Phoneme, Tone and Intonation (Continued)

2.2 Intonation When we speak, the pitch of our voice is changing continuously. The pattern of pitch changes over a word, phrase or sentence is called INTONATION, which is also part of suprasegmental phonology. Intonation expressed syntactic and contextual meanings but not word meanings. In other words, TONE makes use of pitch variation to distinguish word meaning, whereas INTONATION is the pitch variation pattern to convey the syntactic and contextual meaning of a word, phrase or sentence, such as statement, question, affirmation, command, surprise, and emphasis. In a non-tone language like English, pitch variation is used only for intonation. On the other hand, in a tone language like Mandarin, pitch variation is used for both tone and intonation. Because of the need for tone to distinguish word meaning, the pitch contour for the intonation cannot be as freely exploited as that in a non-tone language. Otherwise, a drastic change of pitch contour for intonation purposes could alter the meaning of a word. All languages have intonation: (3) Intonation a. I love my dog. b. Do you love your dog? c. John! (affirmative answer to Who did this?) d. John? (uncertainty in an answer to Do you know who did this?) a. mi b. mi buy! buy? tone: LH [Affirmation] intonation: lowered/falling pitch tone: LH intonation: raised/rising pitch

(4)

Intonation is applicable to one-syllable utterances. Two common one-syllable utterances in English are yes and no. A one-syllable word can be said with either a level intonation or a moving intonation. English speakers do not use level intonations on one-syllable utterances very frequently. Moving intonations are more common. If English speakers want to say yes or no in a definite, final manner, they will probably use a falling intonation one which descends from a higher to a lower pitch. If they want to say yes? or no? in a questioning manner they may say it with a rising intonation a movement from a lower pitch to a higher one.

Intonation in Mandarin and its interaction with tone To avoid potential conflict between tone and intonation, Mandarin, like many other tone languages (especially Asian tone languages), makes use of sentencefinal PARTICLES to indicate certain groups of syntactic and contextual meanings expressed by intonation in a non-tone language. Mandarin still has intonation, but with the use of particles the change of pitch contour for intonation purposes is minimized to some extent. According to Lin (2007), which is based on Shen (1989), Mandarin has three basic types of intonation pitch movements, as in (5). [Shen, Xiao-nan. 1989. The prosody of Mandarin Chinese. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.] (5) Basic types of intonation pitch movements a. Type I for statements (e.g. t mngtin li. he will come tomorrow) Starting mid, moving higher to mid-high, and falling to low at the end. b. Type II for questions with high utterance-final pitch (e.g. t mngtin li? he will come tomorrow?) Starting mid-high, moving to high, dropping very slightly before ending in high or mid high. c. Type III for questions with low utterance-final pitch (e.g. shi mngtin li? who will come tomorrow?) Starting mid-high, moving to high, sloping down to low at the end d. II II&III I I & III

Although there is some degree of pitch movement for intonation purposes, Shen (1989) maintains that in Mandarin the basic contour of a tone (i.e. level, falling, rising) remains recognizable and easily perceived even though intonation inevitably causes some minor modifications or distortion of the tone. For example, the high level tone (T1) tends to be slightly falling in a statement and slightly rising in a question, but the tone is not altered beyond recognition since it is still perceived as T1. In addition, when more than one tone appear in a sequence, TONAL COARTICULATION changes each tone somewhat for a smooth transition from one tone to another.

(6)

Zh sh n-de this be you-MODIFIER.MARKER This is your book?

sh? book

If the pitch contour of each tone remains pretty much intact (after taking into consideration tonal coarticulation effects), how can intonation be expressed and recognized? Two strategies: o The first strategy is to manipulate the pitch level: (i) the pitch level of the whole utterance may be raised higher or be depressed lower; and/or (ii) the high pitch of a tone gets higher and the low pitch of a tone gets even lower. o The second strategy is to add a H or L pitch after the tone features of the sentence final syllable, as shown in (7). This typically happens in an emotive and expressive utterance.

(7)

Phrase final tone addition: a. mng! (really) busy! tone MH (35) + affirmative intonation L MHL = 351 b. mng? (did you say) busy? tone MH (35) + question intonation H MH+ = 36 c. mn? (did you say) slow? tone HL (51) + question intonation H HLM = 513

2.3 Meanings and functions of intonation: With particular reference to English A case study: yes, no (i) Fall yes no: This is the intonation which is usually regarded as more or less neutral. It expresses confirmation and gives an impression of finality. (ii) Rise yes no: This intonation conveys an impression that something more is to follow. (8) (9) A (wishing to attract Bs attention): Excuse me. B: yes [what do you want?] A: Do you know John Smith? B: yes [an invitation to continue] (iii) Fall-rise yes no: limited agreement or response with reservations (10) A: Ive heard that its a good school. B: yes

(iv) Rise-fall yes no: To convey rather strong feelings of approval, disapproval, or surprise. (11) A: You wouldnt do an awful thing like that, would you? B: no (12) A: Isnt the view lovely! B: yes (v) Level yes no: It almost always conveys (on single-syllable utterances) a feeling of saying something routine, uninteresting or boring. If one is being asked a series of routine questions for some purpose such as applying for an insurance policy one might reply to each question of a series (like Have you ever been in jail?, Do you suffer from any serious illness?, Is your eyesight defective?, etc.) with no. Some basic meanings of intonation (those in italics can be extended to Mandarin) (i) Fall Finality, definiteness: That is the end of the news Im absolutely certain Stop talking

(ii) Rise General questions: Can you help me Is it over Listing: Red brown yellow or blue (fall is normal on the last item) More to follow: I phoned them right away (and they agreed to come) You must write it again (and this time, get it right) Encouraging: It wont hurt (iii) Fall-rise Uncertainty, doubt: You may be right Its possible Requesting: Can I buy it Will you lend it to me (iv) Rise-fall Surprise, being impressed: You were first All of them

Functions of intonation Attitudinal function: Intonation enables us to express emotions and attitudes as we speak, and this adds a special kind of meaning to spoken language. Say I want to buy a new car in the following ways: pleading, angry, sad, happy, proud Accentual function: Intonation helps to produce the effect of prominence on syllables that need to be perceived as stressed, and in particular the placing of intonation stress on a particular syllable marks out the word to which it belongs as the most important in the intonation-unit. [An intonation unit/group is analogous to a clause in syntactic analysis. By definition, an intonation unit must contain a nucleus, which is a marked pitch change.] o One particular aspect of stress could be regarded as part of intonation: this is the placement of the intonation stress within the intonation-unit. o In English, the most common position for the stressed syllable is on the last lexical word (e.g. noun, adjective, verb, adverb as distinct from function words like prepositions) of the intonation-unit. For contrastive purposes, however, any word may become the bearer of the stressed syllable. It is frequently said that the placement of the stressed syllable indicates the focus of the information. (13) a. I want to know where hes travelling to (The word to, being a preposition and not a lexical word, is not stressed.) b. (I don't want to know where hes travelling from) I want to know where hes travelling to o Similarly, for the purpose of emphasis we may place the intonation stress in other positions. (14) a. It was very boring [non-emphatic] b. It was very boring [emphatic] o Therefore, in English the stressed syllable will tend to occur on the last lexical word in an intonation-unit, but may be placed earlier in the intonation-unit if there is a word there with greater importance to what is being said. This can quite often happen as a result of the last part of the intonation-unit being already given (i.e. something which has already been mentioned or is completely predictable). (15) Heres that book you asked me to bring

Grammatical function: The listener is better able to recognize the grammar and syntactic structure of what is being said by using the information contained in the intonation; for example, such things as the placement of boundaries between phrases, clauses or sentences, the difference between questions and statements and the use of grammatical subordination may be indicated. o Intonation-unit boundary and grammatical structure

(16) Those who sold quickly made a profit [ambiguous] a. Those who sold quickly made a profit b. Those who sold quickly made a profit (17) a. The Conservatives who like the proposal are pleased Conservatives] b. The Conservatives who like the proposal are pleased [restrictive; some [non-restrictive]

o Another component of intonation that can be said to have grammatical significance is the choice of intonation on the stressed syllable. For example, the use of a rising intonation with questions. (18) (Why do you want to buy it now?) The price is going up [indicating a question] For another example, question-tags (e.g. isnt it, are they, will he): When the question-tag has a falling intonation, as in (19a), the implication is said to be that the speaker is comparatively certain that the information is correct, and simply expects the listener to provide confirmation, while the rising intonation in (19b) is said to indicate a lesser degree of certainty, so that the question-tag functions more like a request for information. (19) a They are coming on Tuesday arent they b. They are coming on Tuesday arent they Discourse function: Looking at the act of speaking in a broader way, we can see that intonation can signal to the listener what is to be taken as new information and what is already given, can suggest when the speaker is indicating some sort of contrast or link with material in another intonation-unit and, in conversation, can convey to the listener what kind of response is expected. Such functions are examples of intonations discourse function. o Two main areas in how intonation may be studied in relation to discourse: one of them is the use of intonation to focus the listeners attention on aspects of the message that are most important (e.g. the placing of intonation stress on the appropriate syllable of one particular word in the intonation-unit), and the other is concerned with the regulation of conversational behavior.

o The intonation chosen can indicate whether the intonation-unit in which it occurs is being used to present new information or to refer to information which is felt to be already possessed by speaker and hearer. (20) Since the last time we met when we had that huge dinner Ive been on a diet o Another use of intonation connected with the focusing of attention is intonational subordination; we can signal that a particular intonation-unit is of comparatively low importance and as a result give correspondingly greater importance to adjacent intonation-units. (21) a. As I expect youve heard theyre only admitting emergency cases b. The Japanese for some reason or other drive on the left like us o The regulation of conversational behavior: Intonation is also important in the conversational interaction of two or more speakers. In a more general way, it can be said that speakers use various prosodic components to indicate to others that they have finished speaking, that another person is expected to speak, that a particular type of response is required and so on. It is difficult to treat the different functions separately. For example, the placement of intonation stress is closely linked to the presentation of new information, while the question/statement distinction and the indication of contrast seem to be equally important in grammar and discourse.

Stress
1. Stress Mandarin is a tone language, and English is a stress language. Definition of stress: Like tone, stress is also a SUPRASEGMENTAL PROPERTY of the syllable. A STRESSED SYLLABLE is made more prominent or salient than an UNSTRESSED SYLLABLE in a word, a phrase, or in the flow of speech by being higher in pitch, longer in duration, and/or louder. E.g. horizon In terms of articulation, a stressed syllable is produced with more respiratory energy and laryngeal activity, and in terms of perception, a stressed syllable stands out as more prominent or salient than its surrounding unstressed syllables. Stress, rhythm, and levels of stress: The pattern of stress creates a pattern of rhythm in a stress language. Stress patterns tend to alternate between stressed and unstressed syllables in an utterance. For example, in a four-syllable word like intonation, the first and third syllables are stressed but the second and the fourth syllables are not. Between the first and third stressed syllables, the third one has more prominence than the first one, so this English word has a PRIMARY STRESS on the third syllable and a SECONDARY STRESS (i.e. a lesser degree of stress) on the first syllable. More examples: photographic ft tgrf grfk; anthropology nr nrpli i Stress and emphasis: Stress can also be used to emphasize a particular word or syllable contrasting with another one in a phrase/sentence. Mandarin, like English and all other languages, also has this kind of sentence level emphatic stress. Stress in SC and its interaction with tone Stress in Mandarin is phonetically manifested mainly by the expansion of pitch range and time duration, and sometimes by an increase of loudness. Expansion of pitch range means that a high-pitched tone becomes even higher and a lowpitched tone becomes even lower in a stressed syllable; that is, the range of pitch space is enlarged when producing a stressed syllable. The most obvious and uncontroversial exhibition of word stress in Mandarin is demonstrated by those disyllabic words with a NEUTRAL TONE. When the first syllable has a full tone (non-neutral tone) and the second one has the neutral tone, it is always the case that the first syllable is stressed and the second one unstressed. However, when each syllable in a word has a full tone, as in most words in Mandarin, it is not clear which syllable is stressed (cf. Chao 1968: 38). One explanation for the difficulty in detecting stress in Mandarin is that the most 8

important phonetic cue for stress is F0 (FUNDAMENTAL FREQUENCY), but F0 is already used by Mandarin for tone to contrast word meanings and hence cannot be used freely for stress. (1) a. Zhnggu China; tiyng sun; tinq weather; hshu river water; dioch to
investigate; shngmng life; tinkng sky

b. Linhgu United Nations; Jind Canada; Xnxln New Zealand; Yndnxy Indonesia; odly Australia; gudur Ecuador The most common interaction between tone and stress in SC is the occurrence of the neutral tone. When a syllable becomes unstressed either in a particular word for a particular meaning or in fast casual speech, its original tone is lost and it becomes a neutral-toned or toneless syllable. The reason for this tone loss is that an unstressed syllable is short and weak, making it difficult to fully manifest the pitch change of a tone.

Word stress in English: Predictable? At least some rules can be formulated. Only strong syllables can be stressed. Weak syllables are always unstressed. A strong syllable has a rime which either has a syllable peak which is a long vowel or diphthong, or a vowel followed by a coda (that is, one or more consonants). Weak syllables have a syllable peak which is a short vowel, and no coda unless the syllable peak is the schwa vowel or (in some circumstances) . Stress in two-syllable simple words o Verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions: If the second syllable is a strong syllable, then that second syllable is stressed. If the final syllable is weak or contains , then the first syllable is stressed. (2) apply pla enter ent follow fl attract trkt open p pn borrow br

o Nouns: If the second syllable contains a short vowel, then the stress will usually come on the first syllable. Otherwise it will be on the second syllable. (3) money mni estate stet

Stress in complex words o Two major types of complex words: (i) words made from a basic word form (which we will call the stem), with the addition of an affix; and (ii) compound words, which are made of two (or occasionally more) independent words (e.g. ice-cream, armchair). 9

o Affixes have one of three possible effects on word stress: (i) The affix itself receives the primary stress (e.g. semi- + circle s:kl semicircle sems:kl ; -ality + person p:sn personality p:sn lti); (ii) the word is stressed just as if the affix were not there (e.g. pleasant pleznt, unpleasant npleznt; market m:kt, marketing m:kt); (iii) the stress remains on the stem, not the affix, but is shifted to a different syllable (e.g. magnet mgnet, magnetic mgnetk). o As for compounds, perhaps the most familiar type is the one which combines two nouns and which normally has the stress on the first element. E.g. typewriter, suitcase, tea-cup, sunrise. Some cases of compounds where the stress falls on the second element: (i) Compounds with an adjectival first element and the -ed morpheme at the end receive stress on the second element. E.g. bad-tempered, halftimbered, heavy-handed. (ii) Compounds in which the first element is a number in some form also tend to have final stress. E.g. three-wheeler, second-class, five-finger. (iii) Compounds functioning as adverbs are usually final-stressed. E.g. headfirst, North-East, downstream (iv) Compounds which function as verbs and have an adverbial first element take final stress. E.g. down-grade, back-pedal, ill-treat

10