A model of standard German intonation [Reprint 2017 ed.] 3110999293, 9783110999297

Table of contents :
PREFACE
CONTENTS
1. AIMS AND METHOD
2. THE RELEVANT TONE-SWITCHES
3. FORMAL AND SEMANTIC INVARIANTS
4. PHRASING AND INTONATION
5. SUMMARY
APPENDIX
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Citation preview

A MODEL OF STANDARD GERMAN INTONATION

JANUA LINGUARUM STUDIA M E M O R I A E NICOLAI VAN WIJK DEDICATA edenda curai

C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD INDIANA U N I V E R S I T Y

SERIES

PRACTICA 113

1970

MOUTON THE HAGUE • PARIS

A MODEL OF STANDARD GERMAN INTONATION by

ALEXANDER ISACENKO and

HANS-JOACHIM SCHÄDLICH

1970

MOUTON THE H A G U E • PARIS

© Copyright 1970 in The Netherlands. Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.

Original title: Untersuchungen über die deutsche Satzintonation (Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1964). Translated from the German by John Pheby; with a record produced by Heinrich Eras.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 76-114577

Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague.

PREFACE

Until recently, intonation as a phonetic problem was given relatively little serious attention by specialists. In the last few years, however, a wide interest in questions of intonation has grown most rapidly. This was shown clearly at the two Congresses of Phonetic Sciences in Helsinki (1961) and Münster (1964). It is not the purpose of the experiments described here to add new material to the vast complex of experimental work based on the measurement and description of individual utterances. The present authors take the view that no theory can be based on events which are never repeated. In the field of prosodic sound features the authors have developed an experimental method based on the auditive judgement of signals produced ARTIFICIALLY and therefore controllable on all parameters. They believe that the natural movement of the fundamental frequency of actual speech ought to be artificially simplified and schematised as far as possible, in order to be used as material for informant tests. In the opinion of the authors important conclusions can be drawn from the judgement of informants (native speakers of German) as to the linguistically relevant features and characteristics of natural German intonation. Most of the examples given in this book are demonstrated on the gramophone record provided. The reader is urged to listen to the examples in close conjunction with the written text. Most of the examples on the record are self-explanatory. Examples with their numbers given in round brackets ( ) can be heard on the record. The original material for these examples was monotonised by L. M. Ericsson Telefonaktiebolaget (Stockholm) on the vocoder. Examples with their numbers given in square brackets [ ] are not recorded. The authors would like to thank above all their colleague H. Eras, of the Institut für deutsche Sprache und Literatur, Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, for his invaluable assistance in producing the material used in the experiments and demonstrations and for his expert advice. We are also indebted to Professor H. Frühauf and Professor K. Freitag of the Technische Universität Dresden, and to Dr. W. Tscheschner of the Institut für Fernmeldetechnik der Technischen Universität

6

PREFACE

Dresden for his willing co-operation and valuable advice. Our sincere thanks are due also to Dr. C. G. M. Fant, of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm for his support for our work, his colleague J. Märtony and the firm L. M. Ericsson (Stockholm) which kindly undertook the monotonisation of our material. Finally we should especially like to thank Professor M. Grützmacher, of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Brunswick for his experimental examination of our test material. A . V . ISAÖENKO

H . - J . SCHÄDLICH

Üstav Jazykü a Literatur, Ceskoslovenskä Akademie Vöd Praha

Institut für deutsche Sprache und Literatur, Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin DDR

CONTENTS

Preface

5

1. Aims 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. 1.5. 2. The 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5. 2.6.

and method Continuum vs. segmentation The hypothesis Simulated intonation The informant tests Methodological conclusions

relevant tone-switches The interval between the tone levels Word and utterance The marked syllable in the word: ictus and tone-switch The marked word in the utterance General marking rules Phonological status of the tone-switches

9 9 11 12 14 15 17 17 19 20 23 25 26

3.

Formal and semantic invariants 3.1. Expressive and syntactic functions 3.2. The syntactically relevant tone-switches: question and non-question . 3.3. The rising tone-switches 3.4. The falling tone-switches

29 29 32 34 39

4.

Phrasing and intonation 4.1. The integrating and phrasing function of pitch movement in the sentence 4.2. Tone-switches and pitch interrupters 4.3. Listing and parenthesis 4.4. Intonational resolution of ambiguities in the sentence 4.5. Coda

42 42 43 47 52 54

8

CONTENTS

5. Summary

57

Appendix

62

Bibliography

65

1. AIMS AND METHOD

1.1.

CONTINUUM VS. SEGMENTATION Il reste à prouver que l'intonation d'une langue est réductible à des unités discontinues. (A. Martinet, Economie des changements phonétiques, 1955, 163).

1.1.1. All studies of acoustic properties of intonation are based on the bona fide assumption that the relevant features of intonation can be gathered by observing and/or measuring a finite number of unique events (individual utterances). 1.1.2. Most European linguists who study the continuous intonation present in the speech event do so from a realistic point of view. One of the most outstanding specialists in German intonation, O. von Essen, summarises the information on intonation gained by instrumental measurement in the following three sentences: (a) SPOKEN words (as distinct from those sung) exhibit a continuous rising and falling pitch. The voice never remains on one pitch for long, not even within the vowel. (b) Consequently we cannot establish definite 'intervals', as we do in music. The voice progresses from the beginning to the end of the utterance through different frequencies, it passes quickly through a certain frequency range, thus without making STEPS. (c) The lowest and the highest points in the frequency range the voice passes through do not stand in the numerical relationship to each other which we have in our musical system: the relationship between the highest and the lowest points is 'irrational' (O. von Essen 1962, 167).

1.1.3. Most American linguists (including K. L. Pike, G. L. Trager, H. L. Smith, C. F. Hockett and H. A. Gleason) describe the various types of intonation as DISCRETE UNITS, which they call 'suprasegmental phonemes', 'super-imposed phonemes' and which they describe as 'pitch levels' and (usually) three 'terminal contours'. However this optimistic view of the (vertical, interval-oriented) segmentability of the continuous movement of the voice cannot be verified. The quantification of the continuum of the fundamental frequency is limited to the observation of natural utterances, and is therefore impressionistic.

10

AIMS AND METHOD

H. A. Gleason, in his textbook intended for beginners, makes the following claims about English intonation: The normal pitch of the voice of the speaker is /2/, called MID. It varies, of course, from speaker to speaker. Moreover, most people raise the pitch somewhat when they are speaking more loudly, and at various other times ... Pitch /I/, called LOW, is somewhat lower, perhaps two or three notes below /2/, but the interval will vary from speaker to speaker and from time to time. Pitch /3/, called HIGH, is about as much higher than /2/ as /2/ is above /I/. Pitch /4/, called EXTRA HIGH, is higher than /3/ by about the same amount, or may even be somewhat higher (1955, 46). These claims are so vague ('SOMEWHAT lower', 'PERHAPS two or three notes below', 'will vary from time to time', 'may be somewhat higher' etc.), that this kind of description can at best be regarded as a first approximation, certainly not as a phonological system. In addition to the 'pitch levels' Gleason claims three 'clause terminals', which receive 'phonemic' status: / \ / fading; j / / rising; /->/ sustained (ibid.). It is clear that Gleason's statements are limited to the level of observation. Undoubtedly D. L. Bolinger is correct in saying: "The syllabic phonemes have a counterpart in nature. Levels — four or six or sixty — have none" (1951, 208). This statement is however only correct if by 'reality' we mean the reality of the speech event, of the signal given hie et nunc. The linguistic system has its own 'reality', which is best explained on the assumption of discrete units. 1.1.4. The "pitch-levels v. configurations" controversy, formulated at the beginning of the Fifties by D. L. Bolinger, was not resolved by F. Danes either, who in his methodologically very plausible study of Czech intonation suggested a compromise solution, regarding sentence intonation patterns as "configurations of tone levels" (1960). What is important is that Danes realised that only the physical and physiological factors in intonation can be studied by measurement, while the psychological and above all the linguistic factors of intonation defy instrumental phonetic methods (37). 1.1.5. Both the 'realists' and the 'optimists' take essentially the same line of argument: A representative set of utterances is chosen, and forms the corpus for analysis. This corpus serves as the input of an experiment in which the thorough evaluation of certain analytical procedures such as instrumental measurement, commutation, selfobservation, auditive judgement and artificial imitation of natural intonation patterns by speech synthesisers1 are meant to provide the information regarded as linguistically relevant. Figure 1 shows the scheme of such experiments: 1 K. Hadding-Koch had carried out experiments with synthetic speech in which the fundamental frequency of the utterances was varied artificially. However, Hadding-Koch emphasised that it was desirable to approximate as closely as possible the simulated intonation of NATURAL speech (1961,145).

AIMS AND METHOD

11

Fig. 1

The information gained by such techniques does not progress beyond the level of observation — it can at best represent averages, statistical statements or informant responses to artificially produced imitations of natural utterances.

1.2. THE HYPOTHESIS

1.2.1. The present study is based on the assumption that the actual, observable physical substance of speech (the signal) does not stand in a one-to-one relationship to the relevant entities operating in the process of communication. Therefore, we do not think it possible to deduce valid statements about the relevant features of language from the analysis of a given number — however large — of individual speech events. In his paper at the Fifth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (1964) H. Spang-Hanssen dealt with the question of to what extent language can be regarded as a code: It proves essential to the application of code theory to linguistic matters to distinguish between text (utterance, message), and system (language) (1965, 52). It is relevant to phonology to see whether it is possible by technical means to quantise speech into code elements corresponding to phonemes (57). E. Fischer-j0rgensen answered this question in the negative, demonstrating the impossibility of obtaining 'phonemes from curves' (1957). The answer to the question whether pertinent units on the phonological level can be arrived at by a vertical or horizontal quantisation of pitch as pitch-levels must in our view be equally negative. No direct conclusions about discrete elements of the system can be drawn from the continuum of the signal (from the observation of texts), since speech (as opposed to language) obviously cannot be regarded as a code. In common with M. Halle we assume that, because of the inertia of the vocal tract, it is conceivable that a given vocal tract configuration or gesture may not be reached in the time foreseen in the schedule, so that the vocal tract may be able only to approximate the required sequence of gestures. In extreme cases the vocal tract may omit altogether some of the gestures or configurations foreseen in the schedule. As a consequence "we must expect difficulties in trying to divide utterances into segments that stand in a one-to-one relationship with the discrete entities of the input, i.e. with the phonemes in the utterance ... The speaker possesses a set of instructions or rules which allow him to transform a sequence of discrete entities (i.e. phonemes) into quasi-continuous behavior of the vocal tract and thence into a quasi-continuous acoustical signal" (1962, 429).

12

AIMS AND METHOD

Since it may be taken for granted that there is no really effective method of analysis of the acoustic signal by which to obtain discrete elements corresponding to the specific input elements, different methods of investigation of the relevant features of sentence intonation had to be found. 1.2.2. We based our work on the assumption that certain typical "intonation patterns" of German, which we will first characterise as syntactically relevant patterns (cf. 3.2.), can be represented by the alternation of TWO AND ONLY TWO tone levels. In comparison with the 'irrational' multiplicity of natural tone contours this assumption implies an extremely simplified and schematised representation of the events actually observed. The assumption of a binary opposition within German intonation resulted from the necessity of replacing the unverifiable and therefore unsatisfying use of three or four pitch levels by an easily controllable two-pitch configuration. We were well aware that the reduction of the natural pitch movement of the voice to two levels would be taken as a gross distortion of the natural signal. At the same time, we wanted to see whether the binary principle, which has long stood the test in so many spheres of language, would also be valid for the elusive phenomenon of intonation.

1.3. SIMULATED INTONATION

1.3.1. It is impossible for an informant to produce a normal spoken text keeping rigidly to two levels of pitch. A text in which the pitch is kept on two levels can be SUNG, but not without an undesirable change in the parameters of natural speech (e.g. intensity, tempo, pauses). In order on the one hand to retain the acoustic properties of natural speech as far as possible, and on the other hand to be able to determine at will the movements of pitch, we used a vocoder. Short natural sentences were recorded on magnetic tape, with the different 'typical', intonation patterns well established by German phoneticians, namely those of 'statement', 'question', 'contrast' and 'unfinishedness'. By means of the vocoder these sentences were MONOTONISED, i.e. the fundamental frequency was kept constant in all the segments. In the first phase of our series of experiments the pitch was changed MANUALLY, according to certain predetermined patterns, with the aid of a potentiometer, in such a way that the pitch of the utterance could be kept to TWO contrasting levels (high and low tone). A precise description of this series of experiments is contained in a preliminary report (A. V. Isaöenko and H.-J. Schädlich 1963). 1.3.2. Because sonagrams showed that when the formation of tone levels was manually controlled transitions of a duration of more than 50 m sec. appeared; and because we wanted to exclude such TRANSITORY phases (movements) within the signal, we adopted a quite different procedure. In all the experiments which followed, sentences with natural intonation were

13

AIMS AND METHOD

monotonised on various levels of pitch. The desired configuration of different levels was produced by splicing magnetic tapes with two versions of the same sentence, each having a different monotonised fundamental frequency. For example, the naturally spoken sentence: (1) die Vorbereitungen sind getroffen, alles ist bereit was tape-recorded and monotonised on the vocoder with the constant fundamental frequencies 150 cps and 178.6 cps. Monotonised at 150 cps: (2) die Vorbereitungen sind getroffen, alles ist bereit Monotonised at 178.6 cps: (3) die Vorbereitungen sind getroffen, alles ist bereit The versions of this sentence monotonised at 150 cps and 178.6 cps were cut at predetermined points and the parts combined in such a way that the desired simulated intonation pattern was produced (Fig. 2). 178.6 cps: 150 cps:

Vorbereitungen sind ge die

alles ist be troffen

reit

Fig. 2

Thus transitions in the signal from one frequency to the other were excluded and the intonation was simulated by absolutely discrete units. 'Spliced' intonation pattern with two levels of fundamental frequency: (4) die I Vorbereitungen sind getroffen, alles ist be|reit As early as 1934 Menzerath and de Lacerda showed that the mechanical transplantation of isolated speech sounds into a different phonetic context leads to distortion of the signal. Their findings have recently been verified by Dukel'skij, Malecot and others. In our experiments we isolated segments of the size of one syllable and combined these mechanically with other segments of the same size. Placing together mechanically syllables with differing fundamental frequency does not usually produce any appreciable distortion of the signal: the ear perceives the tone-switch as a continuous transition. This corresponds to a remarkable degree with the observation of H. M. Truby on co-articulation (1959) and the recent experiments of the Soviet physiologists V. A. Kozevnikov and L. A. Cistoviô based on more refined methods. In their examination of the organisation of articulatory movement within a syllable of the structure CCFthey come to the conclusion that "the whole group is programmed as a synchronic bundle of instructions to the effector centres" (1965, 139). Thus sequences of syllables in the flow of speech can be regarded as sequences of relatively independent articulatory complexes. Cuts in the speech-flow which do not lie within

14

AIMS AND METHOD

such articulatory complexes are therefore not perceived in the signal produced. However, if they do lie within such an articulatory complex, as for example in our case within vowels and diphthongs, they are perceived, but without any adverse effect on the interpretability of the signal. 1.3.3. These abrupt tone-switches are clearly shown on tracings registered on the pitch meter by H. Eras. Plate 1 shows the pitch movement of the natural sentence (1) die Vorbereitungen sind getroffen, alles ist bereit. Above the frequency tracing are shown the time markings, the oscillogram, and the amplitude. Plate 2 shows version (2) monotonised on the low tone, plate 3 version (3) monotonised on the high tone. Plate 4 shows sentence (4) with the tone-switches. The arrows indicate the positions where the tapes have been cut and joined.

1.4. THE INFORMANT TESTS

1.4.1. Short utterances, in which the natural pitch movement was simulated by discrete monotonised segments of two pitches only, were played back to informant listeners — students of the Humboldt-Universität Berlin and of the Pädagogische Hochschule Potsdam, who had not received any particular training in phonetics. All possible combinations of two tone-levels were produced from a four-syllable utterance. If we call a low-toned syllable 0 and a high-toned syllable 1, then the 16 possible combinations of the form 0000, 1000, 0100 ... to 1101, 1111, were produced. The informants were instructed to disregard the somewhat unusual sound of the 'voice' of the vocoder and to judge the utterances as 'acceptable' or 'unacceptable' from the point of view of normal German intonation. From the judgements of the simulated utterances as to their acceptability, we were able to draw certain conclusions. Utterances judged 'unacceptable' by the majority of the informants were not used in any further tests. Among the intonation patterns not accepted by the informants were for example completely monotonous utterances. Of the 16 tested patterns there eventually only remained 6 which were judged 'acceptable' by the overwhelming majority of the informants. These 6 patterns agreed with the patterns gained empirically by the observation of natural intonation. These were the intonation patterns of non-emphatic statements, emphatic statements, yes-no questions and unfinished utterances and variants of these. 1.4.2. In one of the first series of experiments the informants were instructed to listen to the sentences with various simulated intonation patterns, and to assign these to the typical intonation patterns of German. Short sentences which had been given particular intonation patterns on the vocoder by manual control were used. The sentence (5) er plant eine Reise

100 Hz

100 Hz Plate 3

50 Hz

400 Hz

M « 4 —

di:

fo:

Plates 1 — 4:

Rbs'Rae

tugs

n

zin

tga

Pitch movements of the sentence die Vorbe,

e Vorbereitungen

sind getroffen,

alles ist bereit, (explained p. 14)

AIMS A N D METHOD

15

was recorded on tape. The same sentence monotonised sounds thus : (6) er plant eine Reise (000000) In (6) the segment eine Reise was then cut out and given the following simulated intonation patterns :2 (7) eine Reise (1100) (8) eine | Rei|se (0010) (9) eine] Rei[se (1101) (10) eine I Reise (0011) The informants had to decide whether the given sentence could be understood as a statement, as a question, as a sentence expressing a contrast (thus a journey and not an excursion), or as an "interrupted and unfinished" sentence. Failure to assign a sentence to any one particular type was expressed by '0'. We cannot go into detail on the first experiments here. The number of judgements agreeing with each other was considerable. Sentence (9) was for example judged by 95 % of all informants as being a 'question'. This result is all the more significant in view of the fact that the same informants judged the same sentence in natural question form not with 100% but likewise with 95% agreement (A. V. Isacenko and H.-J. Schädlich 1963). Similar tests were later undertaken with the tone sequences produced by the procedure outlined in 1.3.2. On the basis of these first series of tests we could already be fairly certain that simulated intonation patterns were in principle equivalent to natural sentence intonation patterns as regards the syntactic information they conveyed.

1.5.

METHODOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS

1.5.1. Instead of subjecting a corpus of natural utterances to various measuring techniques, we played back utterances in which the height and also the 'movement' of the fundamental frequency were kept under strict control to German informants, and established that intonation types from natural speech can be simulated by using two and only two tone levels combined not as gradual transitions but as abrupt toneswitches. It must be pointed out emphatically that we at no point in our experiment 2 To avoid misunderstandings we should like to emphasise that these first experiments in manual control of the tone levels were carried out with the aid of a potentiometer. It was by no means attempted to produce a faithful imitation of natural German intonation. Mechanical precautions had been taken to keep the upper and lower limits of the pitch on a constant level. The experiments with manual control of the frequency were carried out on the vocoder in the Institut für Fernmeldetechnik der Technischen Universität Dresden.

16

AIMS AND METHOD

intended to imitate faithfully natural intonation using the vocoder, as was the case for instance in the work of K. Hadding-Koch (1961). Our simulated sentences sometimes even sound very 'unnatural', but still clearly contain the necessary acoustic cues to allow the listener to assign these 'unnatural' sentences to particular types of natural German sentences. Methodologically our procedure can be characterised as follows: The treatment of intonation is usually limited to observation, measurement, evaluation and notation of natural signals. Since we assume that the relevant features of intonation cannot be obtained from the complex acoustic signal itself, we consistently kept one of the prosodic parameters, namely the fundamental frequency, under control. Our experiments give some information about how German listeners interpret on the linguistic level audio signals which are somewhat distorted. Our method, similarly to that of the research group of the Haskins Laboratories in New York, can be characterised as a redundancy-excluding perceptual method. Our method may be schematically represented as in Figure 3:

Fig. 3

1.5.2. The confusing 'irrational' gradience of the pitch movement of the voice, just as the arbitrary quantising into three, four or more 'pitch levels', and also the vague postulation of several 'clause terminals' can be grasped if German intonation patterns are regarded as an ordered sequence of two tone levels: of one HIGH TONE and one LOW TONE.

The trivial fact that NATURAL intonation contours are continuous and gradient sound phenomena without abrupt tone-steps and without definite intervals is not disputed here. Nor do we wish to dispute the fact that intonation patterns convey certain emotive (according to W. Meyer-Eppler: "ectosemantic") connotations. This emotive function of intonation cannot however be taken into account in the first stage of our experiments. It would be methodologically unsound to try to describe linguistic facts disregarding the central and typical phenomena and starting with the marginal ones.

2. THE RELEVANT TONE-SWITCHES

2.1. THE INTERVAL BETWEEN THE TONE LEVELS

2.1.1. The continuum of the pitch-movement in German utterances can be represented as an ordered sequence of two tone-levels (cf. 1.3.). For the realisation of this alternation between two levels, the actual pitch used as a starting-point is not important. It is of course practical to use as a starting-point the average frequency range of male or female voices. The size of interval between the two tone-levels can be regarded as of secondary importance. What is essential is the alternation of tone-levels as the implementation of a difference in pitch between one segment and those on either side of it. In producing a change of tone-level, we merely need an interval which guarantees a contrast between the two levels. On the other hand, different emotive connotations conveyed by intonation may be connected with the different sizes of interval. In order to determine the minimal difference necessary to distinguish two tone-levels in tone-level configurations from monotonised speech material the following experiment was performed. The word sieben 'seven' was recorded once and then several copies were made. From these copies the sequence sieben sieben sieben sieben was produced, with exactly the same time interval between each occurrence of the element sieben. It follows also that the intensity pattern of each occurrence of the word sieben was identical. The configuration sieben sieben sie ben sieben was produced with the following intervals: (i)

3 cps (low tone: 150 cps; high tone: 153 cps):

(11) sieben sieben sieben sieben (ii) 6 cps (low tone: 150 cps; high tone: 156 cps): (12) sieben sieben sieben sieben (iii) 9 cps = 1 semi-tone (low tone: 150 cps; high tone: 159 cps): (13) sieben sieben sieben sieben The sentences (11)-(13) were each played back to eight informants with the instruction

18

THE RELEVANT TONE-SWITCHES

to state in each case the 'emphasised' word. In the case of (11) four informants gave the first sieben and only two gave the third sieben as being emphasised. In sentences (12) and (13) however the third sieben was interpreted by all informants as emphatic. The results of this experiment only confirm those of a previous experiment described which was performed on speech material on a different vocoder. (A. V. Isacenko and H.-J. Schädlich 1963, 368-369). With monotonised speech material of the kind described above, discrimination begins at an interval of 6 cps, that is, near the absolute threshhold of discrimination of tone-levels in this frequency range. The required minimum of difference between the two tone-levels begins at an interval in the region of one semi-tone. 2.1.2. In descriptions of the intonation of various languages definite figures are often given as to the size of the intervals within the utterance and in the so-called terminal contour, cf. for example H. W. Pollak (1910), W. Kuhlmann (1931) and O. von Essen (1964) for German and J. E. Jürgens Buning and C. H. van Schooneveld (1960) for Russian. According to H. W. Pollak the interval of the falling voice at the end of a sentence in German in the case of one particular speaker ranges between the diminished fifth and the minor seventh (1910, 62). According to W. Kuhlmann the pitch movements in a sentence occur within a range of 13-19 semi-tones (1931, 59). O. von Essen claims: "It is important that the interval should not become too great. As an orientation an interval of one fifth to one sixth can be assumed between 'high' and 'low'" (1964, 93). According to J. E. Jürgens Buning and C. H. van Schooneveld an affirmative and an interrogative sentence in Russian are (normally) pronounced with a lowering by one fifth and raising by one third respectively (1960, 91 and 95-96). We do not propose here to dispute the fact that such intervals may actually be observed and registered in natural utterances. What matters here is the establishment of a minimal interval which must be chosen to guarantee a distinction between the two tone-levels. The semi-tone represents that interval which is sufficient for distinguishing the two tone-levels. The choice of larger intervals between the two tone-levels does not increase their discriminability. We regard it as highly significant that the range found in natural speech can be reduced to an interval of ONE SEMI-TONE without the sentence losing any syntactically relevant information conveyed by intonation. Many of our experiments were performed using material in which the two tonelevels were contrasted by one semi-tone only. But even in natural speech semi-tone intervals between 'high' and 'low' occur more frequently than is generally assumed. Semi-tone intervals can be heard in a considerable number of German news broadcasts. Of course the human ear can perceive even smaller intervals: the existence of quarter-tone music depends on this fact. The perceptibility of very small intervals also depends on the frequency range in question. Our experiments have merely shown that in connected human speech an interval of the order of one semi-tone is sufficient to constitute relevant pitch-configurations.

THE RELEVANT TONE-SWITCHES 2.2.

19

WORD A N D UTTERANCE

2.2.1. The smallest linguistic unit within which relevant prosodic features operate is the word. We regard a 'word' here as one morpheme or a minimal combination of morphemes which can occur independently in a normal, i.e. non-metalinguistic utterance in the environment / # # /. The word is an input unit chosen from the lexical store and inserted into the utterance. Prosodically, the German word is characterised by the fact that it possesses one and only one syllabic segment which can be marked ('stressed') with regard to at least one other syllabic segment. This syllabic segment capable of being marked, is called the ICTUS. It does not necessarily coincide with the syllable. Words consist of l...n syllables. There exist in German other lexical items which are never stressed in connected speech. Such items may be syllabic, e.g. sag es or nonsyllabic, e.g. sag's. These elements are. in the sense defined above, not words but ATONIC ELEMENTS, used proclitically or enclitically. Atonic elements contain no ictus. The presence or absence of an ictus distinguishes some words from otherwise homophonic, atonic units. Words

Atonic Units

Er ist doch geblieben 'he stayed after all' Die Schachtel zumachen 'to close the box' ¿inen Fehler machen 'to make one mistake'

Er ist doch geblieben 'but he stayed' Die Schachtel zu mächen 'to make the box' Einen Fehler machen 'to make a mistake'

N.B. The difference between zu and zu cannot be interpreted as a difference between long and short vowels. The interpretation of zu as /tsu/ and not /tsu:/ would contradict the general rule according to which the only short vowel occurring in German in word-final position is /a/. A rule therefore has to be set up to account for the realisation of long vowels word-finally in atonic elements as short ones. On the grammatical status of such 'particles' see W. Arndt (1960). 2.2.2. In classical German phonetics the marking of one syllable within the word is regarded as a phonetic phenomenon and described as 'dynamic word-stress'. While we do not question the fact that the 'stressed' syllable in German is usually spoken with more intensity, recent research has shown that the 'prominence' of a syllable can be materialised by various acoustic factors. O. von Essen considers "duration, pitch, voicing, intensity and tamber to be those components ... by which the hearer recognises the marking of a part of a word" (1938, 8). I. Fonagy has recently come to similar conclusions (1958, 38).

20

THE RELEVANT TONE-SWITCHES

A. Martinet formulates this idea as follows: An accent should be defined as the setting off of one, and only one, section of the word at the expense of, and in opposition to, the other sections of the same word ... It is immaterial whether the accent is a stress accent or a pitch accent or both stress and pitch (1955,12). Accordingly the 'word-stress' can be interpreted phonologically as a set of instructions concerning the behaviour of speech organs for marking a particular syllable or the only syllable of the word. The physical parameters by which this marking is implemented does not concern us here. 2.2.3. By 'utterance' we mean here any segment of speech which can occur relatively independently, that is in the environment [ # # ] . Every utterance consists of at least one word. Pitch movement takes place in every utterance. A word or a sequence of words cannot be regarded as an utterance unless its syllabic segments show AT LEAST IN ONE PLACE a change of pitch. Changes from one fundamental frequency to another are called TONE-SWITCHES. Tone-switches can only take place at particular points within the word: either immediately BEFORE or immediately AFTER an ictus. Accordingly we distinguish between PRE-ICTIC and POST-ICTIC tone-switches. Since every utterance shows a tone-switch somewhere, it must contain at least one ictic and one non-ictic segment. However, since utterances can consist of one single word, each word contains at least one ictic and one non-ictic segment. N.B. In certain cases utterances can be spoken without perceptible voice modulation, that is, they can be relatively monotonous. Such utterances often have emotive connotations, cf. the following examples spoken monotonously on various levels of pitch: abtreten 'dismissed', los 'go on', einverstanden 'I agree'. We exclude such utterances from consideration and assume that every normal utterance is spoken with at least one tone-switch.

2.3. THE MARKED SYLLABLE IN THE WORD: ICTUS AND TONE-SWITCH

2.3.1. It is revealing to examine the prosodic patterns within isolated words which occur as independent normal utterances. Such one-word utterances are extremely common in dialogue. They occur as short questions, as elliptical answers to whquestions (e.g. to the question Was ist das? 'what is that?') etc. We shall call the form which a given word takes when used as an independent utterance the ANNOUNCING FORM (Ansageform). 2.3.2. As the input element in the act of speech communication the word is provided with a particular prosodic marking INSTRUCTION which in the utterance (sentence)

THE RELEVANT TONE-SWITCHES

21

CAN, but need not, be materialised as a tone-switch. In the announcing form word and utterance coincide. According to 2.2.1. the word contains one and only one ictus. Each utterance contains according to 2.2.3. at least one point at which a change from high to low pitch or vice-versa, i.e. a tone-switch, must take place. Whenever a word appears in its announcing form as an independent utterance, a tone-switch occurs within this minimal utterance. It remains now to determine the point on the time axis at which tone-switches can occur. 2.3.3. Let us compare natural announcing forms with simulated forms. The natural announcing forms are taken from a radio broadcast for river navigation. The location of possible tone-switches changes according to the position of the ictic segment in the word. The following types must be distinguished: (a) Polysyllabics with the ictus in the first syllable: (14) sieben

(natural announcing form)

(15) Havelkanal

(natural announcing form)

(16) sieben

(simulated announcing form)

(17) Um|stände

(simulated announcing form)

(18) unaufgeklärt

(simulated announcing form)

Examples (16)-(18) can also be simulated as 'questions': (19) siejben

(simulated question)

(20) Um|stande

(simulated question)

(21) un|aufgeklart

(simulated question)

In words of type (a) the ictic segment coi ncides with the ('stressed') first syllable. The following 'unstressed' syllables form the: non-ictic segments. (b) Polysyllabics with the ictus in a non-final and non-initial syllable : (22) Tangermunde

(natural announcing form)

(23) Ge|schich(te

(simulated announcing form)

(24) Ge]schich[te

(simulated question)

In words of type (b) the ictic segment coincides with the ('stressed') middle syllable. The tone-switches lie either IMMEDIATELY BEFORE or IMMEDIATELY AFTER the ictus. The

22

THE RELEVANT TONE-SWITCHES

'unstressed' syllables preceding or following the ictus form the non-ictic segments, (c) Monosyllables: (25) drei

(natural announcing form)

(26) drë[i_

(simulated announcing form)

(27) dreji

(simulated question)

In words of type (c) the tone-switch can only lie WITHIN THE SYLLABLE ITSELF. This means that in this case the ictic segment is NOT identical with the (only) vocalic element in the word. Since every word possesses an ictic segment which is capable of being marked in relation to at least one non-ictic segment, monosyllabic words must likewise contain an ictic and a non-ictic segment (2.2.3.). To form a tone-switch, two phonetically contrasting segments are necessary. Since in a monosyllabic utterance the tone-switch cannot take place before sound is produced, i.e. before the only syllable, and since tone-switches are excluded after phonation has taken place, i.e. after the only syllable, the tone-switch must fall within the i or dre^. In monosyllables the syllable — immediately after the first segment: syllabic segment on the left of the tone-switch is thus to be regarded as ictic. N.B. The impression could easily be gained that the tone-switch falling within the syllable divides the (long or short) vowel or the diphthong into two equal parts. On the basis of preliminary tests, in which tone-switches were made artificially within the syllable and played back to German informants for their evaluation, it can be said that of the tone-switches occurring within the vowel, those which occur within the SECOND HALF of the vowel or diphthong were judged to be the most 'natural', (d) Oxytonic polysyllabics: (28) Berlin

(natural announcing form)

(29) Berjiln

(simulated announcing form)

(30) Ber|lin

(simulated question)

In words of type (d) the ictic segment, as in the monosyllabics, is identical with the first part of the ('stressed') final syllable. The second part of the final syllable forms a non-ictic segment. Thus the general rule that tone-switches can only occur immediately before or immediately after an ictic segment also holds for this particular case (cf. examples (29)-(30)). We are now in a position to formulate a precise statement about the location of tone-switches: TONE-SWITCHES NEVER OCCUR BETWEEN TWO ICTIC OR BETWEEN TWO NON-ICTIC SEGMENTS, BUT ONLY BETWEEN AN ICTIC AND A NON-ICTIC SEGMENT.

THE RELEVANT TONE-SWITCHES

23

Pre-ictic tone-switches are located immediately AFTER a non-ictic segment: Bei\ltn or Berlin, Geschichte or Geschichte. Post-ictic tone-switches are always located BEFORE a non-ictic segment: sie\ben or sie\ben. In word groups like drei Kinder or drei | Kinder the tone-switches occur in a preictic position, since the final segment of the word drei is non-ictic (2.3.3. (c)). 2.3.4. In the announcing form, just as in the interrogative form, in the examples (25)-(27) and (28)-(30) only the ictic part of the syllable is marked. However, the hearer interprets these phenomena in such a way as to hear the whole syllable containing the ictic segment as marked. Thus in the word Berlin the final syllable is heard as marked, although in this example only the first part of the final syllable is ictic. In a sentence such as er hat es einfach nicht gemacht 'he simply didn't do it', only the syllable macht or, more precisely only the vowel [a] is marked by pitch (or pitch and intensity): geijnacht. Nevertheless the hearer perceives not the vowel nor the syllable but the whole word gemacht as being marked in the sentence. 2.3.5. In natural speech the marking of the ictic segment is implemented in various ways by a complex of acoustic factors. Since every normal utterance possesses a pitch movement and in every utterance at least one element must be marked by a tone-switch, the tone-switch itself is responsible for the marking of this element of the utterance. Our experiments have shown that the 'pitch-movement' can be represented by an ordered sequence of discrete high and low pitched segments, that is to say that the 'pitch-movement' of an utterance can be represented by a series of tone-switches.

2.4. THE MARKED WORD IN THE UTTERANCE

2.4.1. It is well known that the voice, when pressure is increased, tends to move to a higher frequency. The link between pitch and pressure is however, very loose (O. von Essen 1938, 9). We hope to show that not only the raising but also the lowering of pitch (i.e. rising AND falling tone-switches) can produce the effect of marking. 2.4.2. (31)

The sentence (natural form) weil Peter die Zeitung noch nicht zu Ende gelesen haben kann

was recorded on tape and monotonised with the fundamental frequencies of 150 cps and 178.6 cps. The 'stressed' words were: Peter, Zeitung, Ende, kann. From the monotonised versions of the sentence the following pattern was produced: (32)

weil Peter die Zeitung noch nicht zu | En|de gelesen haben kann

24

THE RELEVANT TONE-SWITCHES

In the same sentence the words noch and nicht consecutively were provided with a high tone: (33) weil Peter die Zeitung noch nicht zu Ende gelesen haben kann (34) weil Peter die Zeitung noch | nicht | zu Ende gelesen haben kann The effect is unmistakable: the words noch and nicht, which were marked by pitch only, are perceived as 'stressed'. It can easily be seen that 'upward pitch prominence' I can serve as a factor of marking. Then a syllable in the same sentence was marked by 'downward prominence' (35) weil Peter die Zeitung noch nicht zu Ende gelesen haben kann The result is likewise unmistakable: the 'downward prominence' can also serve as a factor of marking. In the next example the same sentence monotonised at the beginning on a high tone was continued after the syllable ge on a low tone: (36) weil Peter die Zeitung noch nicht zu Ende ge|lesen haben kann The syllable le in gelesen, which was not stressed in the original sentence, is perceived as 'stressed'. This shows that the FALLING TONE-SWITCH ALONE is sufficient to mark the following ictic syllable as stressed, and that in order to produce the effect of marking 'prominence' is unnecessary. 2.4.3. So far we have only discussed the marking of a word in the utterance. However, the appropriate framework for the functioning of intonation is the sentence (Satz). Intonation patterns do not operate over strings of phonemes or morphemes as such, but over SYNTACTICALLY AND SEMANTICALLY ORGANISED strings (of phonemes and morphemes), that is to say over sentences. Utterances which do not have the status of sentences are derivable from sentences and may be regarded as elliptical sentences. By elliptic we mean here the optional omission of certain sentence elements in accordance with the grammar. (R. Gunter 1963; A. V. Isacenko 1965). In accordance with 2.2.3. every utterance must contain at least one tone-switch. This rule holds also for the structural unit sentence. It is an essential part of this consideration that only the last tone-switch makes what is an organised string of morphemes on an abstract grammatical level into an item of speech. This is made apparent in three ways: (i) The last tone-switch sets off the marked word against all the other words in the sentence. This setting off is perceived as the main stress of the sentence. In neutral statements the word receiving the so-called main stress is predictable by the gram-

THE RELEVANT TONE-SWITCHES

25

matical rules of German3, as in (32). If in a statement the main stress does not fall on the word predictable by the grammatical rules this word carries what we shall call contrastive stress. Both predictable main stress and contrastive stress are implemented by the final tone-switch as in (33), (34) and (36). In yes-no questions the final tone-switch may also mark the word 'asked for' which incidentally is identical with the contrasted word in the corresponding statement: (32a) weil Peter die Zeitung noch nicht zu | En|de gelesen haben kann

(cf. (32)).

The main stress occurs on the topic word which is identical with the emphasised word of the corresponding statement, e.g. (33a) weil Peter die Zeitung J noch nicht zu Ende gelesen haben kann

(cf. (33)).

Note that the intonation pattern of yes-no questions represents the exact mirror image of that of corresponding statements. (ii) The final tone-switch, by which one word is marked in relation to all the other words in the sentence, integrates the sentence elements on its right and left into a syntactic unit and thus sets off the sentence against other units of the same order. The observation that the 'intonation' of an utterance in some way 'holds together' or 'cements' the elements of the utterance, is of course not new (cf. F. Danes 1960,44). On the other hand, our examples show that neither the whole 'pitch pattern' of sentence intonation as such, that is, not the melodic 'envelope' of the utterance, nor the intonation of the 'end of the sentence', but only the FINAL TONE-SWITCH exercises this integrating and at the same time syntactically differentiating function. (iii) In sentences with otherwise identical structures, the information as to whether a sentence is interrogative or non-interrogative is not conveyed until the final toneswitch occurs. 2.5.

GENERAL MARKING RULES

2.5.1. On the basis of the observations made so far general rules for marking can be set up. (i) Every word contains one and only one ictus, that is one segment which can be marked within the utterance. (ii) In monosyllabics and oxytonic polysyllabics the ictus falls on the first part of the ictic syllable. In all other words the syllable containing the ictus forms the ictic segment. (iii) Every word contains at least one non-ictic segment, which follows the ictus. 8

The system of rules which determines the location of the main stress in non-emphatic sentences is not discussed here. The authors propose to deal more fully with the complex question of "syntactic main and secondary stress in statement sentences in German" in a forthcoming work.

26

THE RELEVANT TONE-SWITCHES

(iv) In monosyllabics and oxytonic polysyllabics this non-ictic segment following the ictus coincides with the second part of the syllable containing the ictus. In all other words the number of non-ictic segments is equal to the number of non-ictic syllables. (v) The marking of syllables in the utterance by tone-switches occurs at specific predetermined points. (vi) The points at which tone-switches occur are located either immediately before or immediately after the ictic segment. We distinguish accordingly PRE-ICTIC and POST-ICTIC TONE-SWITCHES.

(vii) Pre-ictic tone-switches occur between a non-ictic and a following ictic segment. Post-ictic tone-switches occur between an ictic and a following non-ictic segment. If we symbolise the vowel containing an ictus by a stress-mark, we can represent the marking by tone-switches schematically in the following way:

Oxytonic polysyllabics and monosyllabics Non-oxytonic polysyllabics

2.6.

Pre-ictic tone-switch

Post-ictic tone-switch

(unter)|sagt

(unter)sagt

falling

(unter)|sagt

(unter)sagt

rising

(ver) sagen

(ver)sa|gen

falling

(ver) sagen

(ver)sa|gen

rising

PHONOLOGICAL STATUS OF THE TONE-SWITCHES

2.6.1. Since numerous phoneticians had been defeated by the confusing material provided by the acoustic measurement of the pitch movement, invoking instead the 'irrational' character of this phenomenon, the hypothesis of levels put forward by Pike and other American linguists could be regarded as a considerable step forward. The vertical interval scale was (somewhat arbitrarily) 'segmented' by them into a finite number of discrete pitch levels. This vertical 'segmentation' certainly provided an (imprecisely) calibrated scale which facilitated the description of natural intonation, but its phonological interpretation was by no means satisfactory. The term 'suprasegmental' in itself, or 'super-imposed phonemes' given to the pitch levels is not unassailable in its extremely metaphoric character. Indeed how are we supposed to interpret this 'supra'? Was not the graphic convention of writing the symbols for prosodic features ABOVE the phoneme symbols responsible for it? In other visual representations of the speech signal, e.g. in the representation by the visible speech

THE RELEVANT TONE-SWITCHES

27

method, the fundamental frequency is shown BENEATH the formants, thus 'infrasegmental'. Pitch levels and terminal contours can only be interpreted as phonemes if one adheres dogmatically to Bloomfield's definition of the phoneme as "a minimum same of vocal feature" (L. Bloomfield 1926, Def. 16). What can be called the "same" in a continuum of tone modulations? And can formant patterns as in vowels determined by the various shapes of the vocal tract, and changes of pitch representing a function of the rate of vibration of the vocal cords, be understood in the same way as "vocal feature"? Why then are differences of tamber, which occur in every language, not regarded as phonemes? And where, if not on the linear time-axis, are these 'suprasegmental phonemes' located? F. Danes had, in the paper mentioned above, emphasised correctly that intonation on the phonological level cannot be given the same status as phonemic ('segmental') phenomena (1960, 34). In a segment represented as 3WELL3 the high pitch is maintained only by the activity and only on the basis of the activity of the vocal cords. Any attempt to represent prosodic phenomena, not as features of segments but as independent 'phonemes', must be regarded as having failed. 2.6.2. On the basis of our discussion so far, intonation in German can be regarded as an ordered sequence of DISCRETE UNITS, located not on a hypothetical vertical scale but on the horizontal TIME SCALE. We distinguish only two tone-switches — one falling and one rising. The absolute intervals for the rise and fall of pitch are not essential for establishing the syntactic function of intonation in German. Both pitch movements can be interpreted as two contrasting prosodic elements and symbolised thus: IV — rising III — falling As elements of langue /t/ and /[/ are theoretical constructs, i.e. input elements which can be interpreted at predictable points in the speech chain as segmental elements without any time dimension of their own. Because of the linear character of speech and the inertia of the vocal cords mentioned earlier the tone-switches are manifested in the signal as pitch movements which are continuous and not reliably locatable on the time axis. Various intonation patterns in the sentence er hat es nicht ohne Absicht getan (he did it intentionally) can in a phonological transcription be represented in the following way: (37)

J,e:r hat esfnixt o:naJ,apzixt gata:n

(38)

|e:r hat es nixt o:nalapzixt gata:n

(39)

|e:r hat esjnixt o:na apzixt gstarn

28

THE RELEVANT TONE-SWITCHES

The high or low onset of pitch is accounted for automatically by our transcription: if the first tone-switch of the utterance is rising, then the utterance begins on a low pitch, if it is falling then the utterance begins on a high pitch. It is not essential to our argument at what point in the syllable the tone-switches are represented graphically. For reasons of greater clarity we have chosen the conventional 'syllable boundary' as the place of the tone-switch in all cases where this does not occur within the vowel (diphthong) itself. Correspondingly, in the tape material with simulated intonation patterns, all tone-switches not occurring in the vowel (diphthong) were placed at the 'syllable boundary'. (It is for this same reason of clarity that in our examples we have represented high and low tone by a horizontal line above and below the printed line respectively and the tone-switches by vertical lines joining them.)

3.

FORMAL AND SEMANTIC INVARIANTS

3.1. EXPRESSIVE AND SYNTACTIC FUNCTIONS

3.1.1. Every normal speaker knows that the pitch movements of the voice ('melody', 'intonation') can be used to express various psychological or physical conditions, such as fear, pain, anxiety, surprise, irony, excitement, indifference, annoyance, affection, menace, etc. The specific nature of the melody, the intonational behaviour, which produces these or similar connotations, is a social phenomenon which varies from language to language. It can be assumed that voice modulation, together with tamber, tempo, phrasing and intensity, form, in each language, a "system sui generis" (F. Danes 1960), which functions well in communication within one speech community, but about whose structure linguistic science has, so far, only had the most general statements to make. The intonation patterns observable in each particular language are more or less conventionalised, so that certain typical configurations can be regarded as part of the information-carrying devices of every language. On the basis of such conventionalisations every listener to the radio for example knows just by listening to a few sentences whether a text is being spoken, read or 'performed' (since performed — even well-performed — 'surprise', for instance, sounds different from natural surprise). On the radio, judging by the intonation, we can often tell the difference between the politician and the preacher, the scientific talk and the political commentary, the newsreader and the narrator, even without paying attention to the content. 3.1.2. E. Seidel gives a representative list of authors who see in the 'tone' (intonation) the 'constitutive feature' of the sentence (1935, 37). In traditional Russian grammar a 'special intonation' is often put forward as a phonetic criterion for defining the sentence (A. M. Peskovskij 1956,165; V. V. Vinogradov 1955,389; J. M. Galkina-Fedoruk 1958, 95). However, they do not make any attempt to analyse to acoustic characteristics of intonation. Description is limited to trivial observations about the 'rise and fall' of intonation. Without really knowing the formal and semantic factors of'intonation', material is accumulated with marginal and very special questions in mind. There are studies concerned with the special question of the intonation of German causal

30

FORMAL AND SEMANTIC INVARIANTS

clauses (sic!) (T. A. Kanyseva 1960); the intonation of listing in German (R. V. Milovidova 1960); the intonation of infinitive sentences in German (N. P. Rybalkina 1960) etc.4 'Intonation' even finds its way into morphology: V. V. Vinogradov claims that the Russian imperative is spoken with a special 'imperative' intonation (1947, 553). What this 'imperative' intonation consists of we are not told. It seems as if intonation is regarded by many grammarians as something so trivial and obvious, that it is hardly worth even mentioning its formal properties. On the other hand, attempts are made to force functions of intonation observed in speech into a system without distinguishing between the syntactic and the expressive functions of intonation. C. F. Hockett illustrates 'intonational phonemes' by using short utterances which occur in quite specific situations and can often have a very complicated 'meaning'. In a conversation between Bill and Jack, Bill answers Jack's question Where are you going? by saying 3home11. This intonation has, according to Hockett, the following 'meaning': "a perfectly matter-of-fact reply, without any implication that Jack really ought to know the answer without asking". If the answer is 3 home2[, then it means: "I don't particularly WANT to go home but there's nothing else left to do". If the meaning "Of course I'm going home, what else would you expect at this hour?" is to be conveyed in the answer, then it sounds thus: 4 home 1 J, (Hockett 2 1958, 34-35). One wonders what 'meaning' the intonation 3 [ would have if Jack's question were not Where are you going? but What is her name? and the answer not 3home21, but 3Joan2\. Certainly the paraphrases Hockett gives can be attributed to the 'macro-segments' he describes, but the 'meaning' of intonation, as analysed by Hockett, does not only depend on the intonation itself but rather on the situation and on the lexical meaning of the underlying words. Even in some of the most recent studies no distinction is made between the syntactic and emotional functions of intonation. For example, P. Liebermann believes it is possible to gain insight into the perception of intonation patterns by distinguishing between the following eight 'categories': (1) a bored statement, (2) a confidential communication, (3) a message expressing disbelief or doubt, (4) a message expressing fear, (5) a message expressing happiness, (6) an objective question, (7) an objective statement, and (8) a pompous statement (1965, 41-42). On the other hand D. L. Bolinger believes that the syntactic and emotional 'meanings' in intonation are closely linked and that "it is impossible to separate the linguistically arbitrary from the psychologically expressive" (1964, 844). An elucidation of the structural status of intonation can hardly be expected as long 4 Various intonation patterns are distinguished according to the 'meaning' of the infinitive sentences, e.g. the intonation of the 'command' ( S o f o r t schreiben ! 'write immediately!'), the appeal (Schreiben ... Unbedingt schreiben! 'write ... write at all costs!'), the earnest persuasion (Schreiben, mil alien Beweisen, mein Freund 'write giving all the evidence'), of begging (Schreiben! Ich bitte! Schreiben! 'Write! Please, write!'), the indecisive and doubtful request ( W a s tun? Schreiben? 'What shall we do? Write?), indignation (Schreiben? Was fur ein Unsinn! 'Write? Rubbish!'), etc. Clearly this scale could be infinitely extended and graded. Whether our knowledge of the grammatical role of intonation would be improved by such studies is doubtful.

FORMAL AND SEMANTIC INVARIANTS

31

as linguists do not distinguish between heterogeneous categories. Thus, for example, L. S. Hultzen sees intonation as "the linguistic form which conveys information about the speaker's emotional attitude to the subject matter, attitudes such as doubt, agreement, questioning, affirmation, continuing interest, etc." (1962, 658). Quite apart from the fact that one can hardly follow the author, when, for example, he regards 'questions' as 'emotional attitudes', such a confusion of categories leads to statements such as: "The tune that must accompany the words when spoken is merely appropriate, not informing" (658). In an essay published in 1947 the Czech linguist V. Mathesius clearly pointed out the necessity of separating the syntactic functions of intonation from the emotional ones. "Intonation ... has in principle a three-fold function in the expression of a spoken message and these three aspects must be distinguished in every study of intonation, although they are usually combined in actual speech. In the first two functions, the structural and the primary modal function, intonation always operates in speech, even in intellectual speech, which aims at the simple and personal delivery of an objective content. It is precisely because of this that intonation in these two functions is represented by punctuation. In the third function, the secondary modal function, intonation is part of emotional speech" (1947, 249-250). The 'structural function', according to Mathesius, is that syntactic function by which sentences are divided into segments, or by which is conveyed whether a given utterance is completed or not. The 'primary modal function' distinguishes for example between interrogative sentences and non-interrogative sentences. By 'secondary modal function' Mathesius means the emotional connotations: any sentence can be spoken with a complaining, angry, fearful, surprised, etc. intonation (1947, 251). Very generally, sound features by which the speaker conveys information can, according to G. Hammarstrom, be assigned to three levels: 1. the a-level with the sound features which distinguish the intellectual 'meanings'. 2. the P-level with the sound features which indicate in what manner something is said (ironically, admiringly, etc.). 3. the y-level with the sound features, which give information about the individual speaker (individual, sociological, regional features) (1965, 336). If one wishes to gain insight into intonation as a system of information-carrying elements, then one cannot use as a starting-point modal connotations, nuances determined by states of mind and the like. A linguist studying intonation who comes across innumerable-variants in actual speech, and does not attempt to find the syntactically relevant (invariant) characteristics of typical intonation patterns, is making the same error that, by way of comparison, a grammarian would be making if he tried to deduce the concept of a sentence from utterances such as hm or aha! It would be a reversal of methodological priorities if we tried to find all the emotional and expressive connotations of intonation without having at our disposal a sound knowledge of the invariant features of intonation.

32

FORMAL AND SEMANTIC INVARIANTS

The often repeated assertion that sentence intonation is one of the constituent factors of the sentence is based on an intuitive knowledge of these formal and semantic features of intonation. Recently R. P. Stockwell (1960) has examined the place of intonation in a generative grammar of English. The introduction of a unit which Stockwell calls an 'intonational morpheme' and which is materialised in terms of the four-level hypothesis, is hardly capable of showing the really relevant features of English intonation. In the traditional study of intonation the conviction is firmly established that there are in German the following clearly distinguished, 'typical' intonation patterns : statement and question intonation, unfinished, listing, and parenthetic intonation, command, vocative and exclamatory intonation. As a matter of fact, all these 'intonation patterns' can be traced back to the syntactically relevant intonation forms. O. von Essen reduces these patterns to three : "High German uses three basic forms of melodic pattern, the terminal (iabschließend), the progredient (weiterweisend) and the interrogative type" (1962,173). H.-W. Wodarz also works with these three 'logical' functions of intonation (1960). 3.2.

THE SYNTACTICALLY RELEVANT TONE-SWITCHES: QUESTION A N D N O N - Q U E S T I O N

3.2.1. Every utterance has at least one tone-switch. If a monosyllabic is used as an independent minimal utterance, then the direction of / f / and /[/ in the syllabic segment determines the syntactic character of the utterance: / makes the utterance into a question, /J,/ contains no indication of the interrogative character of the utterance. Interrogative pronouns such as wer can be spoken with ¡[/. In utterances containing more than one tone-switch the FINAL TONE-SWITCH is the relevant one for the syntactic status of the whole utterance. 6 If an utterance contains no other syntactic or lexical cue to identify it as a question (verb in first position, or interrogative pronoun etc.) then only the last post-ictic rising tone-switch provides the necessary information to allow the hearer to identify it as a question. This is also the indirect result of an experiment carried out on French material by O. Mettas (1963). In the interrogative sentence Annie est arrivée? recorded on tape the last stressed [e] was mechanically erased gradually from right to left. When this sentence, in which the last part of the final vowel was deleted, was played back to a group of informants, they were unable to tell whether the sentence had originally been a question or a statement (147). The essential information must therefore have been contained in the final part of the last stressed word because in this particular sentence the last tone-switch falls within the last syllable of the utterance. 6

A similar conception is to be found in the works of Daneä who considers only the intonation of the last part of the sentence (the terminal cadences, semi-cadences and anti-cadences) to be syntactically relevant (1957, 38).

FORMAL AND SEMANTIC INVARIANTS

33

3.2.2. The syntactic information characteristic of the whole utterance is, in German, carried by the last tone-switch. The last tone-switch need not lie within the last syllable of the utterance. It can be separated from the end of the utterance by several syllables. This will be demonstrated in examples with artificial intonation. In one series of experiments we chose as our material a sequence of numerals which in its syntactic and lexical structure contains no evidence for association with any normal sentence. This sequence was recorded and monotonised in the way described in 2.1.1. (40)

sieben sieben sieben sieben sieben sieben

Example (40) cannot be interpreted syntactically in any way at all. On the other hand the same list (41) sieben sieben sieben sieben sieben ! sieben (42) sieben sieben sieben sieben sieben sieben may be interpreted as a 'statement' on the basis of the last falling tone-switch. In a similar way the sequence (43) sieben sieben sieben sieben sieben sie|ben may be understood as a 'question' on the basis of the last post-ictic rising tone-switch. One possible interpretation of this question would be: 'Was the last number seven?' Of 50 informants to whom example (43) was played back 36 ( = 72%) understood the utterance as a question. 3.2.3. An utterance is interpreted as a 'NON-QUESTION' on the basis of the last (and only the last) tone-switch, even if this is preceded by other tone-switches. (44) sie|ben | sie|ben | sie|ben sie|ben An utterance is interpreted as a QUESTION on the basis of the last post-ictic rising toneswitch, even if it is preceded by other tone-switches : (45) sie|ben | sie|ben sieben | sie|ben 3.2.4. The last tone-switch thus fulfills the following main syntactic function in an utterance: It provides the only cues necessary lor determining the syntactic character of the sentence (interrogative/non-interrogative).

34

FORMAL AND SEMANTIC INVARIANTS

3.3.

3.3.1.

THE RISING TONE-SWITCHES

Post-ictic Rising Tone-Switch

3.3.1.1. If a monosyllabic word is spoken as an isolated utterance, then, in accordance with 2.3.3. (c) only post-ictic tone-switches are possible, which in this particular case occur within the syllable: dr^i, dre\L Likewise in polysyllabic words in which the first syllable is ictic, only post-ictic tone-switches are possible: sie\ben, ~sie\ben, ab\geschlossen, ab^geschlossen. If the post-ictic part of the word consists of more than one syllable, then the rise in pitch in natural speech represented by the rising tone-switch is not necessarily materialised by an abrupt rise, but is usually spread over all the post-ictic syllables as a gradual rise, reaching its peak on the last post-ictic syllable: abgeschlossen This fact is to be interpreted as the phonetic implementation of an input order, according to which all post-ictic syllables must be spoken on a high pitch. It does not contain any instruction concerning the necessary or possible pitch intervals within the postictic high-pitched part of the word. The only condition is that after the post-ictic rise, no lowering of the voice takes place. 3.3.1.2. Isolated words which are produced with a post-ictic rising tone-switch are interpreted by the hearer as a QUESTION: (46) dre|f (47) sie|ben (48)

ab|geschlossen

In all the examples given the post-ictic part is kept absolutely monotonous. There still exists today no objective method for describing various 'modal' (or, according to Meyer-Eppler 'ectosemantic') nuances of the 'question'. The invariant phonetic features which distinguish a 'doubting' from an 'indignant' question, or an 'insistant' from an 'embarrassed' question, are not clear. O. Mettas, on the basis of her experiments, comes to the conclusion that "doubt and surprise, ON THE PHONETIC LEVEL, only represent, to a greater or lesser extent, nuances of the question" (1963, 149). 3.3.1.3. The following sentences with simulated intonation was played back to a group of 50 informants: (49) die Angelegenheit blieb unaufgeklärt

FORMAL AND SEMANTIC INVARIANTS

(50)

die Angelegenheit blieb unaufgeklärt

(51)

die Angelegenheit blieb unaufjgeklärt

(52)

die Angelegenheit blieb unaufgejklàrt

35

The informants were asked to decide whether these sentences were 'questions'. We achieved the following results : Sentence (49) (50) (51) (52)

is a question 52% 76% 60% 18%

is not a question 48% 24% 40% 82%

The results for sentences (50) and (52) are quite unambiguous. The post-ictic tone switch in w^aufgeklàrt was interpreted as a question by 3/4 of all the informants. The tone-switch before the last non-ictic syllable in unaufgeklärt was interpreted by 4/5 of all informants as a non-question. For the question then in polysyllabic utterances the rising tone-switch does not occur just in any of the last syllables but only after the LAST ICTIC SYLLABLE.

3.3.1.4.

The same group of 50 informants heard the following sentences:

(53)

alle Kinder lernen Engpisch

(54)

alle Kinder lernen | Englisch

The informants were asked to decide whether these sentences were questions. The following results were obtained: Sentence (53) (54)

is a question 70% 14%

is not a question 30%

86%

This showed that the tone-switch which characterises the sentence is not pre-ictic, as in (54), but post-ictic, as in (53). The results of our tests show that sentences in which the last tone-switch is rising and post-ictic are interpreted by approximately 3/4 of all informants as 'questions'. There is thus good reason to assume that in natural speech also the so-called 'question intonation' is carried by the LAST RISING and immediately POST-ICTIC TONE-SWITCH. Listening to the sentences (54a) and (54b) will perhaps persuade the reader that even with an interval of one semitone (150 to 159 c.p.s.) the interrogative intonation is easily distinguishable from the non-interrogative intonation: (54a)

der Yer trag wurde | abgeschlossen

36 (54b)

FORMAL AND SEMANTIC INVARIANTS

der Vertrag wurde abgeschlossen

3.3.1.5. In a yes-no question sentence one word, the word 'asked f o r ' , is specially marked. This word does not necessarily have to be the last word in the sentence. The 'asked-for' word is that word in the sentence which contains the LAST post-ictic rising tone-switch. If, in the sentence die Kinder vertrauen den Eltern?, we are asking a b o u t vertrauen (as opposed to mißtrauen), then the last post-ictic rising tone-switch occurs in the word vertrauen: (55)

die Kinder vertrauen den Eltern

This sentence was interpreted by 32 ( = 6 4 % ) of the 50 informants as a QUESTION. The same sentence was simulated with a PRE-ictic rising tone-switch in vertrauen: (56)

die Kinder vertrauen den Eltern

Of the 50 informants 41 ( = 82%) interpreted sentence (56) as a NON-QUESTION. Even using relatively long sentences in which the 'asked-for' word occurs 10 or more syllables before the end of the sentence, we achieved more or less similar results. In sentence (57) the word diese is preceded by a PRE-ictic tone-switch: (57)

Peter brachte diese Bücher einer Schwester seiner Freundin

Only 24 % of the informants interpreted sentence (57) as a question, whereas 76 % interpreted it as a non-question. In (58) however the word diese contains a post-ictic tone-switch (58)

Peter brachte diese Bücher einer Schwester seiner Freundin

I n two quite separate tests this sentence was interpreted by 7 4 % and 7 0 % of the informants as a QUESTION. Here the 'asked-for' word is clearly diese with a post-ictic rising tone-switch. 3.3.1.6. The number of tone-switches on t h e left of the last one is irrelevant to the assignment of the utterance as a whole to any grammatical class: (59)

die | Kinder | glauben dem Lehrer die Geschichte

This sentence contains a total of five tone-switches. The last tone-switch is PRE-ictic and rising. Accordingly, the sentence was interpreted as a NON-QUESTION by 82 % of the informants. Sentence (60) also contains five tone-switches but here the last tone-switch is POSTictic and rising. (60)

die K i n d e r | glauben dem Lehrer die Geschichjte

It was interpreted correspondingly by 78 % of the informants as a QUESTION.

FORMAL AND SEMANTIC INVARIANTS

37

3.3.1.7. Our experiments show that the kind of 'intonation' interpreted as 'interrogative' can be simulated by one single post-ictic rising tone-switch, if this toneswitch is the last one in the utterance. The pitch of the voice can continue to rise after the last tone-switch, or it can remain on the same high level, but after the last toneswitch it cannot fall again within the utterance (see 4.5.). 3.3.1.8. It is true that post-ictic, rising tone-switches do not occur only as the final tone-switches of an utterance. In the sentence: (61)

die Kin|der | vertrau en den Eltern

there is a post-ictic rising tone-switch in each of the words Killer and vertrat^ên. But this tone-switch is not interpreted as a 'question-intonation', because it is NOT at the same time the LAST tone-switch of the whole utterance. By artificially cutting the sentence (61), we obtain two utterances that are clearly 'questions': (62)

die Kin|der | vertrau|en

(63)

die Kin|der

It can be deduced from this that the post-ictic rising tone-switch IN ITSELF is insufficient to provide any information as to the interrogative character of the sentence. The INVARIANT function of the post-ictic rising tone-switch is that it signals a following falling tone-switch. In sentence (61), / y after the syllable Kin signals the following /],/, which in fact occurs after the syllable der. Again the second /}/ after the syllable trau signals the / j / which occurs before the word Eltern. The post-ictic rising tone-switch is therefore only interpreted as a QUESTION if it is at the same time the last tone-switch in the utterance : (64)

die Kinder vertrauen den El|tern

(65)

die Kinder vertrauen den Eltern

(66)

die Kin der vertrauen den Eltern

3.3.1.9. Our observations about simulated intonation patterns can easily be tested against material from natural speech. The following sentence is taken from a literary reading on the radio: (67)

und etwas Ähnliches?

This 'question' is however actually only the beginning of a longer sentence: (68)

und etwas Ähnliches stand in der Tat bevor

Such examples are easy to accumulate. This shows that the last post-ictic rising toneswitch alone provides the necessary cues for identifying the sentence as interrogative

38

FORMAL AND SEMANTIC INVARIANTS

(cf. 3.2.4.). It has often been claimed that yes/no questions have the so-called unfinished intonation (H. Klinghardt 1925, 31, and 1927, 11; F. Trojan 1961, 27). The essential difference between the unfinished and the interrogative intonation was (correctly) recognised by O. von Essen when he claimed, in describing the yes/no question: "After the main prominence ... a sharp rise follows" (1964, 45). The location of the pitch rise at a particular point in the linear speech chain position makes O. von Essen's observation more explicit. The question is a syntactic unit complete in itself. Since a question ends with a rising tone-switch, and since the invariant syntactic function of the rising tone-switch is to signal a FALLING tone-switch following on the right, then the latter cannot occur within the sentence. J. E. J. Buning and C. H. van Schooneveld have shown that an interrogative intonation can be interpreted as a signal for the non-completion of a DIALOGUE (1960, 93). The falling tone-switch signalled by the final rising tone-switch in the question does not occur until the question is answered. The 'answer' either begins on a low pitch, so that the falling tone-switch occurs between the question and the answer, or the 'answer' begins on a high pitch, and a falling tone-switch must necessarily occur within the answer. The same situation arises when several questions occur in sequence or when the question stimulates a response in the form of another question. It is clear that the invariant function of the rising tone-switch, namely to signal a falling tone-switch, presupposes the dialogue as a unit larger than the utterance. 3.3.2.

Pre-ictic Rising Tone-Switch

3.3.2.1. If the last rising tone-switch is placed in the PRE-ictic position, the following utterances are obtained : (69)

sieben sieben sieben sieben

(70)

alle Kinder lernen Englisch

(71)

die Angelegenheit blieb unaufgeklärt

The intonation of such utterances is traditionally interpreted as 'unfinished' (weiterweisend). The interrogative intonation is distinguished from that of (69)-(71) in that the rising tone-switch is post-ictic in the question and pre-ictic in the examples (69)-(71). This rising pitch-movement, differing thus from the interrogative intonation is generally treated as one of the basic forms of pitch-patterning of sentences in German. To this we would make the objection that the pre-ictic rising tone-switch never occurs as a syntactic feature of a sentence (not even of an elliptical sentence). A pre-ictic rising tone-switch is not capable of providing the necessary cues for determining the syntactic (interrogative or non-interrogative) character of the utterance (3.2.4.). A section of text in which the final tone-switch is pre-ictic can thus never be a sentence,

FORMAL AND SEMANTIC INVARIANTS

39

but only PART OF A SENTENCE. A pitch configuration which characterises not a sentence but only part of a sentence cannot be regarded as one of the basic forms of German 'sentence intonation'. Accordingly, sections of text in which the last tone-switch is pre-ictic and rising, characterise units other than sentences and are therefore not directly comparable with the other tone-switches. 3.3.2.2. A pre-ictic rising tone-switch can also occur as a the utterance:

NON-FINAL

tone-switch in

(72) viele Kinder lernen Englisch Before the word Kinder a pre-ictic rising tone-switch is present, but there is no 'unfinished' effect. This effect may be achieved when the sentence is cut in such a way that the pre-ictic rising tone-switch becomes the last tone-switch in the utterance. (73) viele Kinder lernen (74) viele Kinder It must be concluded from this that the pre-ictic rising tone-switch is altogether incapable of characterising the unit 'sentence'. The invariant syntactic function of the pre-ictic /I/ lies in the fact, as we have mentioned, that it signals a FALLING tone-switch following on the right. Irrespective of whether this occurs or not, the piece of text, from the beginning to the place where the sentence is cut, i.e. the text # j //, remains only a FRAGMENT of a sentence.

3.4. THE FALLING TONE-SWITCHES

3.4.1. In most accounts of German intonation, but also in phonetic and grammatical works on the intonation of, among others, French, English, Russian, Czech and Polish, it remains undisputed that in the 'statement' a FALLING (or rising and falling) PITCH-MOVEMENT is present. This pitch-movement is claimed to express the COMPLETENESS of the utterance (or sentence). O. von Essen writes: "The statement begins on a medium pitch, reaches its melodic peak ... and falls again, namely to a depth in the speaker's voice which he feels represents a relaxation, an expression of the return to a psychological and physical state of rest" (1965, 77). 3.4.2. Our experiments show that it is not a question of a (rising-falling) 'pitchmovement', nor of a particular 'cadence', nor of the melodic envelope ('contour') of the utterance, but that the effect of 'completion' of an utterance depends on the presence of ONE falling tone-switch which is not followed by a rising tone-switch. A comparison between the following sentences with simulated intonation will suffice to show this:

40

FORMAL AND SEMANTIC INVARIANTS

(75) er hat es nicht ohne Absicht ge|tan (76) er hat es nicht ohne Absicht getan (77) er hat es nicht ohne Absicht getan (78) er hat es nicht ohne Absicht getan The part of the sentence preceding the last falling tone-switch can be completely monotonous, as in (75)-(77) or it can be 'rising-falling' as in (78), but the impression of completeness in all cases is only achieved by the last falling tone-switch of the utterance. In natural speech, as a rule, continuous modulations of the voice are present, as described by O. von Essen. Our experiments with monotonised sections of text show, however, that those parts of the text which follow the last / | / fulfil the same function as the 'natural' pitch-movement, which in general is gradually falling. 3.4.3. On the other hand, what is actually meant by the assertion that a falling pitchmovement gives the impression that the utterance is 'completed'? How are we justified in speaking of a 'terminal' pitch-movement of the voice? In a sentence such as (79) Er hat an vielen Besprechungen der Kommission teilnehmen müssen the fall of the voice represented by the tone-switch occurs after the syllable vie. This is then followed by another 14 syllables, so that the utterance is not completed until after these 14 syllables have been spoken, since a pause occurs after müssen. The signal of completion, claimed to be given by the falling 'pitch-movement' at the beginning of the sentence, cannot thus be received until after another 14 syllables, namely just when the utterance has actually come to an end and the pause in speech occurs. One could prolong utterance (79) by enclitic elements such as the monotonous mein Lieber 'old fellow' or musst du nämlich wissen 'if you know what I mean', so that the segment following the fall of pitch is correspondingly prolonged. But the effect of 'completion' is still only achieved after the whole utterance is ended. 3.4.4. It could be assumed that the invariant function of the falling tone-switch is to be interpreted as the prediction of the ABSENCE of a following /*[*/. However, this is impossible, since we find numerous cases where /U within an utterance then gives way to a IV. O. von Essen has called this phenomenon rhetorical caesura (rhetorische Auflösung) (1956, 85). In connected speech falling tone-switches which are then followed by rising ones also occur, not necessarily in the rhetorical style. The invariant function of / j/ cannot therefore be to predict the absence of a /f/. A falling tone-switch conveys no information whatsoever about the potential presence or absence of a following rising tone-switch.

FORMAL AND SEMANTIC INVARIANTS

41

An utterance characterised by a falling tone-switch, that is, an utterance containing a HI as its final tone-switch, can be regarded as unmarked in opposition to utterances with a final / j / . The HI as such has no positive syntactic function or 'meaning'. The falling tone-switch in itself does not indicate the end of a sentence. Whether or not a falling tone-switch was the last in the utterance cannot be ascertained until the end of the utterance. Only when there is no / f / between a / [ / and the pause can the last falling tone-switch be regarded as the mark of the completedness of the utterance of the sentence. The falling tone-switch which does not occur at the end of a sentence performs a PHRASING function. 3.4.5. As in the case of the rising tone-switch we make the distinction between two positions for the falling tone-switch: PRE-ictic and POST-ictic /],/. Although in both positions HI retains the INVARIANT function described above, there is still a functional distinction between pre-ictic and post-ictic tone-switches. Compare the following two sentences : (80)

die I Kinder glauben dem Lehrer (pre-ictic HI)

(81)

die | Kinder glauben dem Lehjrer (post-ictic/|/)

In (81) there is a particular EMPHASIS on the word Lehrer, which is absent in (80). Such emphases are often called 'contrastive'. Since the question of contrastive and non-contrastive emphasis of words in an utterance ought to be discussed within a much wider grammatical framework, we will not here go into this important and complex topic, which cannot be elucidated without regard to the CONTEXT of the utterance.

4. PHRASING AND INTONATION

4.1. THE INTEGRATING AND PHRASING FUNCTION OF PITCH MOVEMENT IN THE SENTENCE

In Section 3.2. we showed that the syntactically relevant feature of the sentence-type (question/non-question) is determined by the final tone-switch. We can thus maintain that the function of the final tone-switch can be regarded as a syntactic-semantic integration. The elements within the section # # do not qualify syntactically and semantically as a sentence unless the final tone-switch is falling, or post-ictic and rising. The elements do not meet the syntactic or semantic requirements of a sentence if the last tone-switch is pre-ictic and rising. A section of text of the form Er trat arts Fenster. Es schneite. Die Strafie war menschenleer. consists of three complete grammatical sentences. If this fact is to be realised in speech then each of the three sentences receives a falling tone-switch. [82] er trat an's Fenster es] schneite die Straße war menschenleer The same section of text can be programmed by the speaker as a complex syntactic unit 'sentence' in which the individual components are connected asyndetically. Then the section of text contains only one falling tone-switch before the final ictus, while the two preceding, relatively independent components are characterised by rising toneswitches. [83] er trat an's Fenster es | schneite die | Straße war menschenleer This shows that one of the linguistic functions of intonation is to integrate units which syntactically are separate sentences in their own right, thus forming a larger sentence which is a discrete unit. On the other hand, intonation also has a segmenting function. By segmenting is usually meant dividing a section of text into smaller units called 'rhythm-units', 'sense-groups', 'syntagms', 'breath-groups' or 'phrases'. These units have a 'peak', to the left and right of which weakly stressed syllables can occur, including proclitic and enclitic ones.

PHRASING AND INTONATION

43

The phrasing of a sentence depends on how it is organised syntactically and semantically. It is not our task here to solve this problem on the grammatical level. We restrict ourselves to the observation that there are obligatory and grammatically determined types of phrasing, which occur, for example, with parenthetic interpolations or when more than two co-ordinate word groups are present, and that there are optional kinds of phrasing by which, for example, the 'second object' or the adverbial phrase can be pronounced as relatively independent units. The phrase boundaries are not to be interpreted as pauses: although phrases can be separated from the context by pauses, they need not be. We hope to show that the change between high and low pitch is ia itself sufficient to indicate the phrase boundaries.

4.2.

TONE-SWITCHES A N D PITCH INTERRUPTERS

4.2.1. In 2.3.3. and 2.5.1. tone-switches are defined as changes in pitch occurring at a point between an ictic and a non-ictic segment. There are pre-ictic and post-ictic tone switches, which may be either rising or falling. Besides these falling and rising pitch changes between an ictic and a non-ictic segment (tone-switches) there are also rising and falling pitch changes between two NON-ictic segments, which we call PITCH INTERRUPTERS. These can occur with a high or a low pitch. In a sentence such as: [84]

Peter arbeitet,//ver[dl|ent aber wenig

the high pitch on the word arbeitet is interrupted after the non-ictic syllable tet. The next syllable ver, is non-ictic and has a low pitch. The function of such pitch interrupters is clear: they serve to segment or phrase the portion of the sentence to the left of the last tone-switch. This function is symbolised in our example by a comma. The formal feature of the TONE-SWITCHES is their ability to occur within the word, e.g. es | relief. Obviously phrase-boundaries cannot occur within the word. PITCH INTERRUPTERS NEVER occur within a word, but are always located at word boundaries. Now there are cases where a pitch interrupter occurs before an ictic syllable, e.g. [85]

die Zeit schriften//bringen Artikel und An noncen

Here the high pitch is interrupted before the ictic syllable bring, so that the intonational structure observed in this sentence could lead to the conclusion that a pre-ictic falling tone-switch is present, before the word bringen. It can easily be shown by substitution that this is not the case. If we substitute the word bringen by the word veröffentlichen, which begins with a non-ictic syllable, we see that with the same intonation the high pitch on the word Zeitschriften is interrupted between two nonictic syllables: [86]

die Zeit schriften//veröffentlichen Ar tikel und An noncen

44

PHRASING AND INTONATION

The following experiments are intended to demonstrate the function of pitch interrupters in the phrasing of longer sections. We used as our basic material the natural sentence: (87) er hatte fünfzehn zentimeterlange Stücke We proceeded on the assumption that syntactic or semantic phrasing can be achieved by a change in the pitch movement. If there is no change from one pitch level to another at the boundary between two words, then these two words are more closely associated than two which are separated by such a change. From this same natural sentence the following simulated signal was produced: (88) er hatte j fünfzehn//zenti|meterlange | Stücke where an alteration in pitch occurs between fünfzehn and zentimeterlange. This sentence was tested with two groups of informants, who were asked to state the number and the length of the pieces. The morpheme sequence er-hatt-e-funf-zehn-zentimeter-lang-e-Stiick-e is ambiguous. According to the various possible locations of the word boundaries the sequence can have the following meanings: (1) er hatte fünfzehn zentimeterlange Stücke 'he had fifteen pieces, all 1 cm. long'. (2) er hatte fünf zehn Zentimeter lange Stücke 'he had five pieces, all 10 cm. long'. (3) er hatte fünfzehn Zentimeter lange Stücke 'he had n pieces, all 15 cm. long'. The first group of informants were given the various possible meanings beforehand, but not the second group. Nineteen out of 34 informants in the first group understood 'fifteen one-centimetre long pieces'. In the second group 15 out of 23 informants came to the same conclusion. This shows that the pitch interrupter after fünfzehn had the following perceptual effect: the morphemes fünfzehn were understood as one word, fünfzehn, separated by a word boundary from the morpheme sequence zenti-meter-lang, which was also understood as one word. This confirms our assumption that pitch interrupters only occur at word boundaries. The reaction of the majority of informants can be explained as an intuitive knowledge of this rule. The same statement (87) was provided with the following simulated intonation: (89) er hatte fünf//zehn zentimeterlange Stücke In the first group 21 out of 34 informants understood this to mean 'five ten-centimetrelong pieces', in the second group 19 out of 23 informants gave the same result. Although in sentence (87) fünfzehn was spoken without a pause between / and z, the pitch alteration after fünf was perceived as a word boundary. At the same time the majority of informants heard zehnzentimeterlange as 'one word', since no alteration of pitch is present in this segment. A second sentence, with different word boundaries, namely (natural form) (90) er hatte fünf zehn Zentimeter lange Stücke

PHRASING AND INTONATION

45

was provided with the following intonation: (91) er hatte fünf zehn//Zenti meter lange Stücke Sentence (91) was understood as 'fifteen one-centimetre-long pieces', by 23 of the 34 informants in the first group and by 13 of the 23 in the second. This result is all the more remarkable when we take into account the fact that in the natural sentence (90) a perceptible pause is present between fünf and zehn. A further example of the possibility of phrasing by intonation is provided by the following sentence (natural form) : (92) Peter brachte diese Bücher einer Schwester seiner Freundin This sentence can mean: 1. that Peter brought the books to the sister of his (girl)-friend. Then Schwester seiner Freundin is the indirect (dative) object of the sentence*. 2. that Peter brought these books to his (girl)-friend, who is a nurse (alternative meaning of Schwester). In this case seiner Freundin is in apposition to einer Schwester. Further possible interpretations of this sentence are not considered here. If no pitch alteration takes place between the words Schwester and seiner, then the elements einer Schwester seiner Freundin is perceived as one syntactic unit (indirect object). However, if a pitch alteration takes place at the word boundary between Schwester and seiner, then the elements are syntactically separated, as would be indicated orthographically by a comma between both elements. This assumption was tested in the following way: The natural sentence (92) was provided with two different intonation patterns : (93) Pe|ter | brachte diese | Bücher | einer | Schwester seiner Freundin (94) Pe|ter | brachjte] diese Bücher einer Schwes|ter | seiner Freun|din Tests with a total of 52 informants produced the following results: (93) indirect object 37 (94) 17

apposition 14 33

no answer 1 2

Considering that the solution of syntactic ambiguities in natural speech demands a great deal of any hearer, the results of tests based on simulated intonation can be regarded as highly significant. 4.2.2. Phrases are fragments of a sentence which are separated from the last toneswitch of the sentence by at least one pitch interrupter and which contain at least one tone-switch. * (It should be mentioned that the -er ending of the article for singular feminine nouns in German can signal either the dative or the genitive -Tr )

46

PHRASING AND INTONATION

In the sentence [84] Peter arbeitet,//ver[dî|ent aber wenig the segment Peter arbeitet is separated from the rest of the sentence by a pitch interrupter, thus forming a phrase in our sense of the word. This phrase contains one rising tone-switch, the function of which is to prepare for and anticipate the final (in this case falling) tone-switch. The number of phrases depends on the length and syntactic organisation of the sentence. A sentence such as Peter arbeitet,!¡schlaf t kaum,I¡schuf tet sich fab,I/versent aber wenig contains three phrases, each of which contains a rising tone-switch, the tone-switch in each of which signals the final falling tone-switch. Phrases can, however, also contain falling tone-switches, e.g. Peter | arbeitet,/1schläft kaum,/¡schuftet sich [ab,/¡verdient aber wenig. We do not wish here to go into detail concerning the emotive connotations of this intonational organisation of the phrases. It is important to note that falling toneswitches in themselves can by no means be regarded as terminal contours carrying positive syntactic meanings (e.g. signals of sentence boundaries). Falling tone-switches contain no information as to the following melodic pattern. 4.2.3. We have already mentioned (2.4.3.) that the word in the sentence which contains the final tone-switch is perceived as marked in relation to all other words in the sentence: this point in the sentence is identical to the location of the so-called 'main stress'. Likewise, within the PHRASE only ONE word is marked by the final tone-switch of the phrase. In comparison with the 'main stress', which always gives emphasis only to the word containing the final tone-switch of the sentence, the word containing the final tone-switch in the phrase is impressionistically interpreted as the 'secondary stress'. If the phrasing is not realised, then the word marked by the PENULTIMATE tone-switch of the sentence is perceived as carrying the 'secondary stress'. In the sentence Ihr \ Bruder ist Verkäufer there is no phrasing. The word Bruder is marked by the penultimate tone-switch, and is thus perceived as carrying the secondary stress. In one conventional transcription this sentence would be written: Ihr Brüder ist Verkäufer. If the same sentence is spoken with phrasing then the 'secondary stress' likewise falls on the word Bruder because this word is marked by the last tone-switch within the phrase: Ihr \ Bruder//ist Ver\/cä\ufer. We do not wish here to go fully into the question of whether and to what extent other acoustic parameters (e.g. intensity) are important for the discrimination of main and secondary stress. In any case it can easily be shown that the effect described as 'main stress' can be achieved by tone-switches only. To summarise: The position of the 'main stress' COINCIDES WITH THAT OF THE FINAL TONE-SWITCH IN THE SENTENCE. The position of the 'secondary stress' is determined by

PHRASING AND INTONATION

47

that of the NON-FINAL TONE-SWITCH, which, however, cannot occur in that word which already carries the final tone-switch. If two tone-switches (pre-ictic and post-ictic) fall on ONE AND THE SAME WORD, then this word receives a special kind of prominence: it carries an EMPHATIC or CONTRASTIVE 'main stress': Ihr | Bru|der ist Verkäufer Ihr Bruder [ist Verkäufer Ihr Bruder ist Ver|käu|fer In this assumption we take it for granted that in every German sentence the final toneswitch (and thus the position of the 'main stress') is predictable from the syntactic structure of the sentence. A shift of the tone-switch from its normal syntactic position towards the LEFT is possible, but automatically has the result that the final tone-switch no longer has its neutral, or grammatically appropriate status, but that of an EMPHATIC or CONTRASTIVE tone-switch (H.-J. Schädlich 1965, 348). Such emphatic or contrastive shifts of the tone-switch can also take place within phrases. We can illustrate this phenomenon using a rather long sentence as an example. In this sentence all the tone-switches occur in the appropriate (predictable) position, and the distribution of 'main stress' and 'secondary stress' is neutral: Diese Punkte,!¡die mir besonders | wichtig zu sein scheinen,!I möchte ich jedoch näher besprechen. In the following sentence the tone-switches both within the individual phrases and in the last segment of the sentence are shifted to the left. As a result the marking of the phrases and of the sentence as a whole has an emphatic character: Die\se Punkte,/j die mir be)pon\ders wichtig zu sein scheinen,!¡möchte ich jedoch | näher besprechen. Thus one of the functions of non-final tone-switches is the marking of 'secondary stresses' in a sentence. 4.3.

LISTING AND PARENTHESIS

4.3.1.

Listing

In many studies of intonation claims are made about the existence of a special listing and parenthetic intonation pattern. In all cases it seems to be a question of phrases within the sentence, which can be accounted for by our system of two levels. Let us assume that in natural speech there are two main types of intonation patterning for paratactic grammatical units of the same rank. In the first case more than two units of the same rank (which can be linked by conjunctions) are spoken with a post-ictic rising tone-switch, the high pitch then being retained until the last syllable of the listed unit. Each new unit listed (or the preceding

48

PHRASING AND INTONATION

conjunction) then begins on the low pitch: [95] Toma|ten//(und) Kartof|feln//(und) Radies|chen//(und) Salat sind | billiger geworden This pitch movement in the listed units seems to be derived from simple sentences without listing: Tomaten sind| billiger geworden, Kartof fein sind billiger geworden, Radieschen sind billiger geworden. In the second case the syntactic units of the same rank (which again can be linked by conjunctions) are spoken with a pre-ictic rising tone-switch, the high pitch again being retained until the last syllable of the unit listed. Here also each new unit (or conjunction) begins on a low pitch: [96] To|maten//(und) Kartoffeln//(und) Radieschen sind billiger geworden. This intonation pattern is also derived from simple sentences without listing and with the following intonation: To\maten sind [billiger geworden, Kartoffeln sind billiger geworden, Ra\dieschen sind | billiger geworden. It goes without saying that, in cases where the sentence ends on the last listed unit, the position of the final tone-switch is determined by the rules which apply in general to all final tone-switches. Besides these two main forms, a further form of intonation patterning of paratactic units of the same rank can be observed, which expresses emotional connotations. Here the listed units are spoken with a post-ictic falling tone-switch: [97] die | Kinder | brauchen | Schu|he,//Klei|der,//Wä|sche,//Strüm[pfe It is fairly obvious that the difference in intonation between [95] and [96] can be explained by certain stylistic, semantic or emotional differences. However, this question lies beyond the scope of our study. We have described listing as a form of phrasing represented as a sequence of post-ictic or pre-ictic rising, and post-ictic falling tone-switches, the phrase boundaries being signalled by pitch interrupters. It is not difficult to show that the phrasing pattern which is characteristic of listing is in every case derivable from unphrased sentences. A sentence with this intonation: [98] die Kinder san|gen,//lach|ten,//tanz|ten und spielten -B< A -> is derived from an unphrased sentence: [98a] die Kinder san|gen und spielten < A • -Bwhere the segments A and B in sentences [98] and [98a] are identical. We do not wish

PHRASING AND INTONATION

49

to ignore the fact that in natural speech it is possible, in listing, to gradually lower the pitch of the voice so that each listed unit is spoken on a lower pitch than the preceding one. But this gradual lowering is irrelevant to the actual phrasing. We mentioned above that the intonational integration of the sentence is achieved by the last relevant tone-switch. The changes in pitch which in phrasing occur on the left of the final tone-switch serve to segment this part of the sentence without influencing the integrating function of the final tone-switch. Now the case can arise where the ictic structure of the individual listed units excludes phrasing by rising tone-switches. This always occurs when the first syllable of the listed unit is the ictic syllable. The simulated sentence: (99)

Peter kaufte Schallplatten, Bücher, Zeitungen und Zeitschriften

contains in this representation no phrasing at all. Yet, as has been shown by means of an informant test, sentence (99) is considered by hearers not only as possible but also as fairly natural. This sentence is phrased by unmaterialised pitch interrupters between the individual listed units and by unmaterialised pre-ictic tone-switches, so that each of the units contains an 'unfinished' intonation. This can easily be shown by adding conjunctions: [100]

Peter kaufte Schallplatten//(uncl) Bücher//(und) Zeitungen und Zeitschriften

In view of this we feel justified in representing sentence (99) thus: [101]

D;; / / Peter kaufte Schallplatten,// Bücher, Zeitungen und Zeitschriften

4.3.2.

Parenthesis

For word as well as for sentence parenthesis (Schaltsatz, Zwischensatz, Einschubsatz, etc.) a special intonation and/or a special pitch level in relation to the context is often assumed. For example E. Riesel writes: "By means of insertion of a double pause, before and after the interposed sentence, by means of a SOMEHOW CONTRASTING PATTERN OF TEMPO, OF THE PITCH INTERVAL, OF THE REGISTER, THE LOUDNESS, THE

the special intonational shape of parenthesis is formed" (1963, 283). This idea had been formulated long before by E. Sievers: "... parenthetic sentences (are) spoken on a deeper pitch than simple statements etc." (1893, 228). It can be shown, however, that parenthesis need not possess any particular characteristic of its own. The intonation of parenthetic sections does not differ from the intonation of other sections which occur on the left of the last tone-switch. In sentences WITHOUT parenthesis we find for example the following relations. POWER AND THE TAMBER OF THE VOICE,

50

PHRASING AND INTONATION

The following sentence is, in its intonation, completely unphrased between the two tone-switches: [102] schreiben Sie bitte morgen, wann Sie kommen wollen On the other hand, in sentence [103] the section between the first and last tone-switch is intonationally phrased in the usual way: [103] schreiben Sie bitte//mor|gen, wann Sie kommen wollen The word morjgen carries a post-ictic rising tone-switch, which, as a non-final toneswitch in the sentence,signals the last falling tone-switch. If we reduce sentence [103] by removing the section morjgen [104] schreiben Sie bitte wann Sie kommen wollen and substitute for this the section sagte Pefiër, then we obtain a sentence parenthesis which is characterised by the same intonation as [103]: (105) schreiben Sie bitte, | sagte Peter, wann Sie | kommen wollen The parenthesis sagte Pe\ter carries the same post-ictic rising tone-switch as moreen in sentence [103], with the same function. As we have already shown, all the postulated tone-switches occurring as non-final tone-switches have a special function. Parenthetic sections may contain different configurations of tone-switches, which however are identical with those occurring outside parenthetic sections: (106) schreiben Sie bitte,//sagte Pe|ter,//wann Sie kommen wollen (107) schrei|ben Sie bitte,//sagte | Peter,//wann Sie | kommen wollen (108) schreiben Sie bitte,//sagte | Peter,//wann Sie kommen wollen (109) schrei|ben Sie bitte,//sagte [Pe|ter,//wann Sie | kommen wollen Interposed sections can also be spoken on a quasi-monotone. Without wishing to deal here too fully with the syntactic character of such interposed sections, we can state that these quasi-monotonous parentheses do not by any means have to be materialised on a different voice register than the whole sentence. For example sentence [110] [110] schrei ben Sie bitte, sagte Peter, wann Sie kommen wollen was accepted by German informants as possible. An example from the Medical

PHRASING AND INTONATION

51

Inspection Scene in Felix Krull, read by the author, Thomas Mann, supports this argument by showing a parenthesis which is segmented intonationally in the following way: (111) "... und meine Mutter schilt mich hernach, daß ich herangewachsener Mensch in Gegenwart unserer Gäste — Bühnenkünstler und Gelehrte sind es hauptsächlich — mich so tölpelhaft aufführe." The fall in pitch assumed by many researchers to occur in parenthetic sections, on a quasi-monotone, is purely enclitic. We can observe this in sections of text added AFTER the final tone-switch in a sentence (cf. 3.4.2. and 4.5.). It can be shown that the parenthetic section does not have to be on an essentially lower register, since the effect of this enclitic parenthesis is still achieved if we keep to two pitch levels: (112) schreiben Sie bitte, sagte Peter, wann Sie | kom|men wollen Even in longer parenthetic sections which are THEMSELVES segmented it can be shown how the parenthesis is integrated by intonation into the context, that is as part of the whole piece of text on the left of the last tone-switch. Let us take sentence (113) as a frame-sentence: (113) die | Gäste//be|sichtigten//die [Sehenswürdigkeiten der | Stadt A parenthetic section — Touristen aus vielen Ländern — is interposed into sentences (113) to (117): (114) die | Gäste//— Touristen aus vielen Ländern —//be|sichtigten//die | Sehenswürdigkeiten der Stadt (115) die | Gäste//— Touristen aus vielen | Ländern —//be|sichtigten//dic | Sehenswürdigkeiten der Stadt (116) die | Gäste//— Touristen aus vielen | Ländern —//be|sichtigten//die | Sehenswürdigkeiten der Stadt (117) die | Gäste//— Touristen aus vielen Län dem —//be|sichtigten//die | Sehenswürdigkeiten der Stadt The parenthetic pattern ends with post-ictic and pre-ictic rising and falling toneswitches, i.e. it contains all the postulated tone-switches. It forms both formally and

52

PHRASING AND INTONATION

functionally an extension of the section to the left of the final tone-switch even if this is segmented differently. In the case of parenthesis also the different possible stylistic values of the individual intonation patterns lies beyond the scope of our present considerations. We have shown that the intonation of parenthetic sections is no different from that of other pieces of text segmented by intonation. The form of intonation of parenthesis, like that of listing, presents nothing but the usual form of phrasing. The phrasing in this case also is achieved by applying pitch interrupters. The usual account of parenthesis as a construction with a special intonation, a special tamber, a special register etc. clearly arises from a confusion of the levels which in the examination of intonation have to be kept methodologically and functionally apart. The intonation of parenthesis, as we have said, is no different from that of other sections of text. The realisation of this intonation CAN in addition be characterised by a deviation in tempo, a change in register or a change in interval etc. However, in our opinion these are not relevant features of the intonation of parentheses. Parentheses in natural speech are often set off by preceding and/or following pauses as an additional means of phrasing, but this is of less importance.

4.4. INTONATIONAL RESOLUTION OF AMBIGUITIES IN THE SENTENCE

It can be shown that many sentences which are syntactically ambiguous can be clearly distinguished by simulated intonation. This is dependent on the fact that elements linked to each other syntactically are not separated by a change in pitch, while elements not thus linked can be. Sentence (118) is syntactically ambiguous: (118) ich weiß, daß der Mann im Auto schläft. The underlying sentence of the second clause can mean (a) the man in the car is asleep and (b) the man is sleeping in the car. In (a) the sequence im Auto is an attribute of der Mann, in (b) im. Auto is a local adverbial determining the predicate schläft. Accordingly, two different intonation patterns are possible: (119) ich weiß, daß der Mann im Auto schläft (120) ich weiß, daß der Mann im Auto schläft The intonation patterns of sentences (119) and (120) reflect the deep structure of the underlying main sentences: [119a] der | Mann im Auto schläft

PHRASING AND INTONATION

[120a]

53

der I Mann schläft im Auto

It is no coincidence that the final tone-switches in sentences (119) and (120) occur in exactly the same position as in their underlying sentences [119a] and [120a]. In each sentence the word distinguished by the final tone-switch is judged perceptually as the 'carrier of the main stress'. With the aid of simulated intonation a section of text can be phrased in such a way that the one section of text spoken as one sentence is changed into two sentences. The natural sentences (121) and (122) were recorded on tape: (121)

wann kömmst du morgen

(122)

was soll er abschreiben

Their monotonised form (at 150 cps) sound thus: (121a)

wann kömmst du morgen

(122a)

was soll er abschreiben

Both in natural and in monotonised form each of these sequences is understood as one sentence. This is still the case when the interrogative pronoun and adverb are provided with high pitch: (121b) wann kömmst du morgen (122b) was soll er abschreiben However, if sentences (121b) and (122b) are also provided with a post-ictic rising toneswitch after the last ictic syllable then the following patterns are obtained: (121c)

wann kömmst du morjgen

(122c)

was soll er ab schreiben

Listening to sentences (121c) and (122c) will show that each of these sequences can be interpreted as two consecutive questions: Wann kommst du? Morgen? and Was soll er? Abschreiben? Such experiments are not to be understood as mere puns. They show that intonation is alone sufficient to change the syntactic structure of a sentence. On the other hand the role of intonation in solving ambiguities in sentences should not be overestimated. In many cases sentences with differing deep structures are realised intonationally as the same e.g. wir kannten diese Leute als Studenten (i.e. 'when we were students', or 'when they were students'), or er kommt mit dem Schnellzug aus München (i.e. 'by train from Munich' or 'the Munich express').

54

PHRASING AND INTONATION 4.5.

CODA

4.5.1. By coda we mean that section of a sentence which lies between the final toneswitch and the end. In theory this section can include any number of syllables. In practice codas occur with as many as 20 syllables. In non-questions the coda is spoken on a low tone. In natural speech it can often be observed that within the coda the pitch of the voice gradually falls until it finally reaches the lower limit of the voice register (fading). This lowering of pitch is, however, not significant; it is only essential that the pitch does not rise again with the coda. The following example contains a coda of 20 low-pitched syllables which are kept on the same pitch: (123)

er sagte, es sei [unjgewifi, ob er auf der Ruckreise noch einmal bei uns vorbeikommen konne

In questions the final post-ictic rising tone-switch does not necessarily fall within the last word of the sentence but on any word which is 'asked for'. (124)

seine El tern leben in Weimar

In sentence (124) the post-ictic rising tone-switch occurs in the word Eltern, which is interpreted as the word asked for in the sentence. The coda, which in this case is on a high pitch, is spread over six syllables. In natural questions the syllables in the coda often show a rising pitch, until the last reaches the relatively highest point (O. von Essen 1964, 45). This gradual rise of the pitch in the coda in questions with a postictic rising tone-switch is however not relevant. 4.5.2. The fact that the coda of non-questions often occurs in natural speech without any pitch prominence was tested by the following experiment. From three monotonous tapes a test stimulus was produced in which three frequencies were distinguished: 150 cps, 159 cps, 178 cps. If we call the lowest frequency 0, the middle one 1 and the highest 2, then we can represent the pitch relations of the simulated sentence as follows: (125)

der Lehrer hat einen Brief geschrieben 0

2 0 0 0 0

1

0

0 0

This last sentence was played back to 12 informants with the instruction to imitate the sentence with natural intonation. The responses were recorded on tape, and their intonation examined auditively by several linguists, who transcribed them. The result was clear-cut: nine of the 12 informants had not perceived the middle level 1, and spoke the sentence with only one prominence: der \ Leh\rer hat einen Brief geschrieben. Similar tests were made using another four sentences with sequences of numerals. The result was the same every time. It must be concluded from this that in these

PHRASING AND INTONATION

55

sentences all the syllables following the highest pitch-level were interpreted as coda, and therefore spoken without any points of prominence. 4.5.3. The case can arise that two otherwise 'identical' morpheme sequences which only differ in the position of the stress occur in a sentence in a position which theoretically allows no tone-switch, e.g. übersetzen 'to translate' vs. übersetzen 'to ferry', or die Krankenpfleger 'medical staff' and die kranken Pfleger 'the sick nurses'. Such morpheme sequences can of course be distinguished by tone-switches e.g. (a) ich bedauere die Krankenpfleger 'I pity the medical staff', (b) ich bedauere die kranken Pfleger 'I pity the sick nurses'. Morpheme sequences such as these can however also occur within the coda. This occurs for example when the preceding section of the sentence contains a contrastively prominent element not followed by another tone-switch. Our examples sound as follows: (126)

Peter | kann|te den Krankenpfleger

(127)

Peter | kann|te den kranken Pfleger

The question arises whether in these cases the distribution of stress(es) guarantees a distinction. It is a fact that two sentences whose ambiguity can be resolved only by ONE minimal feature have as a rule quite different probability coefficients. It is important to bear in mind that minimal pairs such as light-house-keeper and light housekeeper would actually seldom occur in the same context and that the first is more probable than the second. The position is no different in the case of the sound sequence [kaoflaks] which Moulton (1947) interprets in one case as kau Flachs 'chew flax' and in another as kauf Lachs 'buy salmon'. Since we do not have the evidence of psycho-acoustic tests it is generally assumed in such cases that such minimal pairs are clearly distinguished by hearers on the basis of one single feature. But the collocation chew flax is so improbable that the ambiguity of the sound sequence [kaoflaks] would hardly be realised by most hearers. These considerations are supported by tests which we carried out on sentences (126) and (127). Both sentences were played back to two groups of informants. In the first case the informants were students of German, to whom the two sentences were played back twice each, with no indication of any ambiguity. The informants were instructed to write down in normal orthography what they had heard immediately they had heard it. With the exception of one single informant, who did not perceive the segmental phoneme sequence, both signals, Krankenpfleger and kranken Pfleger were heard in all sentences as Krankenpfleger. A second group of 33 informants were informed beforehand that the point of the test was to distinguish between two word-sequences which sounded similar, and that they were to write down in normal orthography what they heard. The responses

56

PHRASING AND INTONATION

showed that 26 of the 33 informants heard correctly the compound Krankenpfteger in sentence (126) and 20 of the 33 informants heard the collocation kranken Pfleger in sentence (127). These experiments show: (1) The predictability of the compound Krankenpfteger — presupposing the same context — is far greater than that of the unusual collocation kranken Pfleger (c.f. the first test). The presence of dynamic stress in kranken Pfleger was in this instance not sufficient to distinguish the adjectival construction from the nominal compound. (2) For informants who were given the two possible interpretations of the sentences in question the non-intonational marking in the signal was sufficient to distinguish between the two sentences. We are dealing here with a very common case of communication risk which the speaker is not usually aware of. If the distinction has to be made clear in a natural situation (the hearer asks "did you say 'Krankenpfleger' or 'kranken Pfleger'?") then it could be materialised by emphatic intonation : Peter kannte den kranken | Pfle\ger as distinct from Peter kannte j den \ Krantycenpfleger. Such emphases are not unusual in metalinguistic utterances of this kind. The complex relation between 'stress' (or 'expiratory stress') and tone-switches in the perception of German sentences and their underlying correlates in the signal are not dealt with any further here.

5.

SUMMARY

In the foregoing study we have attempted to schematise as far as possible the phonetic substance of standard German intonation and to test whether normal German hearers are able to relate in any meaningful way the skeleton intonation produced, divested of any random situational meaning, of mood and of all individual characteristics, to natural German intonation patterns. German sentences were monotonised on two pitch levels by using the vocoder, and provided with simulated intonation patterns by joining sections of the monotonised material. When sentences with intonation simulated in this way were played back to German informants, some of the intonation patterns were accepted, that is identified with some known intonation patterns, while others were rejected as being unnatural. In this way we were able to test the following assumptions concerning the acoustic parameters of German intonation and their function: (1) The effect of 'prominence' of a syllabic segment usually ascribed primarily to 'stress' (intensity) can be achieved by means of small contrasts in pitch levels. These pitch contrasts are capable of marking syllables with weak intensity-stress against those with strong intensity-stress. (2) In making a syllabic segment 'prominent' a rising pitch is just as effective as a falling pitch. The pitch of a segment which carries 'prominence' does not need to be raised or lowered from a particular level. It is sufficient that a change in pitch within the marked word takes place at a particular point. It is important in this connection only that a change in pitch both upwards and downwards creates the effect of'prominence'. (3) It is possible to represent the typical intonation patterns of the German sentence as a sequence of two and only two pitch levels. In our experiments discrete utterances were put together with different fundamental frequencies in such a way that there was no glide in the signal. These abrupt changes from one pitch to another are perceived by the ear as transitions and cannot be distinguished from natural glides from one pitch to another. (4) The interval between high and low pitch, for which different authors give quite different values, can be kept at a minimum. We have been able to show that an INTERVAL OF ONE SEMITONE is sufficient both for making syllables in an utterance

58

SUMMARY

prominent and for the characterisation of various typical intonation patterns, such as interrogative and non-interrogative. It can be assumed that the vertical axis of the pitch scale is fully exploited for the expressive and emotional connotations which can be conveyed by intonation. The phonetic facts gathered from the results of informant tests were interpreted in the following way: (5) German intonation patterns can be described as an ordered sequence of discrete segments on only two different pitch levels, the difference between which is perceptible to the human ear and therefore contrastive, the abrupt changes from one pitch to the other — THE TONE-SWITCHES — performing a linguistically relevant function. Those linguists who attempt to represent intonation by several pitch levels do so by means of segmenting the vertical scale in a way which is arbitrary because it is basically impressionistic. The tone-switches, however, can be located as points on the linear time axis. (6) The tone-switches are THEORETICAL CONTRUCTS OUTSIDE THE DIMENSION OF TIME. They are to be regarded as prosidic input units, i.e. as instructions for the behaviour of the voice at particular points in the phoneme sequence. To carry out such instructions in natural speech requires a certain time so that a melodic continuum occurs in the signal. Methodologically it is little use trying to deduce the discrete input-units from the signal, since there is no one-to-one relationship between signal and input (M. Halle 1962). (7) In our work problems of emotive or expressive connotations of intonation, such as 'astonishment', 'doubt', 'irony', etc., were not examined. Such an examination cannot be introduced with any prospect of success until the elements of intonation are known and their basic grammatical ('logical') functions have been elucidated. (8) The elements of German intonation are TWO TONE-SWITCHES: one rising / | / and one falling /[/. On the paradigmatic axis / f / and /]./ form a binary opposition in which ¡ y represents the marked and /J./ the unmarked term. On the syntagmatic axis this has the following implication. The segment following a tone-switch must be kept at the pitch corresponding to the direction of the arrow until (a) a further tone-switch occurs or (b) the utterance ends. The pitch interrupters, which occur at phrase boundaries, are a special case (see 4.2.). (9) Tone-switches operate on words. Every word possesses a syllabic segment which can be stressed, the ICTUS. The ictus can be marked by a complex of acoustic factors (intensity, length, pitch, tamber). If a word from the lexical store is inserted as an input unit into an utterance, then the ictus can be characterised in a particular way by tone-switches. The word can best be examined in the environment # #. If a word occurs as a minimal utterance (e.g. 'announcing form' or question) then the function of the tone-switches in marking the ictus can be observed. Words containing an ictic segment are distinguished from atonic elements (enclitic and proclitic). The latter contain no ictus. (10) We based our research on the assumption that each utterance contains a

59

SUMMARY

change from one pitch to the other at one point at least. Completely monotonous utterances were excluded from our considerations as marginal cases. (11) We were able to show that not the whole 'pitch movement' of an utterance, i.e. not the 'melodic contour', but only THE LAST TONE-SWITCH is relevant for the syntactic characterisation of the utterance. The final tone-switch of an utterance fulfills a double syntactic function. (i) The final tone-switch characterises the whole utterance syntactically as interrogative or non-interrogative and thus provides by itself the necessary cues for the syntactic analysis of the whole sentence. (ii) The final tone-switch gives prominence to one word in relation to all the other words in the utterance. What we would describe as the effect of the final toneswitch, corresponds to what is called in traditional description the 'Hauptton' (nucleus). In yes-no questions the iinal tone-switch occurs on the word asked for. Accordingly, the distinction between an interrogative and a non-interrogative sentence is achieved only by the final tone-switch and not, as is generally assumed, by the whole 'pitch-movement'. (12) On the syntagmatic level a decisive role is played by the location of the toneswitch immediately before or immediately after the ictic segment. For each of the two tone-switches we distinguish two relevant positions: A rising tone-switch

B falling tone-switch

I pre-ictic

diefKinder

die J, Kinder

II post-ictic

die Kinfder

die Kinjder

(13) The invariant function of the tone-switches is represented as a relation between signs of the same order on the syntagmatic level. (14) The invariant syntactic meaning of the rising tone-switches (A) is seen as the SIGNALLING OF A FOLLOWING FALLING TONE-SWITCH. This is the positive feature by which the rising tone-switches are distinguished functionally from the falling ones. (15) As the unmarked term in the opposition / f / : HI, the falling tone-switch conveys no information as to the occurrence or non-occurrence of a further tone-switch. Its syntactic meaning is purely negative. Since in a phrased sentence a /[/ can be followed by a ft/, the falling tone-switch, which here occurs as the explication of the traditional concept of 'terminal contour', carries no independent 'terminal' meaning. (16) The PRE-ICTIC RISING tone-switch (I/A) signals the occurrence of a falling toneswitch (B). If a falling tone-switch (B) does not occur, i.e. if I/A is the final tone-switch in an utterance, then the function of the final tone-switch as described in (lli) is not

60

SUMMARY

fulfilled. An utterance in which the final tone-switch is a pre-ictic rising one (I/A) is interpreted as a 'non-sentence' (or as a sentence fragment). (17) The POST-ICTIC RISING tone-switch (II/A), like I/A, signals the occurrence of a falling tone-switch (B). If this does not occur, then the utterance in which the final tone-switch is post-ictic and rising is characterised as a question. Buning and van Schooneveld (1960) assume that in Russian a rise (of one third) on the one hand terminates the utterance but on the other does not terminate the dialogue (93). The invariant function of the rising tone-switches postulated by us, namely that of signalling the occurrence of a falling tone-switch, can, in a question, be interpreted as follows: either the hearer, who then continues the dialogue, begins the answer on a low tone, so that the falling tone-switch signalled is provided by the contrast between the question ending on a high pitch and the answer beginning on a low pitch, or the answer begins on a high pitch, so that the falling tone-switch anticipated by the question falls within the utterance of the dialogue participant who answers. In both cases the invariant function of the post-ictic rising tone-switch can be explained not with reference to the same utterance but with reference to the dialogue. (18) The FALLING tone-switches (I/B and II/B), as unmarked terms in the toneswitch opposition, carry no limitations as to the possible occurrence or non-occurrence of a further tone-switch. Their syntactic meaning is thus negative. Since in a phrased sentence a /[/ can be followed by a / | / the falling tone-switch here carries no independent 'terminal' meaning. (19) Sentences in which the final tone-switch is post-ictic and falling (II/B), are distinguished from sentences in which it is pre-ictic and falling (I/B). The distinction is often regarded as 'contrastive' vs. 'non-contrastive' opposition. The syntactic function of II/B can only be treated within a wider grammatical framework, taking into account the context. (20) If the post-ictic rising tone-switch (II/A) and both falling tone-switches (I/B and II/B) occur as the final tone-switches in the sentence, then the words they mark are perceived as carrying the 'main stress' in the sentence. In yes-no questions the 'main stress' at the same time marks the word 'asked for'. (21) Sentences in connected speech can be segmented into smaller intonation units (phrases). In speech we observe changes in pitch which do not occur between an ictic and a non-ictic segment. From this observation we derive the concept of pitch interrupter, as a change in pitch essentially distinct from the tone-switch. Pitch interrupters always occur only at word boundaries. Pitch interrupters can be interpreted as acoustic correlates of phrase boundaries. Like the tone-switches they represent theoretical input units. We have been able to show that the phrasing of sentences can be achieved solely by changes in pitch, without pauses. Types of phrasing such as those often labelled as listing and parenthetic intonation, can, within the framework of our model, be explained as a sequence of tone-switches and pitch' interrupters. The assumption of special intonation patterns for listing and parenthesis has been shown to be superfluous. Every phrase contains a word marked by the final tone-switch in the phrase,

61

SUMMARY

interpreted as being 'prominent' in relation to the other words in the same phrase. (22) Non-final tone-switches which are separated by a word boundary from the word marked by the final tone-switch of a sentence are perceived as 'secondary stresses'. (23) The syntactic functions of both tone-switches in two different positions can be summarised in the following table:

TABLE 1

Invariant function

Conditioned function as non-final tone-switch

A rising toneswitch

as final tone-switch

signals occurrence of falling tone-switch (B)

I/A pre-ictic rising tone-switch

signals occurrence of falling tone-switch (B)

marks secondary stress if separated by a word boundary from a final tone-switch

falling tone-switch (B) has not occurred. The utterance is a sentence-fragment

II/A post-ictic rising tone-switch

signals occurrence of falling tone-switch (B)

marks secondary stress if separated by a word boundary from a final tone-switch

falling tone-switch (B) has not occurred. The utterance is an interrogative sentence; (B) occurs in the answer, marking the word asked for and the 'main stress'

I/B pre-ictic falling tone-switch

marks secondary stress if separated by a word boundary from a final toneswitch

the utterance is not an interrogative sentence. Marks the main stress

II/B post-ictic falling tone-switch

marks secondary stress if separated by a word boundary from a final toneswitch

the utterance is not an interrogative sentence. Marks the main stress. The word marked is 'contrasted' or 'emphatic'

B falling tone-switch

contains no information about occurrence or nonoccurrence of A

APPENDIX

(I)-(4) die Vorbereitungen sind getroffen, alles ist bereit = the preparations have been made, everything is ready (5)-(6) er plant eine Reise = he is planning a journey (7)-(10) eine Reise = a journey (II)-(14) sieben = seven (15) Havelkanal = Havel Canal (16) see (11) (17) Umstände = circumstances (18) unaufgeklärt = unsolved (19) see (11) (20) see (17) (21) see (18) (22) Tangermünde (place name) (23)-(24) Geschichte = story (25)-(27) drei = three (28)-(30) Berlin (31)-(36) weil Peter die Zeitung noch nicht zu Ende gelesen haben kann = because Peter cannot have finished reading the paper yet (37)-(39) er hat es nicht ohne Absicht getan = he did it intentionally (40)-(45) see (11) (46) see (25) (47) see (11) (48) abgeschlossen = concluded (49)-(52) die Angelegenheit blieb unaufgeklärt = the matter remained unsolved (53)-(54) alle Kinder lernen Englisch = all (the) children learn English (54a)-(54b) der Vertrag wurde abgeschlossen = the contract was concluded (55)-(56) die Kinder vertrauen den Eltern = the children trust their parents (57)-(58) Peter brachte diese Bücher einer Schwester seiner Freundin: see (92) (59)-(60) die Kinder glauben dem Lehrer (die Geschichte) = the children believe (the story) the teacher (tells them)

APPENDIX

63

(61) see (55) (62) die Kinder vertrauen = the children trust (63) die Kinder = the children (64)-(66) see (55) (67) und etwas Ähnliches = and something similar (68) und etwas Ähnliches stand in der Tat bevor = and something similar was actually bound to happen (69) see (11) (70) see (53) (71) see (49) (72) viele Kinder lernen Englisch = many children learn English (73) viele Kinder lernen = many children learn (74) viele Kinder = many children (75)-(78) see (37) (79) er hat an vielen Besprechungen der Kommission teilnehmen müssen = he has had to take part in many of the committee's discussions (80)-(81) see (59) [82]-[83] er trat an's Fenster, es schneite, die Straße war menschenleer = he went over to the window, it was snowing, the street was deserted [84] Peter arbeitet, verdient aber wenig = Peter works, but earns little [85]-[86] die Zeitschriften bringen Artikel und Annoncen = the periodicals contain articles and small-ads (87)-(89) er hatte fünfzehn zentimeterlange Stücke = he had fifteen centimetre-long pieces (90)-(91) er hatte fünf zehn Zentimeter lange Stücke = he had five ten-centimetrelong pieces (92)-(94) Peter brachte diese Bücher einer Schwester seiner Freundin = (a) Peter brought these books to a sister of his girl-friend, (b) Peter brought these books to his girl-friend, a nurse [95]-[96] Tomaten (und) Kartoffeln (und) Radieschen (und) (Salat) sind billiger geworden = Tomatoes (and) potatoes (and) radishes (and) (lettuce) have become cheaper [97] die Kinder brauchen Schuhe, Kleider, Wäsche, Strümpfe = the children need shoes, clothes, underwear, stockings [98] die Kinder sangen, lachten, tanzten und spielten = the children sang, laughed, danced and played [98a] die Kinder sangen und spielten = the children sang and played [99]-[101] Peter kaufte Schallplatten, Bücher, Zeitungen und Zeitschriften = Peter bought records, books, newspapers and magazines [102]-[110] schreiben Sie bitte (morgen) (sagte Peter), wann Sie kommen wollen = please write (tomorrow) (Peter said) when you want to come (111) "... und meine Mutter schilt mich hernach,daß ich herangewachsener Mensch

64

APPENDIX

in Gegenwart unserer Gäste — Bühnenkünstler und Gelehrte sind es hauptsächlich — mich so tölpelhaft aufführe" = "... and my mother scolds me afterwards because I, a grown-up person, behave so boorishly in the presence of our guests — they are mainly actors and scholars." (112) schreiben Sie bitte, sagte Peter, wann Sie kommen wollen = Please write, said Peter, when you want to come (113)-(117) die Gäste (— Touristen aus vielen Ländern —) besichtigten die Sehenswürdigkeiten der Stadt = the visitors (— tourists from many countries —) saw the sights of the town (118) ich weiß, daß der Mann im Auto schläft = (a) I know the man in the car is asleep, (b) I know that the man is sleeping in the car (119) = (118) (a) (120) = (IK) (b) [119a] der Mann im Auto schläft = the man in the car is asleep [120a] der Mann schläft im Auto = the man is sleeping in the car (121)-(121b) wann kommst du morgen? = when are you coming tomorrow? (122)-(122b) was soll er abschreiben? = what do you want him to copy? (121c) wann kommst du? Morgen? = when are you coming? Tomorrow? (122c) Was soll er? Abschreiben? = What do you want him to do? Copy? (123) er sagte, es sei ungewiß, ob er auf der Rückreise noch einmal bei uns vorbeikommen könne = he said it was uncertain whether he would be able to stop by once more on the way back (124) seine Eltern leben in Weimar = his parents live in Weimar (125) der Lehrer hat einen Brief geschrieben = the teacher wrote a letter (126) Peter kannte den Krankenpfleger = Peter knew the (male) nurse (127) Peter kannte den kranken Pfleger = Peter knew the sick (male) nurse

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