PHONETICS

1. Brian Torres
Gabriela Acacio
Silvana Bonadé
Yamín Nefa

2. Intonation: nature
It is the melody of speech. We study:
 How the pitch of the voice rises and falls.
 How speakers use this pitch variation to convey linguistic
and pragmatic meaning.
It involve the study of:
 The rhythm of speech.
 How the interplay of accented, stressed and unstressed
syllable functions as a framework onto which the
intonation patterns are attached.
If we had no intonation, our speech would be monotonous.

3. PARASODIC FEATURES
Are those of pitch, loudness and speed. These combine
together to make up the rhythm of speech and are
combined in turn with stretches of silence to break up
the flow of speech.
 Stress: is realized by a combination of loudness, pitch
and duration. Some language use stress placement
lexically. There are a few pairs of words.
 Tone: being realized meanly by differences in the
pitch of the voice. A high pitch results from a relatively
rapid vibration of the vocal folds in the larynx, a low
pitch from a relatively slow vibration.

4. Is English a tone language?
 English does not use tone lexically: it is not a language
but English does use tone for information.
 The intonation system of English constitutes the most
important and complex part of English prosody. By
combining different pitch levels and contours.
 We express a range of intonational meanings: breaking
the utterance into chunks, distinguishing between
clause type, focusing on some parts if the utterance
and not on others, indicating which part of our
message in background information and which is
foreground, signaling our attitude to what we are
saying.

5.  Intonation meaning is shown in writing, through the
use of punctuation.
 Intonation is partly universal but also partly language-
specific.
 Language differ in the intonation patterns they use, and
in the extent to which they rely on intonation to convey
aspects of meaning.
 The same physical pattern of rises and falls may have
different meanings, different pragmatic implications in
different language.
 Between speakers of different languages, intonation
patterns can be much more easily misunderstood than
segmental patterns.

6. The three t’s
Three types of decision as they speak:
 How to break the material up into chunks
 What is to be accepted
 What tones are to be used.
These linguistic intonation systems are known as:
 Tonality: the first matter a speaker has to decide is the
division of the spoken material into chunks. There will be
an intonation pattern associated with each chunk. Each IP
in an utterance has its own intonation pattern. We make
each clause into a separate IP.
The speaker present the material as 2 o 3 pieces of
information rather than as a single piece.

7.  Tonicity: the speaker use intonation to highlight some
words as important for the meaning they which to
convey. These are the words on which the speaker
focuses the hearer’s attention. We accent its stressed
syllable, we add pitch prominence to the rhythmic
prominence that a stressed syllable bears.
The nucleus is the most important accent in the IP. In
terms of pitch, it is marked out by being the place where
the pitch change or pitch movement for the nuclear tone
begins.
Ex: I think it was ridiculous. I think it was ri/diculous.

8.  The nucleus is placed at the end of the OP unless there
are special reasons for it to go somewhere else. The
part of the IP that follows the nucleus is called the
tail.
Ex: I’m sure. I’m /sure.
 If an IP contains an accent in the part before the
nucleus, the first such accent is called the onset. The
part extending from the onset to the last syllable
before the nucleus is called the head.
Ex: It was re’markably good. It was re’markably /good.

9.  The part before the onset is called the prehead. It contains
no accented syllables. If an IP contains no accented
syllables before the nucleus, there is no head. If it contains
no unaccented syllable before the first accent, there is no
prehead.
 Tone: having decided the tonicity. What kind of pitch
movement is the speaker going to associate with it?
Falls: tend to indicate that the information conveyed is, or
could be, complete.
Rise or fall rise: tends to indicate that there is something
more to come.
The default tone for statements exclamations, commands and
wh questions is a fall, but for yes-no questions it is a rise.

10. The functions of intonation
 Attitudinal function: the role of intonation is to
express our attitudes and emotions. To show shock or
surprise, pleasure or anger, interest or boredom,
seriousness or sarcasm. We do this by tone.
 Grammatical function: Use intonation to mark the
beginning and end of grammatical units such as clause
and sentence. We do this by tonality. Also we use
intonation to distinguish clause types, such as
question vs. statement and various grammatically
ambiguous structures. We do this by tone.

11.  Focusing function: we use it to bring some parts of
the message into focus and leave other parts out of
focus, to emphasize or highlight some part and not
others. We do this by tonicity and by th placement of
other accents.
 Discourse function: intonation signals how
sequences of clauses and sentences go together in
spoken discourse, to contrast or to cohere.
 Psychological function: intonation helps us to
organize speech into units that are easy to perceive,
memorize and perform.
 Indexical function: intonation may act as a marker of
personal or social identity.

12. Falling and non-falling tones
 Falling tone have some degree of meaning in common.
 Non-falling tone refer to as non-falls.
 In English statements may have a fall but they may
also have a non-falling tone.
 Questions may have a rise but they may also have a
fall.

13.  It is useful to apply the notion of default tone for each
sentence type. Default tone is:
A fall for statement, exclamations, wh questions and
commands.
A rise for yes-no questions.
 Default for utterances involving two intonation
phrases is to have:
A fall on the main part.
A non-fall on the subordinate or dependent part.

14. Falls
 The pitch of the voice starts relatively high and then moves
downwards. The starting point may be anywhere from mid
to high. The endpoint is low. There may be some upward
movement before the pitch moves downward.
 The fall takes place on a single syllable.
Ex:Wow! It was great!
The nuclear syllable is the only syllable in the IP, or where the
nuclear syllable is the last syllable in the IP. The fall then
happens on that syllable.

15.  Identifying the nuclear tone we must disregard all the
pitch levels and possible pitch movements that are
found earlier in the intonation phrase.
Ex: I ‘really don’t care! How ‘very strange!
 There is very often a step up in pitch as we reach the
beginning of the nuclear fall.
Ex: I ‘really don’t care! How ‘very strange!
step step
up up

16.  There may even be some upward movement at the
beginning of the nuclear syllable. But as long as the
pitch then comes down, it is falling tone.
 There are syllables after the nucleus. After a falling
nucleus, the tail is always low. The fall happens on or
from the syllable that bears the nucleus. The syllable
after the nucleus are low pitched
Ex: Lovely! Then we’ll see what happens!

17.  If the vowel in the nucleus syllable is short or is
followed by a voiceless consonant, there may be
insufficient time for the fall to be heard on the nuclear
syllable itself. The effect is then one of a jump from a
higher-pitched syllable to one or more low-pitched
syllables. The overall pitch pattern is still a fall.
Ex: Nifty!

18. Rises
 The pitch of the voice starts relatively low and then
moves upwards. The starting point may be anywhere
from low to mid and the endpoint anywhere from mid
to high.
 If the nucleus is in the last or only syllable in the
intonation phrase then the rise takes place on that
syllable.
Ex: /Who?

19.  There is a step down in pitch as we reach the beginning of the
nuclear rise.
 If there is a tail, the rising pitch movement does no happen
wholly on the nuclear syllable, as in the case of a fall. The rise
is spread over the nuclear syllable and all the following
syllables, over the whole of the nucleus plus tail.
Ex: /Chicken?
 The last syllable is the highest pitched, even though it is
unaccented. It there is no prenuclear material the nucleus,
perceptually the most salient syllable for native speakers, is
the lowest-pitched syllable in the IP.
Ex: /What did you say her name was?

20. Fall-rises
 The pitch of the voice starts relatively high and then
moves first downwards and then upwards again. The
starting point may be anywhere from mid to high, the
midpoint is low and the endpoint is mid.
 If the nucleus is on the last or only syllable in the
intonation phrase, the entire fall-rise movement takes
place on that syllable.
Ex: /Mine.

21.  If there is a tail, the falling-rising pitch movement is
spread out over the nucleus and tail. The falling part
takes place on the nuclear syllable or between that
syllable and the next. The rising part takes place
towards the end of the tail and extends up to the last
syllable of IP.
Ex: /Almost.