Module 28: Rhythm and Intonation

28.1 Introduction

28.2 Rhythm and Intonation

There are two main aspects of the study of speech rhythm and intonation- form and

function. The formal aspect looks at the relation between rhythmic structure of a tone unit

and the realization of different intonational contours. The functional aspect focuses on the

meaning that is conveyed by the combined features of rhythmic and intonational

structures. Both are complementary. However, studies on rhythm and intonation may give

importance to one or the other aspect. We will look at both the aspects of rhythm and

intonation in languages.

Linguistics Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology Prosodic Features III-Rhythm

Principal Investigator

Prof. Pramod Pandey Centre for Linguistics, SLL&CS, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi-110067 pkspandey@yahoo.com 011-26704226; 011-26741258, -9810979446

Paper Coordinator Prof. Pramod Pandey

Module ID & Name Lings_P2_M28: Prosodic Features IV- Rhythm and Intonation

Content Writer Pramod Pandey

For the reasons of the pragmatic advantage of drawing on the sources of a well-studied

language, we will focus on English for illustrating the structure and function of speech

rhythm and intonation.

Structure of rhythm: Although it is necessary for the sake of exposition to separate rhythm

and intonation, the two are in fact intertwined. The inter-relation between them is

determined primarily by the presence of prominence in them and the choice of the word

for the highest prominence. Take for example, the following sentences with stress and tone

marked in them:

28/1

i) I have a ˈvisitor tòMOrrow.

ii) Are we ˏMEEting toˌday?

iii) I ˈlike ˈtea with ˈBIscuits,/ but I will ˈhave only ˈTEA toˌday.

In the above sentences the words with stress are prominent in the sentence, and one of the

stressed words is selected for the placement of the tone in the clause. The presence of

stressed words and the choice of one of them as the most prominent determines the

rhythm and the placement of the nuclear tone on the most prominent word is the main link

between rhythm and intonation. The use of the prosodic features of pitch, amplitude, etc.

within a tone group yields the intonational structure of sentences in a language. In the

examples in 28/1, stressed syllables are marked with a superscript vertical bar (for

primary stresses) and a subscript vertical bar (for secondary stresses), the most prominent

word that carries the nuclear tone is in bold and the prominent syllable within the word is

in capitals. It is on the syllable in capitals that the tone is critically placed. The choice of the

type of pitch in the sentence depends on the basis of the sentence type or the meaning to be

conveyed or both.

28.3 Rhythm 28.3.1 Stressed words

What types of words are normally stressed in English? The answer is: those words that are

important for the meaning of the utterance. In normal circumstances, these are content

words, such as nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs, question words and

demonstrative pronouns. These words have independent meanings of their own, unlike

articles, personal pronouns, relative pronouns, prepositions, auxiliary verbs, and

conjunctions, which are grammatical words and function to express grammatical relations

among words. In the examples from English given 28/1, all the words that are stressed are

content words, and all the unstressed words are grammatical words.

28.3.2 Tone unit

The maximal unit which determines the rhythm in a sentence is the tone unit or

intonational unit, or a tone group. The rhythmic structure of a tone unit in the British

structuralist tradition, and widely followed in structuralist descriptions, is as follows:

28/2

(Pre-Head)- (Head) - Nucleus – (Tail)

The Head is that part of the tone unit that lies between the first stress and the nucleus. The

Nucleus is the last stressed syllable in a neutral context. The Pre-head is the part of the tone

unit that precedes the Head and the Tail is the part of the tone unit that follows the

Nucleus. Of the four constituents of a tone unit, only the Nucleus is obligatory and all the

others are optional. (Recall the structure of a syllable, in which the Nucleus alone is

arbitrary, the onset and the coda are optional). The structure of a tone unit is exemplified in

28/3

28/3

i) The 'coffee was 'ex cellent (The coffee was excellent) P-H H N T

ii) It was an 'exceptional ˈfeat. (It was an exceptional feat) P-H H N

iii) They have de 'clared a 'holiday to 'day. (They have decalred a holiday today. P-H H N

iv) ˈJohn has an im'portant ˈinterview to 'mo rrow. (John has an important interview H N T tomorrow.)

v) Ram (Ram- In answer to the question, ‘Who is behind the door?’) N

Sentences i) to iv) are normal sentences with their phrase structures. Sentence v), however,

is a minor sentence with just one word. It has been included here to illustrate the fact that a

tone unit can have only the Nucleus. Sentences i) to iv) have three or four of the

constituents.

The generalization that in neutral contexts, the last stressed syllable is the nucleus was

later formalized in Standard Generative Phonology (Chomsky and Halle 1968) as the

Nuclear Stress Rule.

It should be noted that the Nuclear Stress rule can vary in different languages. For example,

in Hindi, Malayalam and Meitei it is the penultimate stressed lexical word that bears the

Nucleus, as in the examples below:

28/4

i) Hindi

ˈmæˈkəl duˈka:nmeekkiˈta:b xəˈri:d rəha: tʰa:

I yesterday store-LOC one book buy CONT PST-SING

‘I was buying a book in the store yesterday’

ii) Meitei (Meiraba 2015)

nuˈpa əˈmə-nə səˈgol toŋ-ˈi

man one-OBL horse ride-IND

‘A man is riding a horse’

(IND= Indicative Mood)

By the term Nuclear Stress Rule e mean the placement of the Nucleus in a tonal unit in neutral contexts. In non-neutral contexts, when contextual information is involved in the utterance, then, the nucleus can be placed on words in other positions, as in the variant sentences /ˈmæˈkəl duˈka:nmeekkiˈta:b xəˈri:d rəha: tʰa:/, meaning ‘I was buying a book in the shop and nowhere else’, and /ˈmæˈkəl duˈka:nmeekkiˈta:b xəˈri:d rəha: tʰa:/, meaning ‘It was yesterday and not on any other day that I was buying a book’. This phenomenon of placing the Nucleus on words in special contexts for the sake of giving importance to it is known as Focus. There is a lot of freedom in the placement of focus in utterances in all languages.

28.3.3 Stress clash avoidance

A phenomenon that relates to rhythm is that of a tendency to avoid stress clash. Stress clash occurs when two adjacent syllables are stressed. The precise condition will be discussed in a Module on Metrical Phonology in Paper 5. For now, consider the examples in 28/5

28/5

thirˈteen ˈmen → ˈthirteen ˈmen

The shift is commonly found in English and is accounted for on account of the tendency to alternate stressed and unstressed syllables. Stress is avoided in English in order to keep the rhythm of the organizations of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables. The process is known as Rhythm Rule.

Other languages may use some other device to avoid stress clash. In Catalan, for example, one of the two adjacent stresses undergoes destressing or deaccenting:

28/6

ˈdeu ˈnens > deu ˈnens ‘ten children’

In a lot of languages, when the adjacent syllables with stress clash are monosyllabic, there

may be a ‘silent stress’ between them, when both the words are stressed. A silent stress is a

stretch without any segments but a time beat. The following sentence in English thus has

silent stress between five and men in native English:

28/7

There are ˈfive ˈmen in the lounge.

A silent stress can be detected with the duration of the preceding syllable being distinctly

longer in the absence of stress clash. The duration of the word five in 28/7 is thus longer

than in 28/8, where there is no stress clash.

28/8

See you at ˈfive fifˈteen.

28.4 Intonation

In normal speech, we don’t always speak on the same pitch and the same degree of loudness. The changes in the pitch and other properties of speech, such as loudness and duration, constitute the intonation of a language. In other words, ‘intonation’ refers to the variation in the range of the pitch and other aspects of voice.

The term ‘intonation’ is used in two senses- a broad and a narrow sense. The sense in which the term was used above is the broad sense. In the broad sense the term means information conveyed through prosodic features in general. In the narrow sense, the term

is used to mean information conveyed through the use of pitch over a stretch of speech larger than a word. In the present module, we will be concerned with describing intonation in the narrow sense, which predominates the understanding of intonation. We will also briefly show how given languages such as Hindi, Malayalam and Meitei, it is necessary to study intonation in the broader sense.

Intonation conveys both grammatical or linguistic and non-grammatical or non-linguistic information. The linguistic information is conveyed to distinguish phrases within sentences by means of features that characterize their boundaries, and by contrasting statements and questions, commands and requests. Non-grammatical information is conveyed to express feelings and attitudes of the speaker towards the topic, among other things, such as anger and politeness, warmth and coldness, excitement and boredom.

We study intonation in terms of two main aspects- form and function. Function is the information conveyed by intonation that is both grammatical and pragmatic. The grammatical information of an utterance relates to the linguistic meaning of an utterance, while pragmatic information relates to the meaning dependent on the context of the utterance. The form of intonation is expressed through the use of pitch and related features of speech. In the last module, we looked at the form of an intonational unit, in terms of its parts (Pre-Head, Head, Nucleus and Tail). In the present module, we look at the phonetic aspect of the form and, in addition, the function of intonation.

28.3 The relation between rhythm and intonation

FOCUS

PAUSES- sense groups and pauses (grammatically conditioned pauses)

Pausology

i. Restrictive and Non-restrictive clauses

Non restrictive: My son, who llves in Mumbai, is coming next week.

Restrictive: My son who llves in Mumbai is coming next week.

ii. Some words

Married

Mary and John are married * Mary – and john- are married.

222 Syllables and Suprasegmentals

(b)

iii. (Kohler 2010) (a) Ich gehe wegen der ˈKinder nicht nach Amerika.

‘I’m ˈnot going to Aˈmerica, PG because of the ˈchildren.’

(b) Ich gehe nicht wegen der ˈKinder nach Amerika.

‘I’m ˈnot going to Aˈmerica because of the ˈchildren.’

Married

Mary and John are married * Mary – and John- are married.

TEMPO

Effects of stress- weak forms and strong forms Evidence for Rhythm- Vowel-shortening, deletion, etc. noted earlier as weakening processes dependent on lack of stress, aspiration, vowel quality etc. as strengthening processes dependent on presence of stress

Phonetics of Intonation

Reetz&Jongman Intonation is the distinctive use of pitch over units larger than a single word. Intonation may convey linguistic information by marking the boundaries of syntactic units or by distinguishing different sentence types such as statements, questions, and commands. Intonation may also convey non-linguistic information such as boredom, impatience, or politeness. We will limit our discussion to the linguistic functions of intonation.

1- Oscillograms and pitch contours for We've been invited to a party tomorrow as (a) a declarative sentence, and (b) a yes—no question.

Hindi [kəl həm ʋəha: ʤa: rəhe: hæ:]

Tomorrow we there go CONT-OBL BE-PL-PRES

We are going there tomorrow

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2- Oscillograms and pitch contours of the sentence We will buy our first home tomorrow with emphasis on (a) "first,” (b) "home," and (c) "tomorrow" as indicated by the arrows.

Hindi- [kəl həm əpne: du:sre: ɡʱər ko de:kʰne: ʤa:jẽɡe]

Tomorrow we our-REFL second-OBL house ACC see-OBL go-FUT-PL

We will go to see our second house tomorrow.

3- Oscillograms and pitch contour of the sentence We will buy our first home tomorrow if the bank will let us, consisting of two intonational phrases. The arrow marks the onset of the second intonational phrase if the bank will let us. [əɡər ho: səka: to a:ʤ is ka:m ko mæ: a:ʤ pu:ra kər dũ:ɡa:] If happen-OBL can-OBL then this work ACC I today complete do give-IPER-SING-FUT If possible, I will complete this work today. [əɡər ho: səka:] [to a:ʤ is ka:m ko mæ: a:ʤ pu:ra kər dũ:ɡa:] Phonology of Intonation: Description of an intonational contour

Intonation contours

In (1) below there are two alternative phonological (or ‘intonological’) analyses of the intonation of the utterance in Figure 1, the melody of which is now represented as a stylised pitch curve3: (1) But ↗MELanie’s Ö never been \ NEAR the Ö manuscript

L* * H*+L * 0% Embedded in the sequence of words (in which small capitals indicate pitch accents) are symbols from an analysis within what has become known as the British tradition, developed in works such as Palmer (1922), Kingdon (1958), O’Connor and Arnold (1961/1973) and Crystal (1969). The intonational elements are shown by the diacritics before the stressed syllables of words (the symbols used vary from author to author, but the ones chosen here illustrate the general point). Before ‘near’, for instance, there is a sloping line which indicates a fall. The fall is specifically the nucleus, that is, the accent which occurs last and often constitutes the most salient point of the utterance. The stressed syllable of ‘Melanie’ initiates a pre-nuclear rise, represented by the diagonal up-arrow. The elements of the system, then, are generally pitch movements; the exception in this example being the dots before ‘nev(er)’ and ‘man(uscript)’ which mark a stressed syllable within an existing pitch trend (here rising and low level respectively). The stylized pitch curve

The A-M model. One point of difference- boundary markers are not there in the Caveat for not using A-M model of transcription/representation here yet.

Below the stylised pitch curve is an equivalent ‘autosegmental-metrical’ (AM) analysis (for the term AM, see Ladd, 1996 pp. 2-4). The AM framework became the dominant paradigm in intonational research under the influence of Pierrehumbert (1980) and subsequent work, for instance Beckman and Pierrehumbert (1986) (for an introduction to AM and a critique see Ladd, 1996).

Non-phonological component of intonation: Emotions, attitude- High fall, low fall, etc.

Functions of Intonation

English

Grammatical function Statements, Yes/No questions, Wh-Questions (Content Qs), commands, Requests.

Falling tone

1. statements; 2. questions beginning with interrogative words like what, who, whom, where, when,

which, how, etc., if there are asked by the speaker in a neutral way, without showing any feeling or concern;

3. exclamatory sentences; and 4. orders or commands.

Examples

Rising tone

when we use a rising tone, our pitch starts at a lower level and then goes up to a higher level. In English we begin the tone on the nucleus and normally use the rising tone in

a) Yes/No question. b) Wh- Questions asked warmly, c) incomplete utterances, d) polite requests.

Examples

Falling-Rising tone

To suggest implications of various sorts

Examples, How is the new teacher?

Ans: good (F-R)

Discourse Function Continuation, Continuation Rise

Attitudinal Function

Information Structure Focus

Intonational Variation (Nolan)

Politeness

Dialectal differentiation