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7/22/2019 Discourse Intonation Phonetics Brazil Part i
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FORM AND FUNCTION
PART I
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There are a number of assumptions to bear in
mind when we study discourse intonation:
Interpretation of value depends on speakers (S) and
hearers(H) interactions as they work out particular
meanings in particular contexts.
The premise that a view of language as discourse and
communication, where utterance depends crucially oninteractive function within the discourse.
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The Discoursive approach begins from thestandpoint of the speaker and his message-the information he wishes to convey.
This description recognises significant
intonation choices as being made within avery small number of systems.
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There are four systems. These systems contain a total of thirteen
choices, summarised in the following table:
SYSTEM CHOICES NUMBERPROMINENCE Prominent/non-
prominent syllables
2
TONE fall/ rise-fall
rise/ fall-rise
level
5
KEY High, Mid, Low 3
TERMINATION High. Mid, Low 3
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The intonational features that contribute toexpress the structure of the information:
Tonality -the organization of information into
decodable units. Tonicity- act of selection of prominence Tone- communicative value
Information
Social Role-relationship
Key-pitch height
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It is the stretch o f language that carr ies the
systemat ical ly opposed features o f inton at ion.(Brazil et al)
Instead of thinking of speech as a sequence of wordsas we are inclined to do when examining the writtenlanguega- we can think of it as a sequence of tone units.
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Each tone unit is a separate parcel of information whichwe present to the listener, and the way we arrange our
information in parcels is important if we are to be readily
understool.
Each tone unit has either one or two prominent
syllables, the onset(optional) and the tonic syllable
( essential constituent)
Prominent syllables are placed in such a way as to draw
the listenersattention to particular words.
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Examples:
// It was" too late // theydgone //
//The street was empty//
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The tone unit may be analized as follows:
(proclitic segment) tonic segment (enclitic segment)
// It was " too late //
// theyd gone //
//The street was emp ty//
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There are no prominent syllables in the procliticand enclitic segment.
Both of them are optional constitutents
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There are two types of tone unit:
minimal tone unit
extended tone unit
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E T U KEY TONETERMINATION
MTU TONEKEYTERMINATION
ONSET SYLLABLE TONIC SYLLABLE
PROMINENT SYLLABLES
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Prom inence is a property associated w ith a word by
vir tue of i ts fun ct ion as a const i tuent of a tone uni t(Brazil et al)
The distribution of prominence depends upon thespeakers decision i.e. it represents his assessment of
the relative information load carried by particular
elements in his discourse.
In other words, prominence reflects the speakers
judgement that the word in question contains
matterwhich , at this time and in this context, will be
informing.
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It is the feature that determines the begining andend of the tonic segment.
It is the incidence of prominence that fixes the
domain of the three variables: key-termination
and tone.
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Consider the following context of interaction: Two friends playing cards:
Q: What card did you play?
R: || The "queenof hearts ||
Here the function words the and of have no selective
function.
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Here we are making informal use of thenotion of paradigmatic dimension oflanguage organisation which with itscomplementary concept, the syntagmatic
dimension has been an important part of themodel-building apparatus of linguistics.
According to this we shall use the terms: Existential paradigm
General paradigm
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ace spades
(the) two of diamonds
queen hearts
king clubs
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The existential paradigm refers to that set ofpossibilities that a speaker can regard asactually available in a given situation.
The general paradigm which is inherent in thelanguage system.
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Q: What heart did you play?
R: ||The queenof hearts ||
Here the person asking the question makes it clear that
he/ she knows the suit.
Q: Which queen did you play?
R: ||The queen of hearts||
Here the speaker refers to something already known.