no tail.

Nuclear Accent5

It refers to the syllable starting the last pitch movement. Its also the syllable that marks the beginning of the most meaningful portion of the
utterance.

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Word Stress and Sentence Accent by Hector Ortiz Lira – pp46
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It is also known as tonic syllable (Halliday, Crystal and Brazil), Terminal accent/last main accent/major accent (Bolinger), primary
accent/stress, terminal accent/stress, final accent/stress, focal accent/stress, sentence stress.

Definitions of nucleus can be classified into three main groups


Phonetic Distributional Functional
These definitions concentrate on the type They refer to the position in the intonation They say what the nucleus does. It’s the
of prominence displayed by the nuclear group preferred type of definition.
syllable
Stressed syllable The last prominent syllable The primary cue to what the speaker
Most prominent word The last fully stressed syllable considers the most important part of his
Major pitch movement The last main accent utterance.
The syllable carrying maximal prominence etc The chief means of signalling the focus
The syllable at which a significant pitch marking.
movement begins

Nucleus Placement Theory: The Traditional Model


It is a type of analysis that states the capacity of accentability according to the type of word.

More accentable word classes Less accentable word classes


Content words – Open class Function/grammatical words – Closed class

The above description of word classes has been incorporated into another traditional rule of nucleus placement, The Nuclear Accent on the
Last Lexical Item Rule (LLI).

LLI Rule6
The rule establishes that, unless there is a reason for doing otherwise, the nucleus of the IP –that is, its main accent- falls on the last lexical
item. At this point two clarifications are needed. First the distinction between lexical words (nouns, adjectives, adverbs and most verbs),
which are those words which convey a clear meaning, and function words (prepositions, articles, conjunctions, pronouns auxiliary verbs,
modal verbs and the copula verb be), which are best described in terms of their syntactic function. Second, it must be taken into account
the fact that the rule talks about “lexical items” and not words in order to include compounds.

Let’s see an example of how the LLI rule works:

In the utterance “(1) I don’t know what she’s talking about” the nucleus falls on the verb talking and not on the preposition about. In
general, this is somewhat difficult to grasp for Spanish speakers because the default word for the nucleus in Spanish is always the last one.
But unfortunately there is a world of difference in terms of pronunciation between saying

(2) I don’t know what she’s talking about.

and

(3) I don’t know what she’s talking about.

(2) is the correct version in English and, if we produce (3), we are placing an unnatural emphasis on a preposition, which might puzzle our
interlocutor and make him or her wonder if we are trying to imply something different. In the end, this will result in an unmistakingly
foreign accent.

Newness and Giveness


New information:
 Part of the information unit which the speaker has decided to present as not being already available to the hearer

Given information
 The speaker determines the condition of giveness
 Is optional and not marked by pitch
 Part of the information unit which the speaker decides to treat as already known or assumed.
 Given information can be established both linguistically (when it is physically present in the discourse) and situationally (when it is
related to a particular situation or non linguistic context).

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http://www.englishpronunciationmadrid.com/definition-lli-rule/
12
Nucleus placement and Giveness
In general terms deaccenting is related to givenness ,and accenting to newness. In this section we shall examine some of the main instances
or given information which, in spite of its condition is brought into focus and then reaccented.

Dialogues Case of reaccentuation of given information


A. Would you like a coffee? Recapitulation to make it clear to the speaker that he agrees
B. ‘Yes. A ‘coffee would be ,nice
A. Two oh six double three double one Recapitulation to check understanding
B. ˈ Two oh ˈ six double ˈ three double ‘one. ‘Right
A. Who discovered America? Reiterate information for clarification
B. ˈChristopher Co‘lumbus
A. Co‘lumbus. ‘Yes. ‘Excellent
(Because we´re so far away, I can never get fresh milk and yoghurt) Mark the beginning of a new aspect of the same topic
‘Yoghurt may ˈnot be as ˈcrucial as ‘milk, but…
And you decided to come back when there are no new items in the discourse context
I de ˈcided to come‘back. ‘Yes
We ˈhope to ˈshow the ˈreal Liverpool in ‘Liverpool when the same form conveys two different meanings (the form
Liverpool has two referents - the football team and the city)
It’s ˈnot what you said, it’s the ˈway you ‘said it because of intonation idiomaticity
The ˈwhole ‘class took part. But ˈonly the ‘girls got a prize Contrast
Buy me six pairs, will you? Echoes
ˈSix ´pairs?
What kind of rock do you like? Insists
I don’t ‘like rock

LlI Rule Exceptions

Exception Examples
Event Sentences:
 Sentences referring to historical events (past, The ՝water’s running. (Present Event)
present, future or presumed) An ՝accident happened. (Past Event)
 Both, the noun and the intransitive verb are new The ՝children will walk in. (Future Event)
information, but just the noun is accented. There’s a ՝bus coming. (Presumed Event)
 Also called “News Sentences”
Wh-questions ending with a verb 1-‘How’s the ՝homework going?
1- The nuclear accent normally goes on the noun 1-‘Where does ‘most of our fruit go?
rather than the verb. The noun represents the 1-‘Whose um՝brella have I taken?
object. 2-‘Whose ad’vice did you ‘find most ՝useful?
2- If the verb has further complementation, the 2-‘Which ‘programme do you ‘use to make ՝drawings with?
nuclear accent will not go on the object.
Final Relative Clauses7 ‘Can you see a ՝necklace here you’d like?
• The nuclear accent usually goes on the argument, ˅Pam, | have you got any ‘old maga՝zines you wouldn’t
irrespective of the condition of new or given mind giving away?
information in the clause, and the length of it. ‘Where’s the ՝book you borrowed? ‘What about that ՝story
you were telling me?
(Restrictive relative clauses within noun phrases)
I’m putting a’way some of the ՝junk that’s been lying around
since last Christmas.

7
Relative clause: They contain a subject and verb. They begin with a relative pronoun [who, whom, whose, that, or which] or a relative
adverb [when, where, or why]. They function as an adjective, answering the questions What kind? How many? or Which one?. Eg: “The car
which your wife sold me last week has broken down” (The dependent clause “which your wife sold me last week” describes the car. It is an
adjective clause.)
13
I’m in’trigued by these ՝flashes that scientists have observed
round here at this time of the year.
Objects of general meaning 1-‘Jack is for’ever dis՝pleasing people.
1-It happens when objects are colorless nouns8. These 1-I must be՝lieve in things.
nouns are of a wide denotation and tend to be unaccented. 1- ‘Let’s go to ՝my place (vs. Let’s ‘go to my ՝office)
2-English treats indefinite negatives like arguments and the 2-I ‘saw ՝nobody. (I ‘saw ՝Mary)
non-negative ones as personal pronouns. 2-She ՝heard something. (She heard some ՝footsteps)
Final Vocatives9 The ՝taxi’s waiting, love.
• Final vocatives are considered to be the tail of the Good ՝morning, doctor.
nucleus.
• See the difference between vocatives and apposotions.
She’s my ‘next-door ՝neighbor, | ՝Pamela.
(Vocative) (Apposition)
Final Reporting Clause10
• They are treated as incapable of carrying nuclear accent. I ‘don’t want to go ՝out, he said.
(For intonation purposes they will be the
continuation of the Falling & Rising movements)
• Reporting + Adverbial can take separate intonation ‘Who are ՝you, said the caterpillar | ˎsternly.
groups.
Final Adverbials
Adverbials of Time and Place: ‘Autumn seems to be ar’riving a little ՝early this year.
 They take a minor information point, they are Ex˅cuse me. Does Mr. ՝Henderson live here?
secondary or dependent. Waiter! There’s a ՝fly in my soup.
 They can be accented for contrastive or emphatic
purposes.

Adverbials of courtesy, degree and proper function:


• Courtesy subjuncts ‘Please’ and ‘Thanks’/‘Thank you’ I ‘really had eˎnough, thank you.
• They can change for pragmatic reasons, either to
emphasize the courtesy, or to indicate attitudes such as ՝Yes, | ՝please!
insistence or annoyance.
• Degree subjuncts can be ‘down-toners’, which reject I’m ‘just going ՝out for a bit.
nuclear accent. I was be’ginning to ‘think I ‘didn’t be՝long in there, sort of.
• Intensifiers are usually accented. She ‘lost her ‘head com՝pletely.
• The informal intensifiers ‘This’ and ‘That’ can pre-modify A: I suppose he has a very negative approach to his work.
other adjectives and adverbs representing given B: Well, it ‘isn’t at all ՝that bad, | ͵actually.
information and therefore attract nuclear accents
themselves.
• Adverbs of proper functioning tend to reject nuclear A: Shall we consider the arrangement about the cleaning
accent. and cooking?
B: Do you ‘think it’ll ՝work O.K?
A: What’s wrong with Granny?
B: She ‘can ́t ՝hear properly.
Sentence Adverbials
• Some adverbials may function as disjuncts (sentence) or
adjuncts (non-sentence).
‘John speaks ՝English, naturally. ‘John speaks ‘English
՝naturally.
(Disjunct) (Adjunct)
It’s natural for the speaker to know John speaking English.
The way John speaks.
We went ՝home, happily. We went ‘home ՝happily.

8
Colorless Nouns: Also known as General nouns or non-specific nouns are those that does not refer to a particular thing; instead, it refers to
something general.
9
The vocative is the case used for addressing someone. If you said to your friend Mike, "Hey, Mike, I think your sister is swell," "Mike"
would be in the vocative case. Or if you found someone in your seat at a bar and said, "Hey, buddy, do you want to move?" "buddy" would be
in the vocative case.
10
A reporting clause is a clausewhich indicates that you are talking about what someone said or thought. For example, in `She said that she
was hungry', `She said' is a reporting clause.
14
‘Alice ‘tried to inter՝fere, between you and me. ‘Alice ‘tried
to inter’fere between ‘you and ՝me.
• The word ‘Then’ can act as a non-sentence meaning ‘at
that time’, in this case it is accented; on the other
hand, it can be an interferential conjunct not being capable
to carry the main stress.
I’m ‘told that ‘Alan will be ՝in on Tuesday. Do you ‘think you
could ‘talk to him ՝then?
(When he comes back; Adjunct)
You ‘say that ‘Alan is the ‘only one who ‘solves my
՝problem. Do you ‘think you could ՝talk to him then?
(In that case; Conjunct)
Final items with low semantic weight.
b) REFLEXIVE VS. EMPHATIC PRONOUNS
He ‘won’t ‘worry unless you ՝hurt yourself. I ‘don’t quite
‘feel my՝self today.
That ‘nice-looking ‘girl in the ‘middle really ՝fancies herself.
We’ve ‘already ՝proved ourselves. ‘Now we can re’lax for
the ‘rest of our ՝lives.
A: Sometimes you scare me. B: Sometimes I scare my՝self.
A: Believe me. I’m a different person now. A: I ‘have to ‘see
it for my՝self.
c) PREPOSITIONS
 They can have nuclear accent in contexts where the last
lexical item is given.
If you ‘can’t ‘count on your ˅brother, | ‘who can you count
՝on?
A: Can we talk for a little while?
B: ‘What is it you ‘want to talk a՝bout?
A: Where shall I run?
B: This is an at’omic ՝bomb. There’s ‘nowhere to run ՝to.
The ‘view to the ‘summit is ‘said to be mag՝nificent - if you
can get ՝to the summit.

Basic principles

On a stressed syllable
Within each intonation phrase, we select one word as important for the meaning. This is where we place the nucleus or nuclear accent, the
syllable that bears the nuclear tone.
Phonetically, we accent a syllable by giving it a prominent change in pitch or movement in pitch, or the start of a pitch movement.
Pragmatically, we accent a word by accenting its stressed syllable. This indicates the importance or relevance of the word what we are
saying.
Stress syllable is the syllable that has lexical stress.
Lexical stress is the part of the basic pattern of a word’s pronunciation.

On or near the last word


The nucleus is usually located on or near the last word of the intonation phrase. By definition the nuclear accent is the last accent in the IP
(Intonation Phrase), so the tendency is for the nucleus to be towards the end of the IP.

Content and Function words


Words are divided into: content – Function words
Content words are nouns, adjectives, most verbs and adverbs. They are words that have meaning defined in a dictionary.
Function words are pronouns, prepositions, articles, auxiliary verbs and modals. They are words whose meaning may need to be explained
in a grammar rather in a dictionary.
Generally, we accent content words and not function words.

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Information status: The old and the New
In English, the location of the nucleus is affected by whether words contain old and new information. The general rule is that we accent new
information, but not old information, that is to say, we deaccent (do not stressed) old information.
If all the information in the utterance is new, we can accent all the lexical items. So, the nucleus is placed on the last lexical item.
However, if the last lexical item contains old information, then it is not accented. Also, we do not accent a repeated item the place of the
nucleus signals the end of the new information.

Synonyms
We can repeat old information using synonyms, in which we expressed with different words a concept already mentioned. Such synonyms
are usually deaccented.
If a word or phrase is a hypernym // of a word or phrase already mentioned (broader meaning), then the nucleus goes elsewhere.
If a word or phrase is hyponym of a word or a phrase already mentioned (narrower meaning),then it counts as new. In consequence, it is
accented and attracts the nucleus.

Broad and Narrow Focus


Focus is the concentration of attention on a particular part of the message. When we utter a stretch of speech (an IP) we can either bring
everything into Broad Focus, or we can focus selectively on one part of it Narrow Focus. The part of the IP that it is placed in focus is called
the Focus Domain. The nucleus marks the end of a focus domain.
Broad Focus means that the focus domain is the whole IP everything in the IP is brought into focus.
Narrow Focus only part of what we say is brought into focus.

Contrastive Focus
A particular kind of narrow focus is contrastive focus. Here the nuclear accent draws attention to a contrast the speaker is making.
Any word can be accented for contrast, including a function word.
A contrast may be explicit or implicit. If it is implicit, the hearer is left to infer the other term in the contrast.

Pronouns and Demonstratives


We do not usually accent personal pronouns. However, we do accent a pronoun if it is contrastive focus.
In clause-final position the possessive pronouns convey new information and attract the nucleus.
Final demonstratives convey new information and attract the nucleus.

Prepositions
They are not usually accented, until they are brought into contrastive focus. However, there are two cases where in broad focus the nucleus
is located on a preposition.
1- A preposition functions as the complement of ‘to be’.
2- A WH-word follows a preposition.

WH + to be
If a direct or indirect WH-question has the pattern:
WH-word + be + pronoun; the nucleus goes on the verb to be itself.

Empty words and pro-forms


Empty words are not usually accented; some nouns have very little meaning of their own such as thing and people.
There are several idiomatic expressions in which some is accented (often bearing a fall-rise nuclear tone).
Numerals tend to be accented, since they have semantic content. However, when one is used as a pronoun, it is not accented.
With a plural or a mass noun, the pro-form corresponding to one is some or any.
One after an adjective, it is not accented.
When a form of do is used as a pro-form it is not accented (= as substitute for another verb).
There is usually not accented when used as a pro-form.

Nucleus on last noun


Final verbs and adjectives
A final verb is usually deaccented, and the nucleus goes on a preceding noun. Where there is no preceding noun to attract the nucleus.
If the NP is lexical, the nuclear accent goes on the noun. However, if the NP is a pronoun or empty word the nucleus goes on the verb.

Accenting old material


Reusing the other speaker’s words
Sometimes one person in a conversation echoes back words that another speaker has just used. Since, the second speaker wishes to
comment on this material, naturally he accents it. Most of the times, the echoed word never conveys new information.

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Knowledge: shared, common and imputed
Material is often placed out of focus because it is given by the context in which is uttered, that is to say, the ideas expressed are implicitly
treated as already known by both speaker and addressee (shared knowledge) and perhaps by people in general (common knowledge).
A speaker may locate the nucleus un such a way as to imply, that something is shared or common knowledge or given information, even if
there is no evidence that that is the case.
In certain styles of conversation the nucleus is placed on an intensifying word which is not only adverb of degree, but also other expressions
whose effect is too heighten the emotion of what is expressed.

Tone

The speaker has to decide what kind of pitch movement (what tone) is going to use.

Word groups: Groups of words, which are grammatically relevant. They can be clauses, subjects or phrases. They
serve to divide speech in different grammatical units as stops and commas do in writing though they aren’t strictly
correspondent, it sometimes we may have divided word groups and that division I not marked in writing as stops
or commas. The division of word groups is performed through intonation.

Tune: Complete pitch treatment of a word group. It may be long or short.

The Seven Basic Tunes or General Patterns


1. Low Fall: The voice falls during the word from a medium to very low pitch.
2. High Fall: They voice falls during the word from a high to a very low pitch.
3. Rise Fall: The voice first raises during the word from a low to a medium pitch or a little above.
4. Low Rise: The voice raises during the word from a low to a medium pitch or little above.
5. High Rise: The voice raises during the word from a medium to a high pitch.
6. Fall Rise: The voice first falls from a fairly high to a rather low pitch, and then, still within the word rises to
a medium pitch.
7. Mid Level: The voice maintains a level pitch between high and low , neither raising nor falling.

When a single accented word is followed by other words which are not accented, the pitch patter remains.

The pattern of a group words’ tune from the stressed syllable of the last accented word onwards must end and
will correspond to one of the seven general patterns.

17
Tune parts
 Nucleus: It is the stressed syllable of the last accented word. It’s the syllable where the whole tune
centres.
 Tail: All syllables following the nucleus are the tail. It can include stressed syllables occurring in word
which are not accented. Their presence or absence never affects the intonation meaning.
 Head: Begins with the stressed syllable of the first accented word (Before the nucleus) and ends with the
syllable immediately preceding the nucleus.
o Low Head: It occurs only before the low rise nuclear tone. All the syllables are said on the same
low pitch at the beginning of the low rise. The important words are stressed by means of strees
alone not by pitch.
o High Head: All syllables are said on the same rather high pitch. Accent is indicated by stress
alone.The high head occurs before all nuclear tones except the Fall Rise tone.
o Falling Head: The first syllable is rather high in pitch and any following su}yllable gradually carry
the pitch lower. It occurs only before the fall rise nuclear tone and the last syllable of the head is
always lower than the beginning of the fall rise except there is only one syllable in the head in
such case it is higher.
o Rising Head: Its first syllable is low in pitch and any following syllables gradually carry the pitch
higher. It occurs only before the High Fall nuclear tone and the last syllable of the head is lower
than the beginning of the High Fall.
 Pre Head: Consists of any syllables before the stressed syllable of the first accented word.
o Low Pre Head: The syllables are said on the same rather low pitch. The pih must never be higher
than the starting pitch of the stressed syllable of the first accented word.
o High Pre Head: All the syllables are said on the same relatively high pitch. It is very uncommon
and never very long. It is said on a pitch higher than the beginning of the stressed syllable before
nuclear tones (Except the High Fall) or any head.
 Both heads and pre heads can be said with several different levels of pitch thus creating differences in
meaning or attitude.
 The prehead and the head may occur together or separately, or they may not be present at all if the
nucleus is the first syllable of a word group; but the nucleus is always present in every complete tune.

Tone Groups
As there can be combinations of different types of pre heads and heads (Or not pre head/head at all) with the
seven general tunes some patters are more frequent than others and some other patterns may have differences in
meaning to slight to be recognized or we may have different patterns with the same meaning. Thus different types
of tunes that mean the same are grouped into 10 tone groups.

Tone groups: Is the grouping of tunes that mean the same, or that convey the same attitude from the speaker.
They also have one or more pitch features in common.

The Low Drop or Slump

The High Drop

The Take-Off

The Low Bounce

The Switchback

18
The Long Jump

The High Bounce or Climb

The Jacknife

The High Dive

The Terrace

19

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