INTONATION

Welcome to this lecture headed “INTONATION”. We will be discussing all about intonations. Enjoy your lecture.

Intonation in phonetics is the melodic pattern of an utterance. Intonation is basically a matter of variation in the pitch level of the voice, but in languages like English, stress and rhythm are also involved. Intonation passes across variations of expressive meaning (e.g., surprise, anger, wariness).

In a lot of languages, including English, intonation serves a grammatical function, differentiating one type of phrase or sentence from another. Therefore, “Your name is John,” beginning with a medium pitch and ending with a lower one (falling intonation), is a simple assertion; “Your name is John?”, with a rising intonation (high final pitch), indicates a question.

Intonation (linguistics)

Intonation ought not to be confused with inflection, tone (linguistics), or pitch accent.

In linguistics, intonation is variation of spoken pitch that is not used to differentiate words; rather it is used for a collection of functions like indicating the attitudes and emotions of the speaker, signaling the distinction between statements and questions, and between diverse types of questions, paying attention on significant elements of the spoken message and as well assisting to standardize conversational interaction.

It contrasts with tone, in which pitch variation in a few languages does differentiate words, either lexically or grammatically.

(The term tone is used by a few British writers in their descriptions of intonation, but this is to refer to the pitch movement present on the nucleus or tonic syllable in an intonation unit.

Despite the fact that intonation is chiefly a matter of pitch variation, it is significant to know that functions attributed to intonation like the expression of attitudes and emotions, or stressing aspects of grammatical structure, almost always involve associated variation in other prosodic features.

Crystal for instance says that “…intonation is not a single system of contours and levels, but the product of the interaction of features from various prosodic systems – tone, pitch-range, loudness, rhythmicality and tempo in particular.”

Transcription of intonation

Most transcription conventions have been created for describing one specific accent or language, and the definite conventions thus is required to be explained in the context of what is being described.

Nevertheless, for general purposes the International Phonetic Alphabet presents the two intonation marks illustrated in the box at the head of this piece of writing.

Global rising and falling intonation are marked with a diagonal arrow rising left-to-right and falling left-to-right, correspondingly.

These may be written as part of a syllable, or estranged with a space when they have a broader scope:

He found it on the street?

[ hiː faʊnd ɪt ɒn ðə stɹiːt]

Here the rising pitch on street shows that the question hinges on that word, on where he found it, not whether he found it.

Yes, he found it on the street.

[jɛs ‖ hi faʊnd ɪt ɒn ðə stɹiːt ]

How did you ever escape?

[haʊ dɪdjuː | ɛvɚ | skeɪp ‖ ]

In this example just like with wh- questions, there is a rising intonation on the question word, and a falling intonation at the end of the question.

In a lot of descriptions of English, the following intonation patterns are known:

Rising Intonation means the pitch of the voice rises eventually;

Falling Intonation means that the pitch falls with time;

Dipping or Fall-rise Intonation falls and then rises;

Peaking or Rise-fall Intonation rises and then falls.

Uses of intonation

All vocal languages make use of pitch pragmatically in intonation – for example for emphasis, to put across surprise or irony, or to pose a question. 

Tonal languages such as Chinese and Hausa use intonation in addition to using pitch for distinguishing words.

A lot of writers have tried to produce a list of different functions of intonation.

The longest was that of W.R.Lee who projected ten. J.C. Wells and E.Couper-Kuhlen both put forward six functions. Wells’s list is given below; the examples are not his:

1. Attitudinal function (for expressing emotions and attitudes)

For instance: a fall from a high pitch on the ‘mor’ syllable of “good morning” implies more excitement than a fall from a low pitch

2. Grammatical function is used to identify grammatical structure)

For instance: it is claimed that in English a falling pitch movement is connected with statements, but a rising pitch turns a statement into a yes–no question, as in He’s going home?. This utilization of intonation is more typical of American English than of British.

3. Focusing (to illustrate what information in the expression is fresh and what have been made known s already known)

For instance: in English I saw a man in the garden answers “Whom did you see?” or “What happened?”, while I saw a man in the garden answers “Did you hear a man in the garden?”

4. Discourse function (to illustrate how clauses and sentences go together in spoken discourse)

For instance: subordinate clauses frequently have lower pitch, faster tempo and narrower pitch series than their main clause, as in the case of the material in parentheses in “The Red Planet (as it’s known) is fourth from the sun”

5. Psychological function (to organize speech into units that are easy to recognize, learn by heart and carry out)

For instance: the statement “You can have it in red blue green yellow or black” is more complicated to appreciate and remember than the equivalent utterance divided into tone units as in “You can have it in red | blue | green | yellow | or black”

6. Indexical function (to function as a marker of personal or social identity)

For instance: group membership can be illustrated by the utilization of intonation patterns adopted particularly by that group, like street vendors or preachers.

The so-called high rising terminal, where a statement ends with a high rising pitch movement, is said to be typical of younger speakers of English, and perhaps to be more widely found among young female speakers.

It is not known whether that type of list would apply to other languages without modification.

Intonation in English

The description of English intonation has developed along different lines in the USA and in Europe.American approaches to English intonation

The dominant framework used for American English from the 1940s to the 1990s was based on the idea of pitch phonemes, or tonemes. In the work of Trager and Smith+ there are four contrastive levels of pitch: low (1), middle (2), high (3), and very high (4).

(Regrettably, the significant work of Kenneth Pike on the same subject had the four pitch levels labeled in the opposite way, with (1) being high and (4) being low).

In its final form, the Trager and Smith system was highly complex, each pitch phoneme having four pitch allophones (or allotones); there was as well a Terminal Contour to end an intonation clause, in addition to four stress phonemes.

A few generalizations with the use of this formalism are provided below.

It ought to be observed that the American linguist Dwight Bolinger carried on a long crusade to disagree that pitch contours were more significant in the study of intonation than individual pitch levels.

Standard conversation is normally at middle or high pitch; low pitch takes place at the end of utterances instead of yes–no questions, while high pitch exists at the end of yes–no questions.

Very high pitch is used for strong emotion or emphasis.  Pitch can show attitude: for instance, Great uttered in isolation can show weak emotion (with pitch beginning medium and dropping to low), enthusiasm (with pitch starting very high and ending low), or sarcasm (with pitch starting low and remaining low).

Declarative sentences exhibit a 2–3–1 pitch pattern. If the last syllable is high up the final decline in pitch is a move smoothly. For instance, in This is fun, this is is at pitch 2, and fun begins at level 3 and glides down to level 1.

But if the last major syllable is not the last syllable of the expression, the pitch fall-off is a step. For instance, in That can be frustrating, That can be has pitch 2, frus- has level 3, and both syllables of -trating have pitch 1. Wh-questions work the same way, as in Who (2) will (2) help (3↘1)? and Who (2) did (3) it (1)?.

But if something is left unsaid, the final pitch level 1 is substituted by pitch 2. Therefore, in John’s (2) sick (3↘2) …, with the speaker showing more to come, John’s has pitch 2 whereas sick begins at pitch 3 and drops only to pitch 2.

Yes–no questions with a 2↗3 intonation pattern normally have subject-verb inversion, as in Have (2) you (2) got (2) a (2) minute (3, 3)? (Here a 2↗4 contour would illustrate more emotion, whereas a 1↗2 contour would illustrate uncertainly.

Another instance is Has (2) the (2) plane (3) left (3) already (3, 3, 3)?, which, depending on the word to be highlighted, could move the location of the rise, as in Has (2) the (2) plane (2) left (3) already (3, 3, 3)? or Has (2) the (2) plane (2) left (2) already (2, 3, 3)? 

And for instance the latter question could as well be crafted without subject-verb inversion but with the same pitch contour: The (2) plane (2) has (2) left (2) already (2, 3, 3)?

Tag questions with declarative intention at the end of a declarative statement follow a 3↘1 contour instead of a rising contour, since they are not in reality intended as yes–no questions, as in We (2) should (2) visit (3, 1) him (1),shouldn’t (3, 1) we (1)? 

But tag questions showing hesitation, which are interrogatory in nature, have the typical 2↗3 contour, as in We (2) should (2) visit (3, 1) him (1), shouldn’t (3, 3) we (3)?

Questions with or can be ambiguous in English writing with regard to whether they are either-or questions or yes–no questions. But intonation in speech takes away the ambiguity.

For instance, Would (2) you (2) like (2) juice (3) or (2) soda (3, 1)? The sentence emphasizes juice and soda disjointedly and evenly, and ends with a decline in pitch, therefore indicating that this is not a yes–no question but instead a choice question equivalent to Which would you like: juice or soda? In contrast, Would (2) you (2) like (2) juice (3) or (3) soda (3, 3)? has yes–no intonation and therefore is equivalent to Would you like something to drink (like juice or soda)?

Therefore the two basic sentence pitch contours are rising-falling and rising. Nevertheless, other within-sentence rises and falls result from the position of distinction on the stressed syllables of specific words.

Note that for declaratives or wh-questions with a final decline, the decline is situated as a step-down to the syllable after the last highly stressed syllable, or as a down-glide on the last syllable itself if it is outstandingly stressed.

But for final rising pitch on yes–no questions, the rise always occurs as an upward step to the last stressed syllable, and the high (3) pitch is retained through the rest of the sentence.

A more recent approach to the analysis of intonation grew out of the research of Janet Pierrehumbert and developed into the system most popularly known by the name of ToBI.

The approach is sometimes known as s Auto segmental. One of the most significant this system is that just two tones, connected with pitch accents, are recognized, these being H (high) and L (low); all other tonal contours are made up of combinations of H, L and a few other modifying elements.

Thanks for reaching to this point marking the end of this lecture.

Your Lecture Master:

Mst. Ugonwanne Joshua