Experiments in Comparative Intonation: A Case Study of English and German (Linguistische Arbeiten) [Reprint 2011 ed.] 3484301147, 9783484301146

Table of contents :
EXPLANATION OF SYMBOLS
PREFACE
1. AIMS AND SCOPE OF THE INVESTIGATION
2. INTONATIONAL THEORY
2.1. Intonation in Linguistics
2.2. Towards a Definition of Intonation
2.3. Intonational Functions and the Nature of Intonational Meaning
2.4. Units of Analysis
2.5. Tunes
2.6. Terminology and Notation
3. GERMAN INTONATION: A SURVEY
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Some Descriptions
3.3. Summary
4. CONTRASTIVE STUDIES IN GERMAN AND ENGLISH INTONATION
4.1. A Survey of Existing Studies
4.2. Concepts in Contrastive Linguistic Studies
4.3. General Hypotheses
4.4. Detailed Analyses and Hypotheses
5. EMPIRICAL STUDIES IN INTONOLOGY
5.1. The Status of Empirical Procedure in Linguistics
5.2. The Status of Empirical Studies in Intonology
5.3. Experimental Studies in Intonation
5.4. Experiments Relating to the Functions of Intonation
5.5. Summary
6. THE PRESENT EXPERIMENT: Design and Execution
6.1. Methodological Considerations
6.2. The Conduct of the Experiments
7. REPORT AND DISCUSSION
7.1. Overview
7.2. Report and Discussion of Individual Experiments
8. CONCLUSION
8.1. Range and Adequacy of the Experiments
8.2. The Results and their Interpretation
8.3. Further Research
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Citation preview

Linguistische Arbeiten

114

Herausgegeben von Herbert E. Brekle, Hans Jürgen Heringer, Christian Rohrer, Heinz Vater und Otmar Werner

Michael Scuffil

Experiments in Comparative Intonation A Case-Study of English and German

Max Niemeyer Verlag Tübingen 1982

CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek Scuffil, Michael: Experiments in comparative intonation : a case-study of Engl. and German / Michael Scuffil. - Tübingen : Niemeyer, 1982. (Linguistische Arbeiten ; 114) NE: GT ISBN 3-484-30114-7

ISSN 0344-6727

©Max Niemeyer Verlag Tübingen 1982 Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Ohne ausdrückliche Genehmigung des Verlages ist es nicht gestattet, dieses Buch oder Teile daraus auf photomechanischem Wege zu vervielfältigen. Printed in Germany. Druck: fotokop Wilhelm Weihert KG, Darmstadt.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

page EXPLANATION OF SYMBOLS

ix

PREFACE

xi

1.

AIMS AND SCOPE OF THE INVESTIGATION

1

1.1.1. 1.1.2. 1.2.

1 1

1.2.1. 1.2.2.

Outline Introduction Resume of Aspects and Objects of the Investigation Aspects Objects

2.

INTONATIONAL THEORY

8

2.1. 2.2. 2.2.1. 2.2.2. 2.2.3. 2.2.4. 2.3.

Intonation in Linguistics Towards a Definition of Intonation Introduction Form and Function as Bases for Definition Intonation and Phonetic Parameters Melody Intonational Functions and the Nature of Intonational Meaning

8 11 11 12 12 17

2.3.1.

Introduction

18

2.3.2. 2.3.3.

19

2.3.4.

Pragmatics and Performance The so-called Linguistic, Syntactic and Grammatical Functions of Intonation Presuppositions and Related Matters

21 27

2.3.5. 2.4.

Summary Units of Analysis

31 32

2.4.1. 2.4.2. 2.4.3. 2.4.4. 2.5. 2.5.1. 2.5.2. 2.5.3. 2.5.4. 2.5.5. 2.5.6. 2.6. 2.6.1. 2.6.2.

Introduction Tone Groups Minor Tone-Groups and Phrasing Units Tone-Groups in the Present Investigation Tunes Four Approaches The Two-Tune Theory The Whole-Contour Theory The Head-plus-Nucleus Analysis The Pitch-Accent Theory Summary Terminology and Notation Terminology Transcription

32 34 36 39 4O 40 4Ο 43 45 46 46 47 47 48

4 4 5

18

vi 3.

GERMAN INTONATION: A SURVEY

51

3.1. 3.2. 3.2.1. 3.2.2. 3.2.3. 3.2.4.

Introduction Some Descriptions Von Essen; Klinghardt; Barker Isacenko & Schädlich Bierwisch Trim

51 53 53 55 57 57

3.2.5.

Delattre

58

3.2.6. 3.2.7.

American Treatments Hallidayan Treatments: Pheby and Kohler Stock & Zacharias Lieb Miscellaneous Observations Summary Observational Equivalence Forms of Analysis

59 6O

3.2.8. 3.2.9. 3.2.10. 3.3. 3.3.1. 3.3.2. 4.

4.1. 4.1.1. 4.1.2.

CONTRASTIVE STUDIES IN GERMAN AND ENGLISH INTONATION

62 66 66 67 67 69

71

A Survey of Existing Studies Introduction Summary of Opinions: The Phonetics of Intonation in English and German Summary of Opinions: the Semantics of Intonation in English and German

71 71 72

4.2.

Concepts in Contrastive Linguistic Studies

76

4.2.1.

76

4.2.2. 4.3.

Correspondence, Equivalence and Congruence Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis General Hypotheses

4.4. 4.4.1.

Detailed Analyses and Hypotheses Introduction

82 82

4.4.2.

The Scope of Quantifier and Negation: ' n o t . . . a n y 1 (Experiment I) Definite and Implicatory Statements (Experiment II)

82

4.1.3.

4.4.3

75

80

86

4.4.4.

'Limiting 1 and 'Extending' Statements (Experiment III)

89

4.4.5.

Questions and Exclamations (Experiment IV

9O

4.4.6.

Two Kinds of

93

4.4.7. 4..4.8. 4.4.9.

4.4.10. 4.4.11. 4.4.12.

'Might Have 1 Sentence

(Experiment V) Factive and Non-Factive Complements of 96 'Think' (Experiment VI) Short Answers (Experiment VII) 98 High and Low Onset and Body with Rising 1O4 Nuclei, and their Association with Question and Non-Question (Experiments Villa, VHIb) . The 'Broad 1 Fall-Rise (Experiments IX a , b , c , ) 111 The Fall-Rise and the Fall-plus-Rise 113 (Experiments X a , b , c , d ) Implicatory Statements and Contrastive 12O Themes (Experiment XI)

VI l

4.4.13. 4.4.14. 4.4.15. 4.4.16. 4.4.17. 4.4.18. 4.4.19.

The Fall-Rise Tone in Questions (Experiments Xlla, Xllb) 'Dominance 1 (Experiments Xllla, X I I I b ) . Tag-Questions (Experiment XIV Sarcasm and the Rise-Fall (Experiments X V a , b , c ) . Attitudinal Meanings (i) in Jussives (Experiments XVIa, b ) . Attitudinal Meanings: (ii) Wh-Interrogatives (Experiment XVII) Judgements of Prominence (Experiment XVII

125 126 127 132 136 145 148

5.

EMPIRICAL STUDIES IN INTONOLOGY

ISO

5.1.

150

5.4.7. 5.5.

The Status of Empirical Procedure in Linguistics Introduction The Case for Introspection The Status of Empirical Studies in Intonology The Absence of Intuition Observation of Intonation: Regularization of Data Observational Studies: Other Considerations .Experimental Studies in Intonation Instrumental Studies Physiological Studies Experiments Relating to the Functions of Intonation A Broad Classification Participant-Production Techniques Imitation Techniques Participant-Production Experiments Involving Non-Native Speakers Participant-Reception Techniques: Overview Participant-Production/ParticipantReception Techniques Synthetic-Stimulus Techniques Summary

6.

THE PRESENT EXPERIMENT: Design and Execution

Ί71

6.1. 6.1.1. 6.1.2. 6.1.3. 6.1.4. 6.1.5. 6.2. 6.2.1. 6.2.2.

Methodological Considerations Outline of Design Scope of the Investigation Choice of Stimulus Type Answering Procedure Choice of Participants The Conduct of the Experiments Sub-Division of the Experiments Conduct of Sessions

171 171 171 172 177 1g2 183 183 184

5.1.1. 5.1.2. 5.2. 5.2.1. 5.2.2. 5.2.3. 5.3. 5.3.1. 5.3.2. 5.4. 5.4.1. 5.4.2. 5.4.3. 5.4.4. 5.4.5. 5.4.6.

15O 152 153 153 154 155 157 158 160 16O 161 162 163 163 164 167 16g

viii 7.

REPORT AND DISCUSSION

7.1. 7.2.

7.2.20.

Overview Report and Discussion of Individual Experiments Experiment I (relative scope of not...any) Experiment II (Implicatory and Definite Statements) Experiment III ('limiting 1 and 'extending 1 statements) Experiment IV (Questions and Exclamations) Experiment V (Two Types of 'Might Have 1 Sentence) Experiment VI (Factive and Non-Factive 1 1 Thought') Experiment VII (Short Answers) Experiments Villa and VHIb (Rising Nuclei with High and Low Body) Experiment IXa, IXb, IXc (The Broad Fall-Rise as an Independent Tone) Experiments X a , b , c , d . (Fall-Rise and Fall-plus-Rise) Experiment XI (Implicatory Statement and Contrastive Theme) Experiments Xlla, XIIb (Questioning Fall-Rise) Experiment XVIII (Various Tones in Questions) Experiments XHIa and XHIb (Dominance) Experiment XIV (Tag-Questions) Experiments XVa,b,c. (Sarcasm and the Rise-Fall) Experiment XVIa (Attitudinal Meanings with Affirmative Jussives) Experiment XVIb (Attitudinal Meanings with Negative Jussives) Experiment XVII (Attitudinal Judgements in Wh- Interrogatives, Judgements of Prominence) Experiment XIX

8.

CONCLUSION

275

8.1. 8.1.1. 8.1.2. 8.2. 8.3.

Range and Adequacy of the Experiments Range Adequacy The Results and their Interpretation Further Research

275 275 275 279 281

7.2.1. 7.2.2. 7.2.3. 7.2.4. 7.2.5. 7.2.6. 7.2.7. 7.2.8. 7.2.9. 7.2.10. 7.2.11. 7.2.12. 7.2.13. 7.2.14. 7.2.15. 7.2.16. 7.2.17. 7.2.18. 7.2.19.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

188

188 188 188 192 193 196 198 201 203 207 215 222 227 228 230 234 240 244 247 253 257 267

282

ix EXPLANATION OF SYMBOLS

A.

Intonational

/ο

η / onset-nucleus of a melodeme (first and last accented syllables)

/p o n / pre-onset - onset - nucleus (used where the tone of the pre-onset is significant) indicates a 1 stepping-down 1 pre-nuclear contour

Ό 4

o

indicates a high-level pre-nuclear contour

ο

indicates a descending glissando pre-nuclear contour

yo

indicates a rising pre-nuclear contour

ο

indicates a rising pre-nuclear contour

(o

indicates a low-level pre-nuclear contour

"p

indicates a high pre-onset

x

indicates a high falling nucleus (high or mid to low)

n

xn

indicates a low falling nucleus (low to lower)

fn

indicates a low rising nucleus (low to mid)

'n

indicates a high rising nucleus (low to high)

"n

indicates a falling-rising nucleus (ending mid)

Vn

indicates a broad falling-rising nucleus (ending high)

A

indicates a rising-falling nuclesu (ending low)

n

*"n η

indicates a rising-falling-level nucleus (ending mid) ^η

indicates the fall + rise tone

(These brief definitions must be understood in the context of

English tonology; thus the nuclear pitch movement may actually occur on post-nuclear unaccented syllables). B.

Statistical (standard symbols are not given here)

Λ"

number of

M

median score of correct responses on Part I of an experiment

m

median score of correct responses on Part II of an experiment

C

median score of consistent responses on the two parts of an experiment

CC

median score of consistently correct responses on the two parts of an experiment

CI

median score of consistently incorrect responses on the two parts of an experiment

CO

median difference between consistently correct and consistently incorrect responses

X/x

an X response on either Part I or Part II of an experiment (X is replaced by various letters to indicate various responses, as explained in the reports on the individual experiments; but the convention is maintained throughout that capitals are used for Part I responses, lower-case for Part II)

Xx

a consistent X response to the same item on both parts of an experiment

participants

(Xx - Yy) the difference between consistently correct Xx responses and consistently incorrect Yy responses (for examples of the use of the statistical symbols, see 7 . 2 . 1 . )

XI

PREFACE

This book is based on the a u t h o r ' s P h . D . dissertation for the university of Cambridge entitled The Interpretation of English Intonation Patterns by Native Speakers and German-Speaking Learners. The study has been slightly abridged for publication, but the text is substantially the same. Transcripts of all the experimental material are appended to the dissertation, and these, together with the tapes and the detailed results, are also available from the author. Acknowledgements and thanks are due to a number of people. First, my supervisor John Trim, who was the first to convince me that intonation was a worthwhile subject of study, besides teaching me much about English intonation and the importance of experimental work. It would, of course, have been impossible to conduct the research reported here without the assistance of the participants in the experiments, all of whom attended in their own time for no financial or other tangible reward. My special thanks are due to them. I would also like to thank a number of people for their technical assistance: Peter Jones and his staff at the Department of Linguistics at Cambridge, and Frl. Rübsteck and Herr Linn of Cologne University. Two years of this research were financed by a Studentship from the English government Department of Education and Science; a further year by my wife A n t j e , who was patient at critical moments.

Leverkusen, July 1981

Michael Scuffil

1.

AIMS AND SCOPE OF THE INVESTIGATION

1.1.

Outline

1.1.1.Introduction The central part of this study is devoted to a report and discussion of a series of experiments designed to investigate how English native speakers and German speakers with some knowledge of English interpret the intonation patterns of English R.P. It was my original intention to examine the comprehensibility of English intonation patterns to non-native speakers - specifically German-speaking learners of English - along the lines and for the purposes to be outlined below. At an early stage, however, fundamental questions of intonational competence arose, and during the carrying-out of the experiments it became clear that native-speaker (i.e. my) intuition was - while not obviously misguided - at least to be treated with some reserve, and that similar considerations applied also to published descriptions of English intonation. For these reasons the investigation broadened to include the way in which native speakers interpret native patterns. In addition to the empirical study, and the considerations concerning competence, the investigation necessarily extended to a theoretical consideration of the nature of intonational meaning, and this in turn to the units which carry this meaning. From here it is but a short step before one is in the centre of a quite abstract discussion of the place of intonation in grammar on the one hand, and the place of language in communication on the other. 1.1.2.Limits and Limitations Nevertheless the investigation must of course have limits; and there are obvious limitations.

First, it is primarily an empirical study.

Theoretical

dis-

cussion plays a subordinate role, in the sense that it is limited, in general, to placing the study in the general setting of

lin-

guistic research; that is, to the establishment of a suitable framework, drawing on existing experience, and to the consequences for linguistic theory suggested by the results. been made to develop a new theory.

No attempt has

Secondly, the study is limited to an investigation of interpretation. It is not an investigation of how English speakers speak, nor is it an "error analysis" of English intonation as produced by German speakers.

The reasons for this limitations are

mostly practical, and will be discussed in detail in chapters 5 and 6.

Naturally, as the production and reception of speech

signals are presumably related, there are tentative conclusions one can draw from one to the other. However, this is a study of interpretation. Thirdly, the study is limited to English, and to a particular variety.

This derives from the nature of the experiment in fact,

although it was never intended to extend the scope of the present study to German or any other intonation. Nevertheless, if one assumes a degree of mother-tongue interference, not only with production, in which context it is usually investigated, but also in perception and interpretation, there may well be conclusions to be drawn about the interpretation of native patterns on the basis of interpretation of 1*2 patterns. In view of the considerable disharmony in the published accounts of German intonation (see chapter 3 below), any insights to be gained by a new approach would in any case be welcome. Fourthly, the study is limited to phenomena which are "distinctive".

That is to say, for example, that if meaning X is expressed

by pattern A in English and pattern B in German, and if

pattern A

is not used in German, nor pattern B in English, then an investigation of this difference does not form a part of this study. This limitation is a direct result of the second and third restrictions mentioned above.

It should not be taken to mean that I think such

1see Delattre et α £ . , ( 1 9 6 5 : 135)

an investigation unimportant, as it is obviously distinctions of this sort which give rise most easily to the impression of a foreign accent;

I shall have more to say about them in chapter

4. My investigation begins where there are prima facie grounds to suspect a semantic mismatch. F i f t h l y , the study is largely, though not entirely, confined to what I shall for the moment (but see 2 . 5 . 1 . ) c a l l t o n e using the term in the sense of Halliday ( 1 9 6 7 ) . This restriction also derives from the nature of the experiment, although here too the experiment was not designed to take much account of tonicity or tonality.

In the case of the former, there is no prima facie

reason for expecting much variation between English and German speakers on this point in general, although specific examples to the contrary can be found. Moreover, tonicity, under various names but in particular 'sentence-stress 1 , has received an enormous amount of attention in the last ten years, much of it

speculative

or tendentious, and none of it with any real empirical basis. While the latter consideration might suggest experimental work in this field, few of the treatments have suggested suitable questions for empirical study. Where d i f f e r e n t theories produce different results (as for example in the case of the stress-rules proposed by Chomsky and Halle ( 1 9 6 8 ) , Hirst ( 1 9 7 5 ) , and M . Y . Liberman ( 1 9 7 9 ) , it is sometimes explicitly denied that an empirical study is relevant to the resolution of the issue (as for example by Chomsky and H a l l e ) ; but even where it is not denied, my experience with the data of the present study suggests that clear answers to the questions implicitly proposed ( f o r example Hirst 1 9 7 5 : 3 4 ) would not be forthcoming. Unlike tonicity, tonality has been rather less often discussed, especially in its semantic (by which I include pragmatic) aspects. A notable exception is recent work by Brazil ( 1 9 7 5 , 1 9 7 8 ) , to which I shall return below. In the context of the present study tonicity and tonality have only been included as objects of investigation where they appear - superficially at least to play a role more often - or also - associated with tone.

In

one experiment the opportunity was taken to investigate perception of prominence, which has a bearing on the question of tonicity, but is of course a separate issue. Sixth, and in particular apropos of Brazil's work mentioned

4

above, tue study is limited to sentence intonation (in a broad sense, perhaps) and does not include much of what Brazil calls 'Discourse Intonation 1 . If Brazil is generally correct, this could be a serious limitation. However a consideration of Brazil's categories of "key" and "termination" in the context of his "pitch sequences" (which three are the most important ideas) would fit neither experimentally nor conceptually into the framework of this study. Nor, prima facie,is there much substance for a contrastive English/German study along these lines. Of course, no study of intonation can ignore intersentential relationships, but these are not specific to intonation(see especially Halliday & Hasan ( 1 9 7 6 ) ) n o r have they been ignored in this study.

1.2.

Resume of Aspects and Objects of the Investigation

1.2.1.Aspects The core of the investigation can be seen in three ways. First, it is empirical, and in the narrower sense, experimental. For the moment, I will point to two contrasting views emanating from the same school - the well-known one of Chomsky & Halle, who deny any kind of perceptual reality for the output of their stress rules, and would presumably do the same for their intonation rules, if they had any; and that of Jackendoff on "stress", who, though recognizing that "intonation as well as intensity" is involved, says "I would hesitate to propose much beyond this point without thorough experimental work". (Jackendoff 1 9 7 2 : 2 4 2 ) . It is true that he does not say whet he has in mind, and also that "experimental work" is seen in e f f e c t as a last resort, where intuition and straw polls among one's colleagues fail. Nevertheless, the admission from this source is encouraging. Secondly, the study is concerned with the semantics (in a broad sense, to be defined more closely in chapter 2) of English "intonation patterns', also to be defined in chapter 2. To look at it from another standpoint, it is an exercise in intonational lexicography, in the sense of M.Y. Liberman ( 1 9 7 9 : 6 0 ) . Thirdly, the study is contrastive, both in the sense outlined above, and also in the sense that "translations' of English

5

intonation patterns into German, and to a lesser extent vice versa, will be sought from published accounts and my own observations, in the belief that a number of hitherto scattered observations might be usefully brought together. All three aspects will be discussed in more detail in the relevant chapters ( 5 , 2 and 4 respectively).

1.2.2.Objects By means of this investigation it is hoped to achieve at least four objects. First, I hope to provide a better foundation for the semantic descriptions of intonation already in existence, and to add to them. Secondly, following from the f i r s t , to provide more data for those concerned with the synthesization of speech by rule. Thirdly, I hope to identify the areas of actual misunderstanding which could occur between English and German speakers, and where possible, identify the causes, with a view to being able to propose priorities for remedial action in English-language teaching, and, indeed, establishing to what extent there is a practical need to include intonation in an English-language syllabus for German-speakers. Fourthly, I hope to report on the potentialities and shortcomings of the chosen methodology insofar as it conduces to the three ends outlined above. This too should be seen as one of the aims of the investigation, namely the establishment of a procedure for checking intuitions about language. The procedure chosen here is direct; it is based on the premiss that the best way to find out what people think you mean is to ask them. The problems, which are still evident in this investigation, although I hope somewhat mitigated for the future as a result of it, consist in framing the questions in a way one's subjects can understand, devising an answering procedure that allows quantification of the results, and asking the right questions.

6

1.3. Organization of the Study Chapter 2 will be concerned with matters of theoretical background, especially in respect of English intonation, and with the related questions of terminology and notation. It is not intended to survey the whole field in detail; however, as a consensus on quite basic matters is still lacking, any investigator in this field must make it clear within which theoretical and descriptive framework he is working, and precisely how and why he is using a particular terminology and notation. Chapter 3 is concerned with a survey of treatments of German intonation. In spite of recent work by Gibbon ( 1 9 7 6 , 1 9 7 8 , 1 9 7 9 ) , there is still a clear need for a lucid and comprehensive study in this area, as existing descriptions of German intonation have been worked out in a variety of very different theoretical frameworks and identification of common ground, a prerequisite of any contrastive study, is d i f f i c u l t . Chapter 4 falls into three parts. The first reviews existing contrastive studies of English and German intonation. The second summarizes these, and on the basis of the conclusions from chapter 3, makes a general comparative statement on the forms and functions of intonation in the two languages, and certain general predictions concerning the manner in which German-speakers will interpret English intonation and the extent to which they will be sensitive to it. The third part introduces the specific areas with which this investigation is concerned. For each such area a summary is given of existing observations, analyses and opinions; these are consolidated where possible and amended where necessary. Corresponding German linguistic devices are then examined, and on the basis of the resulting comparison, specific predictions are made for the individual experiments of the investigation. Chapters 5,6 and 7 are concerned with experimental matters. Chapter 5 examines the position of empirical studies in linguistics generally and intonology in particular, and reviews experimental methods reported in the past. It serves as an introduction to chapter 6, in which the methodology of the present study is presented, discussed and justified. Chapter 7 presents and discusses the results of the individual experiments. Chapter 8

7

summarizes these, draws conclusions from them, assesses the suitability of the procedure and suggests lines for future research.

8

2.

INTONATIONAL THEORY

Definitions and Analyses, with Particular Reference to English

2 . 1 . Intonation in Linguistics I do not intend in this chapter to review all work on English intonation, nor to discuss in detail the undoubtedly interesting questions of the status of intonation in linguistics, or ο indeed its genesis. The latter aspect must remain speculative, although in recent work attempts have been made to link the intonation patterns of adult speech with the cries of newborn infants-' and with calls and children's play-chants ( M . Y . Liberman, 1 9 7 9 ) . In this section, I intend, rather, only to outline the main issues and my position on them. It is possible to exclude intonation from linguistics more or less by fiat, as was done by Martinet, whose criteria were described - rightly, in my view - by Crystal as "idiosyncratic" ( 1 9 6 9 : 5 9 ) . But one need not invoke idiosyncratic criteria to cast doubt on the linguistic status of intonation. The doubts arise because it appears that the relationship between signifiant and signifio in intonation cannot be fully expressed in terms of discrete categories, and is hence not fully arbitrary. The nonarbitrary aspects have been linked by some authors quite firmly to psychological and physiological causes. Moreover, a plausible case can be made for counting intonation as paralinguistic, along with voice quality, lip-setting, gesture etc. These are important questions, for if intonation is not linguistic, the attempt to force it into a linguistic mould is doomed to failure and will give rise to distortions until this is recognized. 1 see Crystal (1969 : c h . 2 ) , ( 1 9 7 3 : c h . 1 ) , and Gibbon ( 1 9 7 6 ) 2 for an example of such speculation, see von Essen, ( 1 9 5 6 : 1 3 ) 3 by P. Lieberman ( 1 9 6 7 ) . Lieberman's work will be discussed in greater detail in chapter 5.

9

On the other hand, attempts to ignore intonation in linguistic descriptions have impoverished the latter, and given rise to such widespread but dubious concepts as "normal intonation". I shall consider f i r s t the question of discreteness and continuous variability. That fundamental frequency (or its auditory or articulatory correlates) is a virtually continuously variable is obvious, but not in itself of linguistic significance. What is of significance is whether a change on the phonetic dimension produces a change along a given semantic dimension; whether this change is proportionate; and whether there are discontinuities, such as occur for example in the articulation of segmental phones. As to the third question, the results of certain of the experiments reported below suggest that there are discontinuities; however, this is hardly a new discovery, and their existence is implicit in most work on intonation. But the continuum is long, and the discontinuities relatively few, which allows for considerable continuous variation, provoking the other two questions. The answer to the first is probably yes. This is the common-sense view, and was expressed by Steele thus :"The tones of passion are distinguished by a greater extent of the voice both into the acute and the grave, and by making the antithesis, or diversity between the two, more remarkable" ( 1 7 7 5 : 1 7 2 ) . The second question is answered a f f i r matively by Trim, both in the article cited and in an earlier article, (Trim 1964 : 3 7 8 ) , where he refers to the "exact height" (my emphasis) of a syllable "being determined by the weight of the nucleus". Likewise Bolinger: "If a note of warning consists of an upward movement of pitch, the intensity of warning varies proportionately as the range increases or decreases" ( 1 9 4 9 : 2 4 9 , my emphasis). I doubt whether these statements are true, but in any case I do not see that they are verifiable.

4

thus D.L. Bolinger ( 1 9 4 9 : 2 4 9 ) , von Essen ( 1 9 5 6 : 1 2 ) , P. Lieberman (1967 passim}, A. Cruttenden, ( 1 9 7 9 : 1 7 ) .

5

for a random example, see Allwood et a l. ( 1 9 7 7 : 3 1 ) where it quite unclear what the "normal" intonation is. see especially Trim ( 1 9 6 7 ) , and Bolinger ( 1 9 6 1 a ) .

6

is

10

The critical point is the existence of discontinuities, for if there are discontinuities, then there are discrete categories even along the continuous parameters (and surely there are discrete categories otherwise?) Bolinger does not consider the question of discreteness very important; using a simile from electronics, he says: "when one stops talking about switches and begins to talk about potentiometers, one does not necessarily cease talking about electrical systems" ( 1 9 6 1 a : 1 1 ) . The simile is specious, but misleading, since it has never been claimed of electronics, unlike linguistics, that it is concerned only with discrete categories. For linguistics the question is important, since a non-discrete system cannot be fully arbitrary, and the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign has been a tenet of modern linguistics since Saussure. Here too, Bolinger is doubtful : "The purely arbitrary uses of intonation," he says, "are hardly more numerous than the expressive uses of phonemics" ( 1 9 4 9 : 2 4 9 ) . If this were true, we should expect the meanings of intonation patterns to be universal, and in a more recent article (1978) Bolinger suggests indeed that they may be. As it is part of the object of this investigation to investigate the influence of L^ differences on the interpretation of intonation, I will defer detailed comment until after the report of the experiments. Unfortunately, even if it is shown that intonation is both language-specific and arbitrary, this would not settle its linguistic status. Jassem asserts that "whatever is conventionalized in the language of a speech community is for that very reason essential in that language" ( 1 9 5 2 : 2 7 ) . However, to take one example, interjections are clearly conventionalized (hence arbitrary), and language-specific, but have been plausibly assigned by Abercrombie to paralanguage, on the grounds that some of them do not "follow the normal phonological rules of the language" ( 1 9 6 8 : 6 7 ) . But this •k applies equally to intonation. Abercrombie's own view of the status of intonation is inconsistent. In (Abercrombie 1967:103-4), he distinguishes between "vocal gesture", which is intonation in its "role as bearer of affective indices", and "speech melody", which carries "language-bearing functions". Speech melody is a "linguistic function", which"can be described in terms of structures and systems"/ while the former "is not susceptible of phonological

11

treatment". He does not explain the phonological d i f f e r e n c e , and it looks as if the distinction is mainly based on function. However, in (Abercrombie 1 9 6 8 : 6 9 ) he states: "What is to be regarded as linguistic and what as paralinguistic depends not on the nature of what is communicated, but on how it is communicated". I agree with the latter view, and would summarize this discussion thus : intonation is linguistic insofar as it operates in discrete categories; but among linguistic systems it is sui generis, and categories derived from other areas of linguistics ( e . g . phoneme, morpheme) should not be applied to it. That it is linguistic should become evident during the course of this book; that it is sui generis is evident from its relative neglect by linguists working in other fields; by the fact that it is not systematically represented by any orthography; by the apparent fact that there are (in English at any rate) no clear prescriptive norms relating to it; and by the naive view that its distinctive functions (in the sense of Delattre et a £ . ) a r e universal, and that intonational errors do not occur.7

2.2.

Towards a Definition of Intonation

2.2.1.Introduction Until now I have been using the term intonation in a loose and undefined sense. In this section I shall consider possible definitions. Other terms will be defined incidentally in the process; a summary of the terminological usage to be adopted will be given in section 2 . 6 . There is one use of the term 'intonation 1 which I wish to abjure from the outset, namely Palmer's, who uses it for the study of intonational phenomena ( 1 9 2 2 : 3 ) . Actually Palmer makes here what appears to be a very early distinction between phonetics and phonology in respect of intonation: "The science which is concerned with the nature and meaning of this tone-play is called Intonation. That part which is

7

concerned chiefly with the tone-curves

for actual examples,

see J.J.

Gumperz ( 1 9 7 7 : 1 9 9 , 2 0 8 ) .

12

ο irrespective of their meanings has been called Tonetics". For the science of intonation the term "intonology" seems most adequate. "Tonetics" in Palmer's sense undoubtedly forms a sub-part of phonetics, and a particular name seems hardly necessary.

2 . 2 . 2 . F o r m and Function as Bases for Definition Things can be defined according to either form or function; the same is true of scientific concepts, where the choice is crucial, as the definition is constitutive of the concept. For an example from linguistics, consider the phoneme. In his beautifully written article On the History and Meaning of the Term 'Phoneme '} Jones states that "it is incumbent on us to distunguish what phonemes are from what they do. Phonemes are what is stated in the definition. What they do is to distinguish words from one another" (Jones 1957; 1 9 7 3 : 2 8 ) . Of course, but there is no need to state a definition using formal criteria. Trubetzkoy maintains, for example, that "the phoneme can be satisfactorily defined... purely and solely on the basis of its function." Intonation could also be defined formally or functionally; but as its functions are unclear and probably not exclusive to it, a functional definition is unlikely to be satisfactory. A formal definition may well include too much, however. Thus Bolinger says, that "when we speak,we use the fundamental... , and that is called intonation" ( 1 9 7 2 a : 1 1 ) . We would not wish to include all movements of Fo within intonation, and some functional restriction may be inevitable. 2.2.3.Intonation and Phonetic Parameters I shall begin by considering the relation of intonation to the parameters pitoh/F0/rate of vocal fold vibration,the auditory, acoustic and articulatory aspects respectively of a quantity, which in our desire for exact distinction, has been robbed of a name. I shall call it pitch (and for the auditory aspect use the term "perceived pitch"). 8

The development of our subject since 1922 has muddled the meaning of the latter term also; but it would appear that even then, D.M. Beach, who is credited with coining it, was concerned primarily, if not exclusively, with lexical tone.

13

Pitch is manifestly the main component of intonation. For reasons which will become clear, I intend in what follows to substitute the term melody cussion

for intonation in the following dis-

(albeit not to be confused with Abercrombie 1 s

melody").

"speech

It is however clear that pitch is not always a compo-

nent of melody, and moreover, that melody has other components besides pitch.

These can be briefly listed.

of lexical tone in tone-languages. of studies, a component of accent English and German.

Q

It is,

Pitch is a component

according to a number

in many languages, including

For reasons which are probably physiological,

it acts as a cue to the perception of segmental phones (as illustrated, for example, by Bolinger ( 1 9 7 2 a ; 1 3 ) ) . If my demarcation between linguistic and paralinguistic phenomena is reasonable, then pitch must also be counted a paralinguistic phenomenon.

For

these reasons, melody cannot be viewed as the only phonological correlate of pitch. The other acoustic parameters which we must consider are duration, intensity and spectral characteristics (e.g. formant structure) To take duration first : it plays a role in segment identification; it is a paralinguistic phenomenon, almost certainly; it is a component of accent, and insofar as it interacts with pitch to expound this phonological category, it

is also an exponent of melody.

This may need some explanation. Take the sentence: He's a fine friend, I must say, A frequent way of uttering this would be (using the tonetic-stressmark notation): He's a fine friend, I must say. In terms of pitch, thisis virtually indistinguishable from the probably non-occurring) : He's a fine friend, I must ^say. The two versions d i f f e r phonetically in a number of ways, but the most striking - in the first half at least - is the relative duration of the syllables, fine and friend

(and also of must and

say, although here vowel quality plays a major role - about this more below).

In analyses of my own recordings of this sentence,

9 for my use of this term, see 2 . 6 below.

14

I have established average durations as follows: i)

(rise-fall)

fine:

275 ms

friend:

255 ms

must: 215 ms say: 215 ms ii)

(high f a l l )

fine: friend:

175 ms 275 ms

must: 175 ms say: 260 ms fine : friend in (i) is 1.07:1; in (ii) O.63:1 must : say

in (u) is 1.00:1; in (ii) 0 . 6 6 : 1

This sentence exemplifies how duration is a component of accent. But it

also shows how duration is indirectly a component of melody,

for it is only because duration contributes towards accent that we can determine the nuclear syllable, a prerequisite for determining the melodic pattern. Duration also acts more directly as a component of melody. The acoustic heading of

h

spectral characteristics" covers a

number of quite separate features. First I shall deal with effects of the kind which Meyer-Eppler has reported in

spectrographic

analyses of whispered speech, (Meyer-Eppler 1957), which have been largely confirmed in a perceptual experiment reported by Trim ( 1 9 7 O ) . Meyer-Eppler reports rising "pitch" to be realized in whisper by a raising of the third and second formants respectively in the case of the vowels [a] and [uj, and an increase in intensity resulting in an increase in high-frequency noise for the vowels £e] , [ij and [o]. His data were from German, but similar effects can be observed for English; and although instrumental evidence is always welcome, recourse need not be had to it, as the effects are audible, and the speaker himself can observe the changing position of articulation. The principal articulatory effect is one of increasing palatization as the "pitch" is raised, which, beside the acoustic effects already noted for vowels, results in higher-frequency noise for consonants. A vowel may be quite radically altered in this process : if one asks an untrained 10 for details, see Denes (1959) , and Denes & Milton-Williams, (1962).

15

Speaker to whisper a "rising scale" using a particular vowel only, my observation is that this will have become a phonologically different vowel by about the f i f t h . There are two questions to ask about these phenomena. The first, are they components of pitch or of melody; the second, are they substitutes for F etc. when these are absent, or also accompaniments to them when they are present, and the only residue when phonation ceases. The first question is linguistically irrelevant. The second is more important. Voiceless segments can occur at intonationally strategic points of a normally phonated utterance.

While it

is plausible to assume that a speaker might

bring some alternative mechanism into play when he is whispering, it is quite implausible to assume that he will do this from one segment to another. However, it can be seen on spectrograms, as well as heard and felt, that this e f f e c t does occur in normal speech. The I \l is realized quite differently, in my speech, according to whether I say *push or j>ush; perhaps more importantly the same effect can be heard in ^ueh and "push. In the latter case, where we have an inherently short vowel on which not much movement can take place, the frequency of the noise of the final consonant is an important cue to recognition of the tone. These observations suggest that these phenomena are not substitutes for F etc., but concomitants; in fact this can be directly observed with vowels too : in my speech the end points of "no and/io are qualitatively different. Another aspect of spectral characteristics, being phonological, is much more superficially obvious, namely the change in vowel quality resulting from vowel reduction. There can be little doubt that if a weak form is possible, and a strong form is used, then the syllable will be heard as accented. This is a component of melody in the samd indirect way as duration, as discussed above. A third spectral characteristic has voice-quality as its auditory correlate, and a variety of mechanisms as its articulatory correlate. These effects are usually counted as paralinguistic. Occasionally voice-quality is a component of melody, however. Specifically, creaky voice is an important component of a final 11 e.g.

by Abercrombie ( 1 9 6 8 : 6 8 ) ; Birdwhistell(1961;1972:90), and Crystal ( 1 9 6 9 : 1 2 8 ) .

16

fall in R . P . , and the difference between final and non-final falls might plausibly be accounted melodic. The final parameter which I shall discuss is amplitude, or its auditory correlate, loudness.

There is some evidence that

this can be a pitch-surrogate where phonation is absent (see (Meyer-Eppler 1 9 5 7 ) ) . There is no doubt that it is an element of paralanguage. What is less clear is whether accent, and thus indirectly melody, is realized by variations along this parameter.

A traditional view is that it is, and constitutes the 12 major variable. Most recent work indicates that other phonetic ion 13 parameters have at least an equally important part to play, and the consensus, according to my reading of this reported research, is that melodic changes, in conjunction with duration, are probably most important.

The speech samples synthesized by

Young, to which amplitude variations were not an input, but in which prominence sounds natural, are evidence that it is not a necessary component (see Young, 1 9 7 8 ) . One d i f f i c u l t y with this parameter is measuring it.

Even if

one maintains an articulatory view, that "stress" is a correlate of breath force with subjective and objective reality for the speaker, the hearer must nonetheless be able to perceive it; but the auditory correlate, loudness, is susceptible to numerous extraneous factors, as pointed out amusingly by Steele ( 1 7 7 5 : 8 8 ) . One might add that the d i f f i c u l t y of keeping a constant distance from a microphone for the purpose of instrumental measurement of amplitude is an indication of its linguistic irrelevance.

12 Kingdon ( 1 9 5 8 : 1 6 0 ) ; Jones ( 1 9 1 8 ; 1 9 6 2 : 2 4 5 ) j B l o o m f i e l d 1933; 1935:110-11); Trager & Smith ( 1 9 5 1 : 3 6 ) . 13 e.g. Fry ( 1 9 5 8 ) , Morton & Jassem ( 1 9 6 5 ) , P. Lieberman (1960),Lehiste & Peterson ( 1 9 6 1 ) , Bolinger ( 1 9 5 5 , 1958a, 1958b), Isacenko & Schädlich ( 1 9 6 6 ) .

17

2 . 2 . 4 . Melody I would like to summarize the discussion of what intonation is, and how it is related to other linguistic and paralinguistic phenomena with which it

shares some phonetic realisations, by

considering the above discussion in conjunction with the discussion in Crystal ( 1 9 6 9 : 1 9 5 - 9 6 ) . Here, Crystal too is facing the problem of choosing a functional or formal definition. Crystal says, succinctly, "one must make up one's mind which way to follow".

He follows a formal definition, with a f u z z y edge:

"Intonation...

refers to the phenomenon which has a very clear

centre of pitch contrast, and a periphery of re-inforcing (and occasionally contradicting) contrasts of a d i f f e r e n t order. The point at which pitch contrast becomes completely subordinated to vocal or non-vocal effects of a d i f f e r e n t nature is the point at which intonation gives way to other communicational systems".

Some clarity can be achieved by distinguishing not only

between pitch and intonation, but also, as I have, between melody, pitch and intonation. Pitch is a phonetic parameter. Melody is a phonological concept, expounded by a number of phonetic parameters, of which pitch is central, the others supportive.

The term

"intonation" I shall keep pre-theoretically vague, because there is still need for such a term. While pitch is a component of melody and accent, and melody the major component of intonation, there is also a feedback e f f e c t from accent which might plausibly be considered a matter of intonation. Thus I would regard the difference between :

> ^What are you doing

and

What „are you

doing

as intonational in spite of the fact that there is no melodic difference except that conditioned by accent. This is an informal concept, but its practical use may become apparent. It is probably also realistic to include certain "prosodic" and "paralinguistic" elements (in the sense of Crystal ( 1 9 6 9 : 5 - 6 ) ) as (non-essential) components of intonation, in the sense that, if in a particular melodic pattern is conventionally associated with certain non-melodic features, these should be accounted part of the intonation.

18 These distinctions have a certain practical importance for the experimental work to be reported below. First, the complex and not altogether clear relationship between pitch and melody is an argument against using synthesized speech in the experiments (see 6 . 1 . 3 . for more detailed discussion).

Secondly, a number of

interesting distinctions deserve to be investigated along the lines I have chosen, which would be excluded if one restricted one's attention to strictly melodic phenomena. Thirdly, the exclusion of all prosodic and paralinguistic elements would, it was judged, have had a distorting effect (see 6 . 1 . 3 . ) .

2.3.

Intonational Functions and the Nature of Intonational Meaning

2.3.1.Introduction 14 The function of intonation is to convey meaning. The meanings involved may be of various kinds, but in this intonation does not d i f f e r from the lexicon, morphology or syntax. Intonational meanings may be largely of one kind: if true, this is interesting, but not crucial.

Attempts to classify the meanings involved are motivated apparently by two considerations. One is to demonstrate that intonational meanings fall overwhelmingly into one class, which then becomes the "function" of intonation. Or one's theory may find it convenient to omit certain areas of meaning from one's treatment: these are described as non-linguistic, and thus need not be accountj *for.16 ed Finally, attempts have been made in the last decade to narrow down the field of semantics fairly radically, and with it the field of linguistic competence. 17 While none of these studies is specifically concerned with intonation, their effect would be to remove much of intonational meaning from the sphere of linguistic competence. I shall discuss these first. 14 I shall continue to use "intonation", unless "melody" as defined above, is specifically meant. 15 thus Pike ( 1 9 4 5 ) , O'Connor & Arnold ( 1 9 7 3 ) , Brazil (1975, 1978).

19

2 . 3 . 2 . Pragmatics and Performance Insofar as the distinction between competence and performance affects the status of the data, I shall discuss it in chapter 5. Here, I am concerned with its effect on the theoretical treatment of the meaning of intonation. Pragmatics is seen by some as a matter of performance. Kempson says that "semantics and pragmatics ... are formulated respectively within a competence and within a performance model" ( 1 9 7 5 : 2 0 8 ) , while Katz & Langendoen state that "we may regard a semantic performance theory as a theory of pragmatics" ( 1 9 7 6 : 1 O ) . This use of the word performance needs to be closely examined, as it appears to be surreptitiously acquiring more than one meaning. Chomsky defines performance as "the actual use of language in specific situations" ( 1 9 6 5 : 4 ) . The definition is vague, but Chomsky's illustrations are quite specific. Performance does not directly reflect competence, Chomsky says, because of "false starts, deviations from rules, changes of plan in mid-course, and so on". Unfortunately, this relatively clear example is obscured when Chomsky equates the "theory of performance" with the "theory of language use" ( 1 9 6 5 : 9 ) . But it is clear from the context that he had the same phenomena in mind. Lyons, talking of the process of idealization for the purpose of establishing competence, distinguishes between "standardization" (with which we are not concerned here); "regularization" (which was what Chomsky was talking about) and "decontextualization" ( 1 9 7 7 : 5 8 6 ) . What Lyons means by this last is that the grammar should generate and interpret sentences, but not specify how they are to be used appropriately. The authors quoted above have decided that the latter is a matter of performance, and whatever Chomsky may have meant, it does look like a "theory of language use". However it seems to me that we are talking about two quite

16 thus Isacenko & Schädlich ( 1 9 6 6 ) , Bierwisch ( 1 9 6 6 ) , Hirst ( 1 9 7 5 ) , Pürschel ( 1 9 7 5 ) , Esser (1975). 17 thus Stalnaker (1976).

( 1 9 7 2 ) , Kempson ( 1 9 7 5 ) , Katz & Langendeon

20

different concepts. Thus Kempson asserts that "performance conventions and constraints are in general not arbitrary in the way that linguistic conventions are" ( 1 9 7 5 : 2 2 0 ) . Of course there are performance constraints (memory limitations, e t c . ) ; but "performance convention" is a contradiction.

Her examples are "the non-

use, generally, of lying as a form of communication" and "the scarcity of centre-embedded constructions". The latter is due to a constraint, not a convention. The former is an inappropriate example; if we lied all the time, lies would become truth. One could think of better ones, such as infringements of the Gricean maxims of quantity or manner. These are conventions indeed. But knowledge of them constitutes a kind of competence, which might be 18 called "social competence" which would include other matters such as punctuality, greetings, proxemics, etc. A performance theory would then concern itself with the fulfilment (literally, the"performance") of the internalized conventions. Lyons, in the passage cited above, distinguishes between potential and actual meaning. Katz & Langendoen make a similar distinction between the "meaningfulness" of sentence-types, and the "significance" of "tokens or utterances", which, they say, is the distinction made by Katz & Fodor, who exclude "significance" from semantic theory (Katz & Fodor 1963:176-81). Halliday & Hasan make what is probably an identical distinction when they talk of an utterance being "intelligible" as the token of a sentence-type, but not necessarily "interpretable" as an utterance in a situation ( 1 9 7 6 : 1 1 ) . Stalnaker defines one of the problems of pragmatics to be "to characterize the features of the speech context which help determine which proposition is expressed by a given sentence" ( 1 9 7 2 : 3 8 3 ) . I think Halliday & Hasan's use of the term "situational semantic" ( 1 9 7 6 : 2 5 ) is equivalent to "pragmatic" in this sense. Thus I think it reasonable to say that semantics and pragmatics are both concerned with competence; semantics with specifying potential meanings, pragmatics with the procedures for determining actual meaning. Almost all utterances require some pragmatic interpretation, if only to determine intended refernce. Intonation

18 compare Coulthard & Brazil ( 1 9 7 9 : 1 1 - 1 2 ) where the talk of "deviance from a social norm".

authors

21

enters into the discussion as follows. X said so (where X is any possible subject NP) clearly has a wider range of potential meaning than He said so. In the same way He said so + X accentual pattern +· Υ melodic pattern clearly has a wider range of potential meaning than He v said so. The restrictions put on the meaning of the sentence by the fall-rise nucleus on said are semantic; how they are interpreted in a given situation is a matter of pragmatics (like the interpretation of he and so) . It is irrelevant that the melodic and accentual patterns of a sentence rarely affect its truth value; they sometimes do, and sometimes do not. The same is true of lexis,syntax and morphology.

2.3.3.The so called Linguistic, Syntactic and Grammatical Functions of Intonation Brown states :"It is generally agreed that intonation also has some linguistic function, though there is a good deal of uncertainty about just what that function might be" ( 1 9 7 4 : 1 1 7 ) . The word"also" here is a reference to the other function of intonation listed by Brown, namely as "one of the indicators of attitude". It is interesting that the latter function is considered non-linguistic, in view of the fact that it is also borne by syntax, morphology and lexis, of whose "linguistic" status there is no doubt. It is possible that "linguistic" functions here are being contrasted with "paralinguistic" functions, though in fairness to Brown, she does not say that. A contrast of this sort is made however by Vanderslice & Ladefoged, who talk of "indexical or paralinguistic information" ( 1 9 7 1 : 8 2 2 ) . I refer to the discussion in section 2.1. above, and to the view of Abercrombie, quoted there. By this definition, there can be no such thing as "paralinguistic information" or paralinguistic functions of intonation or anything else. Abercrombie, as noted above, points out that paralanguage often communicates attitudes and emotions; this may be why anything which communicates such is felt to be"paralinguistic". But in the same way as "information" or "functions" cannot be termed paralinguistic, neither can they be termed "linguistic". Brown also says :"The only regular specifically syntactic function that I can identify for high rise is to mark 'echo-questions 111

22

( 1 9 7 4 : 1 1 7 ) . It is clear from the context that she is using "syntactic function" and "linguistic function" to mean the same thing. But whatever view one takes of language, one must surely acknowledge it to consist of more than syntax. In another respect, however, the same objections apply to the use of the expression "syntactic functions". It suggests that syntax has a function, in the sense that it conveys certain kinds of information, and that whatever conveys these kinds of information is exercising a syntactic function. Not only is the major premiss of this argument false, but the argument itself is clearly circular Nevertheless it is the informal foundation for certain kinds of remarks about intonation, such as Brown's. Thus : function A (e.g. illocutionary meaning) is usually indicated syntactically; occasionally it is indicated by intonational means instead, or certain intonational features are characteristically present : in either of these cases, intonation is said to be fulfilling a syntactic function. It is a curious argument : it is like saying that function B (e.g. the expression of an attitude) is usually exercised by intonation; occasionally it is indicated by syntax: therefore syntax has an intonational function. Both arguments are wrong. Intonation and syntax both have illocutionary and attitudinal (and other) functions. There are however other senses in which one might speak of syntactic functions of intonation, which have to do with the relationship between intonation and syntax in generative grammar. Standard TG phonology (e.g. as outlined by Chomsky & Halle) sees the phonological component as "a system of rules that relate surface structures to phonetic representations" ( 1 9 6 8 : 1 4 ) . This appears to be a thoroughly deterministic process :given a surface structure, the output of the phonological component is totally predictable apart from free variation. Thus there is no need, and hence no mechanism, for putting any semantic interpretation on the phonetic representations themselves : everything necessary for semantic interpretation is in the syntactic component. All standard generative approaches to intonation assume that intonation is part of the phonological component. This ought to mean that intonation patterns are entirely determined by the surface structure,and that either the elements determining them are

23 semantically interpreted, or that they are semantically empty. In the latter case, the intonation pattern is an automatic consequence of certain syntactic configurations, and has no meaning, though in a sense it may be said to "signal" the configuration to the hearer (in a performance model). If such patterns exist, then this could be said to be a "syntactic function" of intonation. This explanation is most plausible in the case of "boundary" phenomena, which will be discussed in more detail in section 2 . 4 . In this form, this scheme has not in fact been employed in any generative treatment of intonation. I shall here consider relevant aspects of three approaches, namely Bierwisch ( 1 9 6 6 ) , Hirst ( 1 9 7 5 ) and Crompton ( 1 9 7 8 ) on German, English and French respectively. Bierwisch and Hirst both exclude certain aspects of intonation from their considerations on functional grounds. Thus Bierwische excludes "alle Faktoren, die nicht auf syntaktische Erscheinungen reduziert werden können, zunächst aus unserer Untersuchung" ( 1 9 6 6 : 1 0 2 ) . This is a syntactic vs non-syntactic distinction in a broad sense. What in fact remains is progredience, finality, emphasis, question and an unidentified factor called D . Hirst expresses himself in terms of a performance model (i.e. one which views speech production as a linear process from a semantic to a phonetic continuum, and in reverse for perception). He states however (1975:13) that he is working within a Chomskyan generative framework, not that of generative semantics. This is confusing, but I mention it so that the following discussion of his work is comprehensible. Thus there are "intonative features which serve as input to the lexical and syntactic components" ( 1 9 7 5 : 1 3 ) and others which "serve as direct input to the semantic component" ( 1 9 7 5 : 1 4 ) . The result is that stress, centred.e. n u c l e u s ) , boundary , contrast and terminal are dealt with as intonative features. In practice this results in the same sort of phenomena being included as with Bierwisch (given the difference between the languages, and the fact that Bierwisch takes over existing "accent rules" from Kiparsky (1966)). They also agree on another point. Bierwisch says "Eine ganze Reihe von Faktoren, die meist als emotional oder situationsbedingt angesehen werden, kann syntaktisch erklärt und determiniert werden" ( 1 9 6 6 : 1 0 2 ) , while

24

Hirst talks of a "considerable number of ambiguities which up to now have always been treated from a semantic, 'attitudinal' point of view, but which can be handled very effectively within the framework of a transformational-generative g r a m m a r " ( 1 9 7 5 : 4 4 ) . In other words, both are trying to enlarge the "syntactic" aspect of intonation, having decided to restrict themselves to that. Neither author is very specific about semantic interpretation. Bierwisch summarizes his position thus : "Die syntaktischen Intonationsmarker [siMs] , nämlich Q, E und D [Question, Emphasis and D]bedingen nun aber die Struktureigenschaften der Intonation, die gegebenenfalls zur Bedeutung eines Satzes in Beziehung gesetzt werden können. Alle anderen hängen von Bedingungen ab, die keine eigene semantische Interpretation erfordern oder zulassen" ( 1 9 6 6 : 178). Of the so-called SIMs, only Q has an important syntactic function, and the relation between Q the question morpheme, and Q the SIM, is not simple. These elements are, rather, dummy morphemes which have to be carried through the whole derivation, and to call them "syntactic" at all is misleading. It might be noted in this context that Jackendoff has a very similar element "F" (= f o c u s ) . He calls this a "syntactic marker", admits that it is an "artificial construct", and goes on to say that "two systems of rules will make use of the marker F, one in the semantics and one in the phonology" ( 1 9 7 2 : 2 4 0 ) . Jackendoff appears to have reached this decision independently of Bierwisch, but the ideas are remarkably similar. Both authors are uncertain how and where to introduce these "syntactic markers" (Jackendoff, 1 9 7 2 : 2 4 0 ) ; Bierwisch 1 9 6 6 : 1 6 4 ) . Bierwisch, it will be noted, denies that boundary symbols, which partly determine melodic contours, have any semantic interpretation. Hirst, however, must allow a semantic interpretation for all his intonative features, for their justification is the existence of minimal pairs with different meanings. However, while it is clear that the intonative features differentiate sentences semantically, there is no clear indication of how the semantic component is to operate. His most original contribution is the notion of "complete surface structure" . ( 1 9 7 5 : 8 6 , passim thereafter). The "complete surface structure," contains the information necessary for the pragmatic interpretation of the sentence, in the sense discussed in 2 . 3 . 2 . above. (Hirst does not say this; but his examples make

25 it apparent that this is what is intended).

The information may

be of a contextual nature, or it may contain the reasoning implicit in the Gricean Co-operative Principle. It appears that the complete surface structure is what is interpreted, and also that it is responsible for the intonative features. How it is reduced to form the "reduced surface structure", which is the input to the phonological component, is a mystery. This last is one objection; but the theory is altogether objectionable. The deletion process appears to be subject to no constraints whatever, with the result that anything at all can form part of the "complete surface structure". As this is a theoretical construct, not open to any kind of empirical inspection, it is totally unfalsifiable. This is not only a theoretical objection: every example of Hirst's can be faulted thus. The lack of constraints works in two ways. Given a "complete surface structure" X - Υ corresponding to a reduced surface structure Y,there is an infinitude of different potential X from which the actual X might be chosen. But, to be consistent, X would have to contain all the information needed to interpret an utterance of the sentence pragmatically. This information is impossible to process linguistically, and would presumably incorporate among other things the whole of the preceding discourse. Hirst's reason for this extraordinary proposal is that a reduced surface structure (in this example, of I know) does not contain "sufficient information (out of context for us to reconstruct the deep structure to which it corresponds (and hence its semantic interpretation), and also that I thought he was married does not contain sufficient information out of context,for us to establish its phonetic representation" ( 1 9 7 5 : 8 6 ) . It might be thought that if we cannot reconstruct a deep structure, we cannot construct a "complete surface structure" either. Ellipsis phenomena are probably best dealt with by rules of pragmatic interpretation. If someone says George is engaged, and I reply I know, the normal working of the Co-operative Principle will ensure that what I am understood to know is that George is engaged. The second of Hirst's examples is different; but we can establish its phonetic representation except for prominence and melody. This suggests that the whole cumbersome mechanism of the "complete surface structure" (even if it were theoretically sound) is at the very least un-

26

necessary. In a generative model, accentual and international markers present as dummy morphemes in the surface structure, along the lines of Jackendoff's F and Bierwisch's SIMs, would f u l f i l the same function without doing such violence to the theory. Crompton is concerned with a mechanism for generating melodic patterns, but not for interpreting them. He states: "Precisely what does govern the choice of one intonation contour rather than another for a particular utterance remains a mystery to me. One may speculate on the existence of subtle semantic correlates for the various intonation patterns, but to do so seems futile in the absence of any indication of what they might be" ( 1 9 7 8 : 2 5 9 ) . While it might be said in justice that strict delimitation of one's field is a good heuristic principle, in this case it leads to problems. Assuming that intonation in French has some semantic function, a mechanism for semantic interpretation must at least be provided for. Crompton has not, as far as I can see, allowed for any element in the surface structure which is a determining factor for the intonational representation to be susceptible of semantic interpretation. The only place left for a semantic component to act is on the output of the phonological component. This would represent a fundamental change in "standard" generative phonology, but Crompton does not say he has this in mind. It must be said that his position is not altogether consistent; on p. 259 he says he finds "no evidence that levels other than syntactic surface structure bear any relation to intonation in French", while on p. 264 he notes that "many yes/no questions are identical in their syntactic surface structure to statements ... this points to the need for a direct link between intonation and semantic representation". Such a link, albeit indirect, would be SIMs of the type proposed by Bierwisch, which would also resolve this apparent contradiction. To summarize this discussion of the "syntactic" functions of intonation, the only substantial area for which syntactic functions have been claimed is that of boundary phenomena, all other socalled syntactic functions being in fact semantic. This area will be examined below (in section 2 . 4 . ) . To conclude this section, I shall briefly look at another, related, matter, that of the

27

"grammatical" functions of intonation. Insofar as this means the same as either "linguistic" or "syntactic", I have already dealt with it. Two uses of the term are, however, noteworthy. First, Halliday maintains that "systems expounded by intonation are as much grammatical as those expounded by other means" ( 1 9 6 7 : 1 O ) . I think this means that all intonation is "grammatical". This is to take a broad view of what is meant by grammar, but it is realistic in recognizing that functional criteria will not produce a satisfactory definition. The opposite view comes from Crystal : "The present approach allows as grammatical only those uses of intonation which can be shown to expound categories already required by the grammar" ( 1 9 7 5 : 3 5 ) . The "grammar" here means, presumably, syntax and morphology. Crystal seems here to be accepting the view that intonation is a subsidiary element of language. For myself, I see no virtue in classifying the functions of intonation, still less in going on to exclude some of them from consideration. I prefer to take the view that once a certain system - or parts of it - formally defined, is accepted as linguistic, then all its functions are, whether or not these functions can be, or usually are, expounded by other systems. The one reservation I make at this stage concerns the "delimitative" 19 function, where melodic patterns appear to have the effect of illuminating the syntax, and to have no semantic function. This will be the subject of 2.4 below.

2.3.4.Presuppositions and Related Matters It is plausible to suppose that while meanings, not only of intonation, but including these, may be difficult to specify with any accuracy, nevertheless semantic relationships and infringements of them are more readily recognized. Such recognition tasks are a useful heuristic procedure, and underlie a number of the experiments to be reported. Before these techniques can be justified, the nature of the semantic relationships involved needs to be 19

on this, see Danes ( 1 9 6 0 : 4 4 ) , Brown ( 1 9 7 4 : 1 1 7 )

28

clarified, particularly as the use of some of the terms has been somewhat confused in the last few years. This will purpose of this sub-section, although the treatment reasons of space, necessarily be somewhat sketchy. follows draws heavily on Kempson ( 1 9 7 5 ) , although I in agreement with all of her conclusions.

be the general will, for Most of what am by no means

As she points out ( 1 9 7 5 : 3 4 ) , t h e term presupposition has been so promiscuously used in the last decade that its use has become fraught with imprecision. My own preference is to reserve it for its apparently original sense (in logic) in opposition to entailment. What Kempson calls "speaker-presupposition", which is fundamentally a pragmatic concept, I shall refer to as assumption. For linguistic (as opposed to logical)purposes, the contrast between entailment and presupposition does not appear to be very important. If it were, the Russell/Strawson dispute about the alleged King of France's alleged baldness would never have developed. If I claim that I am a good friend of the King of France, it might be reasonably claimed that I am lying, because I am asserting that a situation exists which manifestly does not. This is not to support the Russell position in any philosophical sense, but simply to assert that this is how my claim would be understood. Entailments of S are absolutely true if S is true. If I say John Smith has three cars, this entails that he has at least three, but not that he has exactly three. If I deny or qualify the entailment, while maintaining S, then a contradiction results. If John has only two cars, my statement is false. What I shall call implications do not absolutely follow from S. If I say John Smith has three oars, this does not entail that he has at most three, but in the absence of further information, it implies it. If he has in fact six cars, my unqualified statement is not false, but certainly misleading. It is this property of implications that Kempson seems generally to take insufficient account of. Implications are cancellable: John Smith hae three oars; indeed, he has six is not a contradiction. But if implications are not cancelled, they must be assumed to hold. Kempson asserts that presuppositions are implications in this sense (1975: 1 8 1 ) , but her examples are not convincing; thus: Ruth's husband didn't come to meet her - she's not married seems to be the sort

29

of hard case which makes bad laws. That implications can be assumed to hold when they are not cancelled is a convention, and can be assumed to be part of the "meaning" of the implication, and thus of the sentence concerned,and not just of its "significance" on the occasion of its utterance. More complex is the relationship between speakers' assumptions and implications. This relationship is conveniently explored by looking at accentual patterns, in particular at Halliday's categories of "given" and "new" (Halliday 197Oa : 163; 1967 : 2 2 f ) . If I say John kissed ^Mary under the mistletoe,the elements John kissed and under the mistletoe and an unspecified object NP are given. I am assuming that both parties to the conversation know that John kissed someone under the mistletoe (or that he d i d n ' t , and that is what is at issue). This assumption is itself an implication, in the sense that a third party, for example, overhearing the exchange, might be misled if it were false. The hearer's reaction, if it were false, will obviously be d i f f e r e n t , as he cannot be misled on this matter. He may regard it as a rhetorical device on the part of the speaker ("bullying the listener" as Halliday suggests 1 9 7 0 a : 1 6 3 ) ) , or he may take it that the Co-operative principle has broken down. How he actually interprets the sentence is a pragmatic matter; the range of potential interpretations, which must take into account the implications, is a semantic question. Some intonational meanings are implicatory in this sense. As an example which comes to mind is the English fall-rise. If I say John has three * cars,I imply that this is not the whole truth. This is part of the semantics of the pattern. It is a matter of pragmatic interpretation what the whole truth might be; in this case perhaps: but I don't think he has his own executive jet. If I utter the first sentence without implying anything, my utterance is misleading. Many attitudinal meanings are implicatory in this sense. Thus What ^are you doing seems to convey shock or surprise; if I utter it with no such intention, my utterance will mislead. 2O

the semantics of this intonation will be discussed in more detail in 4 . 4 . 3 . below.

30

It is uncertain whether there are regular intonational or accentual entailments.

There are certainly incidental ones,

resulting from an interaction of intonation with lexis and syntax. Thus J ^thought she was ^ married entails that she is married (strictly speaking, it presupposes it, but as I have said, I do not think the difference is linguistically relevant). As the same words with a different intonational and accentual pattern entail no such thing, the entailment belongs in part to the intonation. Another example, dependent on accentual patterns, is Halliday's Dogs must be carried (1967 : 3 8 ) . Accented thus: Dogs must be carried it means "Without a dog, you cannot perform some action (e.g. use the escalator)'; accented thus: Dogs must be ^carried it means 'If you have a dog, you must carry i t " . These meanings, which clearly involve different entailments, can be computed from the given/new relationships signalled by the accentual pattern. The first sentence entails 'You must carry something 1 ; the second does not. Given that S entails S 1 , the conjunction S and not-S' produces a contradiction. If S implies S 1 , the conjunction S and not-S' will give rise to a pragmatic anomaly. Now suppose we assume that Jlixon's been elected Pope implies (with this intonation)surprise on the speaker's part. Ooes^Nixon's been elected Pope, but that doesn't surprise me represents a contradiction or a pragmatic anomaly? I do not feel in a position to answer the question. I mention it, however, because the experimental procedures used in this investigation rely in part on the ability of subjects to recognize anomalies; not however to distinguish between different kinds. I should make it clear at this point that while there are certainly different kinds, the existence of any kind of anomaly suffices for the purpose of the experiments. The word implication in common usage has, in addition, another meaning, which might also be glossed as "conveyed meaning". Conveyed meanings are conventionalized in different degrees, and different criteria concerning conventionalization will result in different decisions on what constitutes a "conveyed" rather than a "literal" meaning. There are highly conventionalized conveyed meanings, such as Would you pass -the butter for 'Please pass the butter 1 , in which whole classes of sentences are involved. There

31

are other cases, in which individual sentences have a conventional conveyed meaning, such as Big boys don't ery or Don't mention it. And there are examples which involve particular sentences on particular occasions, such as There's a speed limit here you know to mean 'Slow down 1 , or, to take our example from above John has three cars to mean ' H e ' s rich 1 . Whether there is a genuine threefold division here, or whether there is a continuum, I am not sure. The literal and conveyed meanings of a family of sentences may on occasions be distinguished any, restrictions to negative e t c . ) , and, what is relevant associated characteristically certain intonations. The use

by syntax or morphology ( e . g . use of polarity, aspect, deletion patterns to the present discussion, they may be (though not obligatorily) with of an intonation may imply one mean-

ing: a pragmatic anomaly may result if this was not the one intended. Thus I do not think won't you type thisvletter can be a 22 ι request for information, nor Big boys don't ,cry a statement of fact. Whether a sentence has both conveyed and literal meanings, or whether the meanings characterize two sentences, is a question akin to the problem of distinguishing between homonymy and polysemy in lexicography. The discussion is likely to be no more conclusive. An extreme form of conveyed meaning is represented by irony or sarcasm. Sentences with potential ironic meanings form the subject of one set of experiments. I shall defer a discussion of irony and its possible intonational concomitants until the introduction to these experiments in 4 . 4 . 1 6 .

2.3.5.Summary In this section I have tried to achieve a number of objectives, which I shall now attempt to summarize. First, I defined the scope of semantics and pragmatics. As a working hypothesis I implicitly accepted the Gricean Co-operative Principle as the basis of the process of pragmatic interpretation. I also concluded that 21 see Kempson (1975:ch.7) and the works referred to there for a more detailed discussion. 22 for more detailed discussion of this form of fall-rise, which is different from that usually described, see 4 . 4 . 1 7

32 pragmatics belonged to a theory not of linguistic performance, but

of non-linguistic competence. Intonation was seen as a matter of semantics, as it has the function of restricting the range of applicability of a given sentence. It does not form part of the rules of pragmatic interpretation, but is part of the input to them. I also tried to show that attempts to classify intonational functions were misguided ; which is not to say that there are not different kinds of intonational meaning, just as there are different kinds of lexical meaning. It is legitimate to talk of attitudinal meaning, illocutionary meaning, etc.; this may be useful for descriptive purposes, but it has no real theoretical foundation. It may be possible to group the various meanings into more abstract classes. An attempt along these lines by Cruttenden (1979) will be discussed in 2.5 below. The delimitative function will be discussed in 2.4 below. Finally I discussed certain meaning relations within the framework already established. These discussions form the background to much of the experimental work to be reported below. Sharp observes that "the ultimate justification for stating that two intonation patterns d i f f e r in meaning will preferably lie in the demonstration by a technique of "longer piece' analysis that the sentences they respectively characterize stand in different formal relationships to surrounding speech events, and the statement of their meanings will consist precisely of the description of these relationships". (1958: 1 3 6 ) . This precept needs clarification of what is meant by meaning, which I hope I have already given above. It also needs clarification in terms of the competence/performance distinction, which I shall attempt in chapter 5. However, with the necessary refinements, this statement forms the basis of the experimental investigations reported below.

2.4.

Units of Analysis

2.4.1.Introduction As a precondition of examining the form of analysis to be employed, itself a precondition for adequate description, one needs to establish precisely what unit is to be described. At the centre

33

of most systems of syntagmatic segmentation is an entity commonly 23 Many writers have proposed other units called a tone-group. both superordinate and subordinate to the tone -group.

While it

would go beyond the scope of this study to discuss these approaches in detail, a word on them is in order. There is probably no doubt that intonation is important for the organisation of a discourse, and B r a z i l ' s recent work on "discourse intonation" (Brazil 1 9 7 5 , 1978) represents a major attempt to examine the relationship. It is a serious methodological weakness of Brazil's work that he relies to a considerable extent on ex eventu interpretations of the intonation of utterances from a corpus, and this, coupled with less than satisfactory phonetic definitions of his important categories of key and termination, leads to many instances of argument by hindsight. Moreover, his superordinate unit the pitch-sequence turns out to be none other in general than Trim's major tone group (Trim 1 9 5 9 ) , with the important, and I think realistic, extension of the concept to allow it to spread over more than one utterance. In the Hallidayan framework employed by Brazil it corresponds to that rank in the discoursal scale known as the exchange (see Coulthard & Brazil 1 9 7 9 ) . It must be noted that Brazil's pitch sequence sometimes end for no apparent reason in mid-sentence (see Brazil(1978:33) for an example discussed at length) Rather than concoct an explanation, which is Brazil's method, it would be better to examine the fault in the definition which produces such results. Just as the pitch-sequence corresponds roughly with the major tone group, so Brazil's tone-units, which are mostly very short, correspond generally to Trim's minor tone groups, about which more will be said below. In spite of the weak points just noted, B r a z i l ' s work has performed a useful function in pointing towards intonational relationships in longer stretches of utterance. In order to be genuinely predictive, however, and hence verifiable, the categories need to be much more tightly defined. For reasons given elsewhere, in chapters 1 and 6, I have not chosen to investigate these relationships, though their existence 23 for a discussion of terminology, see 2 . 6 . 1 .

34

has not been ignored in the design of the material for the present study.

2.4.2.Tone-Groups All analyses of intonation postulate a unit which is central in the sense that it provides the framework within which intonational features are described. From among the various names (see 2 . 6 . 1 . below), I shall use "tone-group"for the time being. It has been doubted whether it is necessary to postulate such a unit.

Thus

Gibbon: "The notion of foot conveys no more than the notion of accent alone.... Similar conditions might - to push the analysis apply to tone-groups" ( 1 9 7 6 : 6 5 ) . I take it that this means (i) that accents (i.e. strong or prominent syllables) determine feet absolutely, which latter are thus unnecessary by the application of Occam's razor; and (ii) that there is a corresponding entity (presumably the nucleus), which performs the same function for tone-groups; and (iii) that the syntagms foot and tone-group are only interesting by virtue of containing ascent and nucleus respectively. I think this argument invalid on all counts. (i) is incorrect: feet are determined not only by accented syllables, but also by rests. As for ( i i ) , the correspondence is imaginary. Accents are phonetically unique in their feet, and by definition occupy a fixed place in them: neither is true of an entity in a tone-group. As for ( i i i ) , the existence of the terms seems adequate rebuttal. Intonation is sometimes said to have a "delimitative" function expounded by tone-group boundaries. Brown expresses it thus: "The most obvious syntactic functions of intonation have curiously been the least described. These are the functions of tone-groups to demarcate coherent syntactic structures" ( 1 9 7 4 : 1 1 7 ) . Tone-group boundaries, in this view, are analogous to the spaces between words. This has a prima facie plausibility, but needs to be examined very closely, as it is by no means clear what these "coherent syntactic structures" are. The question of what constitutes the boundary will be discussed below.

First, I will consider what is meant by "demarcation". The

35 The

question can be approached from two theoretical standpoints. taxonomic approach would take a corpus of utterance, note recurring phenomena which could plausibly be accounted "boundary phenomena", and define the tone-group as the stretch of utterance between two phonologically defined boundaries. The descriptive problem would be to establish how these phonological entities correlate with units at the levels of syntax or semantics. Presuming such correlation is found, then it is reasonable to speak of a "delimitative" function of intonation. Such "boundary features" are then obviously to be considered meaningful elements of language in themselves. Generative theory must take a different view. Here, the maximal domain of the grammar is the sentence, a syntactic object. Sentence boundaries are thus primitive,and any lower-rank boundaries generated by the syntax. Both sentence and internal boundaries are "interpreted" phonetically. A semantic interpretation of the boundaries themselves is not required (for an explicit statement of this position, see Bierwisch ( 1 9 6 6 : 1 7 8 ) ) . So far I have been talking abstractly about boundaries, without saying whether they need to be postulated as such, or whether they are, in a sense, derivative, an automatic consequence of melodic and accentual patterns. Hirst ( 1 9 7 5 ) and Bierwisch ( 1 9 6 6 ) both consider boundaries primitive in this sense, and the melodic rules involve both boundary and accentual features. Bierwisch does not discuss the matter further; Hirst is quite explicit: "We shall formulate the rules assigning this feature f i . e . "boundary"! before those assigning the feature centre [= nucleus]. The reason for this is that if we define the position of the boundary in relation to the position of the centre, we should be obliged to make use of the same structural information which enabled us to assign the feature c e n t r e " ( 1 9 7 5 : 7 5 ) . However, his examples are infelicitous , as they involve sentence-boundaries which in his generative model must be taken as primitive. For example he uses the ambiguity of the string: ( 5 . 2 . ) ί know it's easy to demonstrate the need for boundary placement before centre and terminal. The sentences (as opposed to the unstructured string) however are not ambiguous. Nevertheless, I do think boundaries

36 must be considered primitive for the purposes of rule-writing, as I cannot conceive how rules for melody can be written without taking an abstract boundary feature into account. The structuralist position must be rather different as the sentence boundaries are in no way given, but must be discovered along with any phonological correlates they may have. Gibbon's argument would imply that the nucleus alone was sufficient to 24 define the tone-group. This position is almost certainly wrong, as it seems impossible to define nucleus except in terms of a preestablished tone-group. It might also be said that a tone-group boundary is solely defined as the product of the transition from the tail to the pre-head (unless it is absolute f i n a l ) . This is so, but is just another way of saying "boundary". A transcription, for example, which operated without boundaries would have to give the same information (height of tail and pre-head syllables) explicitly, where this would be automatic where boundaries were marked. What boundaries, in their demarcative or delimitative function actually demarcate or delimit, is a question best left until after a discussion of tone-group hierarchies.

2.4.3.Minor Tone-Groups and Phrasing Units Trim (1959) proposes that major tone-groups, coinciding in general with syntactic sentences, consist of minor tone-groups corresponding to lower-rank syntactic constituents. This analysis has been widely disseminated through its use by O'Connor & Arnold ( 1 9 6 1 , 1 9 7 3 ) . Bierwisch (1966) allows for a sentence to be segmented into a number of phrasing units, and his generative apparatus for arriving at them is both complex and ingenious. In brief, potential boundaries within the sentence are generated by the syntax (which is not to say that phrasing-units necessarily correspond with syntactic constituents); actual boundaries are established through the interaction of these with an extra-linguistic parameter p (which must, I think, be considered Bierwisch 1 s 24 see above. H.E. Palmer ( 1 9 2 2 : 7 ) made a similar proposal, but as he went on to define nucleus in terms of the tonegroup, his definitions became circular.

37

major original contribution to intonology).

p corresponds large-

ly to tempo (see Bierwisch ( 1 9 6 6 : 1 1 6 - 1 7 , 1 2 6 f ) .

In practice, the

stronger the constituent break, the more stable the boundary.

It

is perhaps a weakness of an idea of great explanatory value that p is allowed to vary in the course of a sentence, making predictions not easily f a l s i f i a b l e

(1966:117).

its

It is clear from

a comparison that minor tone-groups and phrasing units are largely equivalent. The advantage of minor tone-groups over unsegmented m a j o r tonegroups is a considerable simplification of the transcription. The advantage of major tone-groups over an unstructured string of minor tone-groups is that certain relationships can be formulated simply, in particular those, or some of them, dealt with by B r a z i l through his pitch-sequences, or by Fox through his"paratone-groups". 9 f:

groups".

Crystal's super- and subordinate tone-unit scheme has

a certain resemblance to both, although he places much stricter conditions on what can constitute a subordinate tone-unit ( 1 9 6 9 : 244ff). We are now in a position to examine what is in fact demarcated as tone-groups.

Apart from Bierwisch (whose sentences correspond

to a phonological unit which he does not n a m e ) , no one i d e n t i f i e s a tone-group of any kind with a particular syntactic u n i t .

Trim's

major groups, and F o x ' s paratone groups, are likely to correspond to sentences (in "spoken prose", in the sense of Abercrombie(1963) ) but need not; Brazil notes a similar tendency for his pitch-sequences.

Minor tone-groups, and B r a z i l ' s tone-units (which seem to

be the same t h i n g ) , do not co-incide with any particular syntactic unit, and in particular, not with any surface-structure

constituent.

As for correspondences at the semantic level, Bierwisch invests the phrasing unit with no semantic import, and Trim is at pains to point out that minor tone-groups are not "sense-groups".

25 compare for example that used by O'Connor & Arnold with that used by Kingdon, whose tone-groups are of an intermediate nature. 26 (Fox 1 9 7 2 ) . Fox is however more concerned with the semantics of sequence of nuclear tones than with matters of key, which occupy Trim and Brazil.

38

The strongest statement of co-incidence between tone-groups and units on other levels of organization comes from Halliday. For him, tone-groups are "information units" : "each tone group represents what the speaker decides to make into one unit of information" (1970b:162-63). As the concept "information unit" has no independent definition, the correspondence between it and the tone-group is quite impossible to prove or disprove. On the syntactic level, Halliday does not claim any necessary correspondence, but he states that the "unmarked" correspondence is with the "non-rankshifted clause" ( 1 9 7 0 b : 3 ) . This notion of markedness appears to have some basis in statistical frequency (see (Crystal 1969:262)). Crystal's corpus was of semi-formal discussion, however, and Brazil's transcriptions of conversation would probably lead to a different conclusion). To summarize, there are still a number of problems concerned with the delimitative function of intonation. The first is the lack of agreement on what constitutes an intonational unit: differently defined tone-groups will obviously not demarcate the same syntactic units. Secondly, tone-groups, however defined, do not regularly demarcate anything which can be strictly defined non-phonologically. In view of these facts, Bierwisch's phrasing rules (or some variant of them) might seem the most reasonable solution, were it not for the fact that, in English at least, tone-group boundaries appear to have some semantic import in addition to that conveyed by the syntax, as for example in tag-questions (see 4 . 4 . 1 5 below for details). In view of these considerations, Brown's statement may have some general descriptive validity, but not much theoretical foundation. The most it appears one can say is that sentence boundaries usually co-incide with tone-group boundaries (but not vice versa), and that phonological means are available to disambiguate strings by pointing to their structure; the mechanism of Bierwisch's p factor can be used to specify the possibilities in this respect.

39 2.4.4.Tone-Groups in the Present Investigation I have not attempted to explore inter-tone-group relationships (see chapters 1 and 6 ) .

In a small number of experiments, I have

investigated instances where there appears to be a regular semantic contrast depending on the presence or absence of a tone-group boundary, and no corresponding syntactic difference. For the rest, I have confined my attention to single-tone-group sentences, without making any assertion that these represent a statistical or any orther norm (beyond the implicit one that they are not abnormal) In this I am not repeating the error of P. Lieberman ( 1 9 6 7 ) , who 27 mistakes his premisses for a conclusion. Lieberman's "breathgroup" is a tone-group of some sort. He makes the following statements about it: i)"Normally, a speaker will produce an entire sentence on a single unmarked breath-group... It is only when a speaker is trying to disambiguate a sentence that he will consistently segment smaller constituents by means of intonation" ( 1 9 6 7 : 1 2 4 ) ; (ii) the same nay be done "because it is often physiologically more convenient" ( 1 9 6 7 : 1 0 9 ) ; (iii) a speaker may produce two consecutive sentences "without pausing for inspiration" [i.e. intake of breath] ( 1 9 6 7 : 1 0 6 ) . The first of these statements is certainly false; the second and third render the first pointless. The findings were supposed to be based on experimental evidence, but in the experiment, speakers were required to read single sentences. As the sentences were in isolation, there is no way in which they could have been read on less than one breath-group; as they were mostly short, it is unlikely that more than one breath-group would have been used. Lieberman's conclusion, therefore, is a direct result of his experimental conditions.

27 other aspects of Lieberman's work have been subjected to severe criticism, which will be summarized in chapter 5, the point made here, which has a bearing on the question of tone-groups, has not, as far as I know, been made elsewhere.

40 2.5.

Tunes

2 . 5 . 1 . F o u r Approaches The description of English intonation has proceeded along four general lines. These are : i) the two-tune approach(Klinghardt & Klemm 1 9 2 0 ) , ( A r m s t r o n g & Ward 1 9 2 6 ) , ( B o d e l s e n 1 9 4 3 ) , ( J o n e s 1962),(Lieberman 1 9 6 7 ) , ( c r u t t e n d e n 1 9 7 9 ) , ( J a c k e n d o f f 1 9 7 2 ) , ( E s s e r 1 9 7 5 ) , ( P ü r s c h e l 1 9 7 5 ) , ( B r a z i l ( 1 9 7 5 , 1 9 7 8 ) ) ; ii) the whole-contour approach ( H . E . Palmer 1 9 3 3 ) , (Leben 1 9 7 6 ) , ( O ' C o n n o r & Arnold 1 9 6 1 , 1 9 7 3 ) , (M.Y. Lieberman 1 9 7 8 ) ; and implicitly, although within a different tradition, also (Hockett 1 9 5 8 ) , ( P i e r c e 1 9 6 6 ) , ( W e l l s 1 9 4 5 ) , ( S t o c k w e l l 1960),(Trager & Smith 1 9 5 1 ) , ( P i k e 1 9 4 5 ) ; the work of Halliday ( 1 9 6 7 , 1 9 7 0 b ) is probably best grouped h e r e ) ; iii) the head-plus-nucleus approach (Schubiger 1 9 3 5 , 1 9 5 8 ) , ( T r i m n . d . ) , (H.E.Palmer 1 9 2 2 ) , (Jassem 1 9 5 2 ) , ( K i n g d o n 1 9 5 8 ) ) ; and iv) the theory of pitch accent (Bolinger, esp. 1958b), subscribed to in name but hardly in fact by Jackendoff ( 1 9 7 2 ) and Pope ( 1 9 7 6 ) ) . Some writers (e.g. A d a m s ( 1 9 6 9 ) ) h a v e proposed more or less idiosyncratic analyses,while some of those mentioned within this broad classification are very much on the borders between two classes, as will become clear from the discussion below.

2 . 5 . 2 . T h e Two-Tune Theory This appears to have been a f a i r l y standard approach before the war, and to have gone out of fashion during the nineteen-fifties. Since Lieberman ( 1 9 6 7 ) , but not, I think, owing to him, it has been enjoying a revival. The theory states, in effect, that tonegroups can be classified according to the direction of the final pitch-movement, and, as level tones are discounted or ignored by everyone in this tradition, this leaves the number of possibilities at two. The first explicit expression of the idea was given by Armstrong & Ward ( 1 9 2 6 ) , though it is implicit in the earlier work of Klinghardt & Klemm ( 1 9 2 0 ) . The position was adopted by D. Jones in the 1932 edition of his Outline of English Phone-bias, and by 1 9 4 3 Bodelsen was able to say that "there is fairly general agreement that speech groups in English may be classed as belonging under one of the two ' t u n e s ' " ( 1 9 4 3 : 1 2 9 ) . In this article,

41

Bodelsen makes" ä start on abstraction of meaning, stating that providing lists of heterogeneous sentence types which are usually, but need not be, pronounced in one of the two ways, is unscientific, even if pedagogically u s e f u l . He decides that Tune 2 (rising) is associated with an "appeal" to the listener, which is, however, defined so widely ( 1 9 4 3 : 1 3 5 ) that one wonders what has been gained. Tune 1 then "simply implies the absence of the element expressed by Tune 2" ( 1 9 4 3 : 1 3 4 ) . It is often the case that adherents of this view make a sharp distinction between emotive aspects of intonation and others which are felt to be more genuinely linguistic. This view began with Armstrong & Ward (implicitly) , and has been expressed most recently by Esser, who, for example, says that only the first two of Halliday's five tones are "linguistic" (1875:7). The argument appears to be that phonological categories must be discrete, that discreteness implies fewness, and that fewness in intonation means two. Other manifestations are not linguistic: "Bei der Erforschung prosodischer Eigenschaften hat ein fehlender linguistischer Maßstab zu einer Atomisierung des Gegenstandes geführt" (1975:28), but nowhere does he actually justify his conclusion: "Die Wahlmöglichkeit der Tonbewegungen sinkt auf zwei hinab" (1975:117).

Nor is it clear what this has

to do with reality: his method he describes as "deduktives Vorgehen" (1975:32), which appears to involve the abandonment of data altogether: "Die tatsächlichen phonetischen Abläufe sind für die Bestimnung von Intonationszeichen unerheblich" (1975:46). Whether or not they take this dogmatic view, adherents of the theory are almost bound to seek after abstract meanings, without which it is merely a list of observations. Bodelsen's attempt has been referred to above. In recent years there have been at least three, unrelated, approaches along these lines. One is by Cruttenden ( 1 9 7 9 ) , who attempts to group all meanings associated with rise and fall under the headings of "weak" and "strong" respectively. Thus "Re-inforcing, Statement, Finality, Closed-Listing, Conducive, Dogmatic" are "strong", while "Limiting, Question, Continuity, Open-Listing, Non-Conducive, Statement with Reservation, Conciliatory" are "weak" ( 1 9 7 9 : 9 ) . In discussion, Cruttenden has reported that when asked to sort these descriptions into two groups, people invariably classify them thus. Moreover, fall and rise, which are the R . P . realizations, may be replaced in other

42

dialects, and, Cruttenden suggests, other languages, by, for example, "rise to mid" and "rise to high" respectively, while maintaining the same basic dichotomy. It should be noted that unlike some others, Cruttenden emphatically does not hold that intonational functions can be classified into grammatical and non-grammatical, as will be clear from the above list (see also Cruttenden 1 9 7 0 ) ) . There are, it seems to me, two problems with this approach. First, the choice of description is subjective, but absolutely crucial for the classification. For example, echo-questions as questions are "weak", but what would "disbelief" be? "Interest" and "surliness" may both be realized by rises; are they "weak" or "strong"? In fact many descriptions cannot be classified thus at all, or different criteria will produce the "wrong" answer. Jackendoff, borrowing from logical terminology, uses "dependent variable" and "independent variable" for fall and rise respectively, but I would class such descriptions as weak and strong respectively. Jackendoff and Brazil, working within very different theoretical frameworks, come to remarkably similar conclusions. Jackendoff ( 1 9 7 2 : 2 5 9 ) calls his two tones Accent A and Accent B, following Bolinger's nomenclature, although Bolinger attached different meanings to the terms (see below). A is a fall, B, to judge from the transcription, a fall-rise. A marks a "dependent" variable, B an "independent" variable. "Dependent" here means, roughly, 'new 1 , while "independent" means Old, known, given 1 . Brazil's classification is very similar : falling and rising-falling tones are "p" (=proclaiming), while rising and falling-rising are "r" preferring). These terms are objectionable in that they are notional labels attached to objects formally defined - whereby a certain pressure is exercised to associate the form with the function before any evidence for the association is forthcoming. Be that as it may, it is clear from Brazil (1975 : 6) and Jackendoff (1972 : 2 6 1 f ) that they are talking along the same lines about the same phenomena. It is also interesting that Brazil's exemplificatory material (where it does not come from a corpus) is very similar to Jackendoff's : both make extensive use of two-focus topic-comment sentences. This is not surprising, as their explanation fits these quite naturally. Jackendoff's explanation will

43 also fit single-focus fall-rise sentences (see section 4 . 4 . 3 . for a more detailed discussion), while Brazil's seems rather contrived here. Thereafter the scheme breaks down, which is more serious for Brazil, as he asserts that his theory accounts for all occurrences of both tones, Jackendoff does not commit himself on intonational matters. A further weakness of Brazil's system is that it relies on justification with hindsight (as already noted), and when he speaks of the "common use of referring tone to mark matter which the speaker wishes to insinuate into the situation as if it had already been negotiated" (1975 : 7 ) , the theory becomes unfalsifiable. The speaker's intentions are not part of the corpus (on which the theory is based).

2.5.3.The Whole-Contour Theory This takes the melodic contour of the tone-group to be a whole which is recognized and interpreted as such. It may be analyzable for descriptive purposes, but its meaning is not systematically the sum of its constituent parts (assuming it has any). This view of intonation has been held by two very different schools, the American from 1945 to 1965 at least, and by some of the British pedagogic tradition. M.Y. Liberman integrates the two into a single theory. I think Halliday must also be included here, although his notation obscures the fact. As the American and British traditions have often been contrasted (by, for example, Sledd ( 1 9 6 O ) ) , their grouping together here might seem eccentric, but the differences in theoretical approach and notation have obscured an underlying similarity on this point. The Americans assigned pitch-levels to prominent syllables, called these levels "phonemes", and saw sequences of these "phonemes", together with a terminal juncture, as pitch-"morphemes". Palmer (1933) and O'Connor & Arnold ( 1973) gave their tunes mnemonic names such as "ski-jump" and "switchback" and left the theory at that. But when Hockett, for example, talks of "intonation 2 3 1|", which others, e.g. Stockwell, would call a morpheme, he is saying the same as when O'Connor & Arnold talk of the "high drop". The difference in description is important insofar as it reflects an underlying theoretical difference, which, admittedly, is considerable. The

44

pitch levels are, in the American view, phonemes. This view was attacked, and, I think, demolished by Bolinger ( 1 9 5 1 ) . Nevertheless, it is proposed again by M . Y . Liberman ( 1 9 7 8 : 8 6 ) , though without any new arguments. But pitch levels are clearly not the same as segmental phonemes, and the name is inappropriate even if one supposes, as I do not, that an -emic term is sound.

To talk

of pitch morphemes is much more j u s t i f i a b l e , but here too, the use of the term draws too strong an analogy with a term already previously defined for other applications. But if we look at what O'Connor & Arnold say : "The difference between the two exemplified tunes is ... very slight. Yet the meaning ... is exactly the same . . . ; and as it is meaning which is the really important factor, we can usually group together any tunes which mean substantially the same. Such a grouping of tunes ... is called a Tone ~) Q Group ... a tone group is unified and distinguished from all other tone groups both by the attitude it conveys and by the pitch features of its tunes" ( 1 9 6 1 , 1973 : 3 9 ) . This is precisely the definition one would make of an -emic unit. The allo- forms are then conditioned by such things as number of syllables, nuclear placement, and sometimes segmental phones. Following the proposal of Jones ( 1 9 5 7 ; 1 9 7 3 : 3 2 ) , we might call such entities signemes of melody or melodemesjby analogy with his examples. M . Y . Liberman sees these entities as "intonational words" ( 1 9 7 8 : 6 3 ) , and j u s t i f i e s the use of this term (implicitly) in the greater generality it derives from being free of (possibly spurious) precision, an argument which has some virtue. One task of intonology is then the establishment of an "intonational lexicon" ( 1 9 7 8 : 6 O ) ; Liberman tells us what he has in mind when he says of ( O 1 Connor & Arnold 1 9 6 1 ) that it is "the nearest thing available to an adequate intonational lexicon" ( 1 9 7 8 : 6 2 ) , giving an example from 29 this book as "capable of being applied as it stands to the entry for this tonal entity in an intonational dictory of English" ( 1 9 7 8 : 7 1 ) . Liberman notes that, like words, melodemes (as I shall continue to call them) have elements within them which appear to 28 note that this use of the term is idiosyncratic, and does not correspond with my use in the previous section, or that of other authors.

45

have an independent meaning of sorts, although they do not accord with any morphemic definition; he likens them to such elements as the cl- in clang, click, clank etc., which he calls "ideophones" ( 1 9 7 8 : 9 3 ) . I would also suggest that certain combinations of tonegroups, such as are associated with tag-guestions, for example, might be seen as analogous to hyphenated words. "para-tones" could also be seen in this w a y ) .

(Many of Fox's

Liberman is working within the framework of autosegmental phonology, In short, this theory states that intonation patterns are "completely independent structures" (Liberman 1 9 7 9 : 1 ) ; the explanatory problem is then to devise a set of "association rules" which will associate these structures with a text. Liberman 1 s work represents the most extensive working out of this principle to date. His central postulate (that of the independence of the tonal structures) is said to be "implicit in many of the traditional theories of English intonation ( e . g . that of the British school)" ( 1 9 7 9 : 1 5 ) . Yet it should be noted that Liberman also incorporates many of the ideas of the American school, especially that there are four phonemic pitch levels (re-interpreted as complexes of the features [ihigh i l o w ] ) , and that levels are fundamental, glides being merely transitions from one level to another.

2 . 5 . 4 . T h e Head-plus-Nucleus Analysis This form of analysis is like the last, but attributes more independence of meaning to the different elements of the tone-group. At least, this is to be inferred, though I can find no clear statement on the issue. With some authors, it is not at all easy to say which description is more appropriate. Thus Halliday talks in terms of tonic and pre-tonic, but the meanings of the tones take the whole contour into account; indeed Halliday's notation prefixes a tone-signature to each tone-group, characterising the whole tonegroup. 29 the example quoted is the description of the meaning of the "high pre-head" on p. 71 of the 1961 edition, which does not appear in the 1973 edition otherwise quoted in the present work. 30 see especially (Leben 1976) for an outline of the theory.

46 2 . 5 . 5 . T h e Pitch-Accent Theory This theory seems only to have been used by Bolinger, who propounded it in 1958, though certain analyses of German intonation ((Isacenko & Schädlich 1 9 6 6 ) , (Stock & Zacharias 1973))operate in a similar theoretical framework. In b r i e f , the theory states that (i) prominence is realized by pitch change alone; and (ii) the direction of the pitch change is significant. Bolinger proposes three possible directions for American English, identified by letters. Accent A is identified by a fall after the accented syllable, Accent B by a rise either immediately before or immediately after the accented syllable, Accent C by a fall immediately before the accented syllable. The premiss of (i) is wrong, which leads to indeterminacies in ( i i ) . Thus the configuration X~l could represent an A Accent on X or a C Accent on Y. Bolinger's theory treats each accented syllable as equal, whether it is an onset, medial or nuclear (terms which are still relevant, as the pitch-accents are complemented by terminals, which delimit tone-group-like entities). In view of the preceding discussion, it should be mentioned that Bolinger regards the pitch accents as morphemes ( 1 9 5 8 b : 1 4 5 ) .

2.5.6.Summary The two-tune approach seems inadequate. Either, as Kingdon put it, "it will not cover all the ground" (1958:xxvii), or it will lead to a classification too abstract to be verifiable or useful. It also lays too much emphasis on nuclear tone. The pitch-accent-plus-terminal system appears to be more suited to American English intonation, which is said to be characterized by obtrusions from a base-line. (As German intonation is said to be similarly characterized, it would suggest why similar systems have been proposed for it - see chapter 3 ) . It has also to be demonstrated that meanings can be attached to the pitch-accents which are both consistent and contentful. The choice between the other two approaches is more difficult. There are two arguments against the whole-contour approach, summarized by Crystal: "The approach becomes extremely cumbersome as types of unit multiply, and there tends to be marked redundancy"

47 ( 1 9 6 9 : 2 0 9 ) . The first objection only stands if it can be shown as it has not, in my view - that the alternative is simpler. (O'Connor & Arnold have ten tone-groups, most American analyses use about the same number of different contours in exemplification: these may be simplified, but even treble this number could not be called "cumbersome".) The second is expanded upon by Trim: "In most cases, tone patterns differentiated by a difference of level at one point are closely related semantically" ( 1 9 6 7 : 2 6 4 ) . Tone patterns are thus different from words, where a difference of phoneme at one point does not imply a semantic relationship (e.g. international v. intonational). However, sometimes there is such a relationship (where/why} glitter/glimmer, mother/brother, for example, where, whatever the diachronic facts, the synchronic resemblance is surely not pure co-incidence). It is reasonable to suppose that what is a haphazard and relatively unimportant situation in one system might be normal and systematic in another. My preference is for the whole-contour approach, which I have chosen for the description of the patterns investigated experimentally; the interpretation of the results, however, in no way turns on this choice.

2.6.

Terminology and Notation

2.6.1.Terminology The terminology of intonation studies is far from uniform. One must therefore either choose from among existing terms, or add to the confusion by choosing new ones. I have employed the following criteria: i) not to invent new terms unless an existing one would be confusing; ii) as far as possible, not to use any term which has been used for different entities; iii) not to use a term if it is descriptively misleading. "Stress" is excluded by criteria (ii) and ( i i i ) . It has been used for loudness and breath-force, or to mean some abstract quantity with no definable phonetic correlate, or, loosely, to mean "emphasis"; and there is confusion between its use in descriptions of rhythm, and of pitch-prominence. I propose accent for "pitch-prominence" in the sense of Trim ( n . d . ) , which appears

48

to correspond to the very vague concept of "sentence-stress" in much American work, especially since (Chomsky & Halle 1 9 6 8 ) , word-accent for potential accent (following Halliday ( 1 9 6 7 , 1 9 7 0 b ) , and strong and weak for stressed and unstressed in the rhythmic sense, following M . Y . Liberman ( 1 9 7 9 ) . "Tone-group" has been confused since O'Connor & Arnold's use of it

to mean something quite d i f f e r e n t

and Trim.

from Palmer, Jassem, Halliday

I will use tone-unit following Crystal ( 1 9 6 9 ) and Brazil

( 1 9 7 5 ) , corresponding to the more usual sense of "tone group". The final prominent syllable of a tone unit can safely be called nucleus.

Post-nuclear syllables can safely be called the tail.

I shall dispense with a term for nucleus + tail Hockett's "head", Jassem's "nuclear t u n e ) . and Brazil ( 1 9 7 5 ) and the nucleus it

(1969)

For the syllables between the onset

is safe to use body,

not use a term for onset* body onset.

Following Crystal

I propose onset as the only unambiguous term for

the first accented syllable.

"head").

(Halliday's "tonic",

following Kingdon.

I shall

(Palmer's and O'Connor & Arnold's

The weak syllables preceding the onset I shall call preThe term "head" I shall not use at all,

as it

is ambiguous.

For perceived-pitch contour around given accents I shall use melody.

Intonation I shall use in the sense given in 2 . 5 . 3 . above,

corresponding to Palmer's "tone-pattern" and O'Connor & Arnold's "tone-group".

Tone refers to the pitch or pitch movement on indivi-

dual syllables or groups of syllables. fore, tone-units ought to be

(Strictly speaking, there-

melody-units.)

For Halliday's

1

"tonality" I shall substitute Bierwisch s phrasing^ which is more explicit, and for Halliday's "tonicity" I shall use accent, which is systematically, but not confusingly, ambiguous.

2.6.2.Transcription A transcription should f a i t h f u l l y work in which it patible.

represent the theoretical frame-

is used; and be readable.

These may not be com-

It should also be realized that in the case of intonation

the ear seems to be sensitive to smaller differences than the eye: an attempt to represent the melodic curve "accurately" might therefore be misguided. Intonational transcriptions may be phonetic; or

phonological

49

in the sense that nothing is marked which can be deduced by convention. A narrow phonetic transcription of the pitch curve will at the same time be unnecessarily complex and phonologically inadequate, as one cannot interpret the linguistic significance of a pitch contour without knowing which syllables are accented. A "contour line" fails on this account, as does a system which adjusts the height of a line of type (as for example in Solinger 1958b, 1 9 6 1 a ) ) . The manifestations of the latter are sometimes interpretable with common sense, but neither consistent nor phonetically sound (see especially Solinger ( 1 9 6 1 b : 3 8 - 4 2 ) and the treatment of diphthongs and voiceless segments there.)Besides being theoretically inadequate, neither system is easy to read, as the contour lines must be processed linearly, which is not how we read (and breaking up the shape of the words aggravates the difficulty). Marking a stylized contour with some indication of accent is a step towards a phonological notation. Such mixed systems are best used to explain the conventions of a fully phonologized system, as is done by Kingdon and O'Connor & Arnold. Systems displaying the pitch height, vertically segmented, by means of numerals, have been employed by Coleman ( 1 9 1 4 ) and by many American investigators. Such a system requires the addition of accent marking before it can be interpreted; this can be done by means of additional symbols ( P i k e : 1 9 4 5 ) or by conventions on which syllables are marked at all (see especially Trager ( 1 9 6 4 ) ) . Most users of this system see the numerals as representing d i f f e r e n t pitch-phonemes, but such a theoretical standpoint is unnecessary. However numerals bestow a spurious exactitude, while the precise status of the scale is never made clear. As a form of transcription it s u f f e r s from unreadability. Fully phonologized systems are represented by Kingdon's "tonetic stress-marks", and the system employed by Halliday. In the latter, which resembles a "tone signature" at the beginning of the tone unit, the symbols, a combination of figures and diacritics, have no mnemonic value, the accent marking is given in a quite d i f f e r e n t place, and the distribution of the melody over the text must be worked out by the reader. Similar criticisms in a stronger form apply to B r a z i l ' s version of it: here the various pieces of informa-

50

tion needed to read to read the text are given in no less than four places, and, moreover, such necessary information as the shape of the body is not given at all. "Tonetic stress-marks" (in my terms tonic accent-marks) seem to me to represent the best possible system. As used by Kingdon ( 1 9 5 8 ) , they were rather complex. Adapted to the system of major and minor tone units they become much simpler, and the use of the system in this form can be seen in Trim ( 1 9 5 9 ; n . d . ) and O'Connor & Arnold ( 1 9 7 3 ) . It has the advantage of being fully phonological and potentially fully adequate. Accent markings are incorporated and need not be sought elsewhere. The system is easy to read, write and print. I shall use the marks as O'Connor & Arnold use them, with certain alterations and additions (see Explanation of Symbols); the system is flexible enough to allow development, helodemes, it seems, can be represented unambiguously by giving simply the onset and nuclear tones, with an indication of high pre-onset where this occurs. I shall in general use this simplified transcription, as I shall not be concerned with semantic differences resulting from the distribution of accent in the body of a tone unit. Thus the melodeme referred to by O'Connor & Arnold ( 1 9 7 3 : 4 1 ) as the "TakeO f f " , which is characterized by a low onset and low rising nucleus, can be represented in this system as / , ο , η / . Their "Switchback", which has a glissando onset and body and falling-rising nucleus, is represented as / ο "η/, and so on.

51

3.

GERMAN INTONATION

A Survey

3.1. Introduction Although this study is primarily concerned with English intonation, it is plausible to suppose that Germans will be subject to L^ interference in their interpretation of English patterns; hence this survey of descriptions of German intonation, as an attempt to discover what the potential sources of interference might be. Studies of German intonation are not only marked by a variety of theoretical approaches, but it would also appear that there is less agreement on the facts than is the case for English. Apart from the actual quality of the observation, this lack of harmony has two causes: i)certain authors choose to describe only a portion of the phenomena, discounting the rest as non-linguistic; and (ii) it appears that different varieties of German are being described (on this, see Gibbon ( 1 9 7 8 : 2 3 ) ) . The earliest of the works I shall consider is Klinghardt's Spreohmelodie und Sprechtakt ( 1 9 2 3 ) , in which he looks at German intonation in much the same way as he did at English in (Klinghardt & Klemm 1 9 2 0 ) . Sprechmelodie und Sprechtakt appears to have been the main inspiration of a teaching practice-book, Barker's Handbook of German Intonation for University Students ( 1 9 2 5 ) . In a similar tradition, and much influenced by Klinghardt and by Armstrong and Ward, is von Essen's Grundzüge der hochdeutschen Satzintonation, first published in 1956. This work sets out to describe a formal style of speech, is didactic in intent and somewhat schoolmasterly in style, being apparently aimed at native speakers rather than foreign learners. An early experimental study, forming the basis of a later contrastive study with English, is Kuhlmann's Tonhöhenbewegung des Auesagesatzes (1931) . A short but concise account of the main principles of German intona-

52

tion, from the teaching point of view, is Trim's Tonetia StressMarks for German ( 1 9 6 4 ) . Two treatments based on the American structuralist approach, using the notation developed by Trager & Smith, are the chapter on intonation in Moulton's contrastive study The Sounds of English and German ( 1 9 6 2 ) and Antonsen's Supra-Segmentals in German ( 1 9 6 6 ) . An experimental study of certain contrasts is Isacenko & Schädlich's Model of Standard German Intonation, £"irst published in German in 1966. Bierwisch's Regeln für die Intonation deutscher Sätze ( 1 9 6 6 ) is the first major attempt to incorporate the intonation of any language into a generative grammar. His observational facts are drawn mainly from von Essen, with certain modifications based on the findings of Isacenko & Schädlich. Three studies based on a frankly Hallidayan approach are P h e b y ' s Intonation und Grammatik im Deutsahen ( 1 9 7 5 ) , based on his dissertation of 1 9 6 9 ; the chapter on intonation in Kohler's Einführung in die Phonetik des Deutsahen ( 1 9 7 7 ) , and Fox's dissertation ( 1 9 7 8 ) . Interesting instrumental studies are reported by Delattre (some observations in Comparing the Phonetic Features of English, French, German and Spanish ( 1 9 6 5 ) ) and Delattre, Poenack & Olsen (Some Characteristics of German Intonation tion and Finality ( 1 9 6 5 ) ) . Deutsche Zacharias ( 1 9 7 3 ) takes the form of a ion, and employs an original form of by Wodarz-Magdics (Einige Ergebnisse

for the Expression of ContinuaSatzintonation by Stock & programmed course of instructdescription. A recent study von Untersuchungen zur

Satzintonation des Deutschen ( 1 9 7 8 ) ) is a somewhat rambling corpusanalysis which comes to no conclusions. Lastly, recent work by Lieb, Accents as Syntactic Functions ( 1 9 8 O ) , represents an interesting attempt to formalize the pitch-accent theory as applied to German. This is not a complete list, but it contains the most important representatives of all the major trends, except that known as phonometry, as represented by the works of Zwirner, Bethge and Maack, and the rival theory of Mahnken. These schools do not appear to have produced any insights into intonation as it is usually understood. For a brief survey of their major tenets, and bibliography, see Pheby ( 1 9 6 9 ) .

53 3.2.

Some Descriptions

3.2.1.Von Essen; Klinghardt; Barker According to von Essen ( 1 9 5 6 ) , the normal German intonation contour has a mid-to-low pre-onset, high onset and a body consisting of a descending sequence of prominent syllables.

The nucleus and tail

are of three varieties:terminal, progredient and interrogative. No distinction is made between formal and notional labels, implying that the correspondence is exact. In the case of "terminal" intonation, the nucleus is said to f a l l on, or immediately a f t e r , the nuclear syllable.

Whether this is an

instance of free variation, or whether it is a case of phonetic determination, or simply indecision on von Essen's part, is not clear. The progredient utterance is said to have a nucleus which neither has, nor is followed by, a falling movement. nucleus itself appears to vary freely.

The height of the

Thus we have it

Sie ist soweit mein Weib, als ...

high:

(1956:37)

or fairly low:

Auch trink' ich keinen Wein, als ... ( 1 9 5 6 : 3 8 )

The defining characteristic is that "die Stimme fällt nicht in die spannungslose Tiefe ab" ( 1 9 5 6 : 3 7 ) . The yes/no question has a variety of forms: i) nucleus low, tail rising from low (or rising glide on nucleus in absence of a t a i l ) .

So?

1

Thus:

J

this is his word for "unfinished". I shall continue to use it as an English word as a useful addition to our jargon.

54 or:

Ist

der Bote dagewesen? (1956:45)

ii) nucleus mid-to-high, tail rising from low, thus:

Ist

die Bote dagewesen?

Von Essen makes it quite clear that interrogative intonation is essential to questionhood: "Entscheidungsfragen sind an ihrer eigenartigen Sprechmelodie - und nur an ihr ... - zu e r k e n n e n " ( 1 9 5 6 : 4 4 ) . A number of variations are considered. Thus complete sentences may have progredient, and incomplete ones terminal intonation. These are said to be rhetorical devices (1956:53-57). Further variants are: - interrogative intonation on statements, for warning ( 1 9 5 6 : 6 6 ) ; - ditto, for politeness (1956:66); - terminal intonation for interrogatives, for accusation ( 1 9 5 6 : 6 O ) ; - interrogative intonation for wh-interrogatives (otherwise terminal for threats ( 1 9 5 6 : 6 O ) ; - high pre-onset, for resignation, relief, calmness, friendliness (1956:60). There are said to be many more "emotionally determined" variants, but von Essen forbears to list them, as this would "ins Uferlose führen" ( 1 9 5 6 : 6 3 ) . In most respects, Klinghardt's and Barker's analyses resemble von Essen's. Klinghardt (1923) does not distinguish between interrogative and progredient intonation, both being subsumed under the latter. Barker does not mention interrogative intonation, but examples of it appear in her transcriptions ( 1 9 2 5 : 6 7 - 6 8 ) . These analyses resemble the two-tune analyses for English, with the addition of a third tune by von Essen and Barker.

55 3.2.2.Isacenko & Schädlich A Model of Standard German Intonation does not concern itself with real language, but with a non-natural, indeed extremely unnaturalsounding, synthesization, which is treated as as idealization. Idealized forms are hypothesized, and submitted to interpretation tests by experimental subjects. The authors claim to have demonstrated i) that a semitone interval is s u f f i c i e n t to mark a linguistically significant pitch-change, and i i ) t h a t the linguistic significance of the pattern is a product of (a) the direction of the pitch-movement, and ( b ) , what is more original, its precise placement in relation to the accentual peak, or ictus. The first claim is irrelevant. There is no evidence that an interval as small as a semitone is normally used in German, and none that smaller intervals cannot be distinguished. As a semitone is a quite arbitrary interval invented for the convenience of western music, with no acoustic or auditory foundation, there is no reason to postulate it as phonologically significant at all. What is significant is that it is the fact, rather than the size, of the pitch change which is claimed to be significant. The second claim is more interesting. It predicts that: i) a pre-ictic rise is interpreted as progredient; i i ) a post-ictic rise is interpreted as interrogative; iii)a pre-ictic fall and a post-ictic fall are terminal. The difference between the two kinds of fall is significant, but unclear ( 1 9 6 6 ; 1 9 7 0 : 4 1 ) . Certain of the authors' conclusions resemble those of Brazil ( 1 9 7 8 ) . Thus a rising tone-switch has one "invariant function", namely "to signal a subsequent falling tone-switch" ( 1 9 6 6 , 1 9 7 O : 3 8 ) . This "presupposes the dialogue as a unit larger than the utterance", which, expressed in the terms of Coulthard & Brazil, ( 1 9 7 9 ) would read "the exchange as a unit larger than the move". Brazil could interpret the rise as an instance of high termination, requiring a response. Isacenko & Schädlich's theory also resembles Bolinger's theory of pitch-accent. First, pitch-changes are seen as the only markers of prominence. Second, the direction of the pitch-change in

56 relation to the prominent syllable is crucial. Thus the postictic fall is equivalent to Bolinger's A accent; the pre-ictic fall is Bolinger's C accent; both rises correspond to Bolinger's B accent. There are also differences. First, for Isacenko & Schädlich, the ictus is given, and allows the pre- or post- ictic nature of the tone-switch to be defined; for Bolinger, the accent is located by the pitch change (see 2 . 5 . 5 above),and he is led into a circularity in the definition, as a result of which he too is forced to accept word-accent as given (Bolinger 1 9 6 1 ) . The question must be asked whether in either language pitch-change can be reasonably regarded as the only marker of prominence. In 2 . 2 . 3 above I gave an example to show that this cannot invariably be the case in English, and Bierwisch points out that such a view in German will predict indeterminacies , that do not actually exist ( 1 9 6 6 : 1 5 9 ) . Unlike Bolinger, Isacenko & Schädlich take an extremely narrow view of what is linguistically relevant in intonation; to them, this would seem to include only that which characterizes the syntactic form of an utterance. All else is rigorously excluded from the investigation. In terms of Isacenko & Schädlich's analysis, von Essen's and Klinghardt's terminal intonation is a post-ictic fall (though some of von Essen's transcriptions may represent pre-ictic f a l l s ) . Barker's terminal intonation, to judge from her transcriptions, is a pre-ictic fall. Barker's and Klinghardt's progredient intonations are, like Isaienko & Schädlich 1 s, pre-ictic rises. Von Essen's progredient intonations are sometimes this, occasionally a level tone that cannot be described in these terms. Klinghardt's interrogative intonation is a pre-ictic rise (which disagrees with Isa?enko & Schädlich), Barker's is a post-ictic rise, while von Essen's is also post-ictic, although as I have shown, there is an unexplained fall-rise variant, which cannot be described in these terms (see my example taken from von Essen in 3 . 2 . 1 . above).

57 3 . 2 . 3 . Bierwisch Bierwisch ( 1 9 6 6 ) did not set out to present new data, but to explicate what was already reported, using mainly von Essen as source. He did, however, find it

necessary to make some modifications, and

he also ignored entirely the fall-rise illustrated by von Essen. Unlike von Essen, he notes that interrogative sentences may have a falling intonation, yet still be questions

( 1 9 6 6 : 1 6 6 - 6 7 ) . Von

Essen denies this. While also drawing on the work of Isacenko & Schädlich, and recognizing, for example, a functional difference between a preand post-ictic fall

(without being able to characterize i t ) , he

disagrees with them too on certain points, to one of which I referred to above. Another point of disagreement concerns the magnitude of a pitch-change, which he considers syntactically relevant in the case of emphasis, which, pace Isacenko & Schädlich, he treats as a syntactic category. Curiously, Bierwisch's major divergence from von Essen is tucked away in a somewhat diffident proposal which is not followed up ( 1 9 6 6 : 1 6 2 f ) . A transcription is given thus: ( 4 4 ) Das ganze Unternehmen ist nutzlos gewesen 1

2.5 1

1

1

2

1

1

3

1

1 1 1

This is significant because it departs from the notion of a descending sequence of accented syllables, with non-accented syllables maintaining the pitch of the preceding accented ones.

This trans-

cription might be related to the studies by Trim and Delattre, reported below.

3.2.4.Trim Trim's short description ( 1 9 6 4 ) asserts (what is confirmed by Delattre) that accented syllables in the body of a German sentence are rising glides, and in the style of speech described, there is no descending sequence of accented syllables.

Rather, the height

they attain is a continuous variable : "The height to which the pitch rises ... indicates the relative weight.

This weighting is

one of the most important functions of intonation in German". This view d i f f e r s from any other published opinion that I know of, and contradicts in principle the theories of Isacenko & Schädlich.

58

Trim was, I think, the first to mention explicitly the existence of falling-rising tones in German, though not the first to note it (see the account of von Essen above). He does not discuss attitudinal variants in any great detail, on the grounds that the expression of attitude by intonation is "rudimentary". In other words, the exclusion is not, as in the case of Isacenko & Schädlich, arbitrary; nor, as with von Essen, on the grounds that expressions of attitude are so far-reaching that one could not begin to describe them.

3.2.5.Delattre Delattre's studies (Delattre 1 9 6 5 , Delattre et al. 1965} are of actual language being spoken - albeit in a laboratory - the F contours being registered spectrographically and analysed. The studies did not, unfortunately, extend to interrogative sentences. The findings are : i) progredient intonation takes the form of a rising glide on the prominent syllable, with following weak syllables high; ii) terminal intonation also takes the form of a rising glide on the prominent syllable, with following weak syllables low. In Delattre et al. (1965) it is made clear that if there is no tail, the nucleus takes the form of a rise-fall with the maximum intensity on the rise. These must be variants of the post-ictic f a l l . I can only find one instance of a pre-ictic fall in Delattre et al. 's data. iii) the rise of both (i) and (ii) is preceded by a dip. This is the "tune by which German is recognized at a distance" (Delattre 1 9 6 5 : 1 4 1 ) . ' This would mean that all progredient intonations in German are fall-rises of a sort, though with a much longer rise than fall. Delattre et^al. do not make clear what marks the boundary of a tone-unit. It appears to inhere in the transition from tail to pre-onset, which they assume to coincide with the boundary of what they call a "sense-group" (Delattre 1 9 6 5 : 1 4 1 ) . I do not know what a sense-group is, and they do not elucidate. Among other problems, this makes it difficult to relate their analysis to Bierwisch 1 s example ( 4 4 ) reproduced in 3.2.3. above. Delattre et al. implicitly

59

agree with Trim that all accented syllables are nuclear; Bierwisch 1 s example would then have to be segmented phonologically thus : Das gan

ze Unterneh I men ist nutzlos gewesen

But whatever sense-groups are, they are certainly not these. If we segmented the sentence as follows, which is a possibility under Bierwisch's own phrasing rules: Das ganze

Unternehmen

ist

nutzlos gewesen

we should have to assume that the progredient nuclei were falling, as the weak syllables following them are low. This segmentation, with rising tones for the first two nuclei, would require Bierwisch's transcription to be amended thus: Das ganze Unternehmen 1 2.52.5 1 1 2 2

ist 1

nutzlos gewesen 3 1 1 1 1

If sense-groups are in fact phrasing-units, this seems a quite plausible intonation, suggesting that Bierwisch's transcription, while along the right lines, is in need of amendment. I find the Trim/Delattre observations to be in accord with my own, especially where the conversation of younger German males is concerned. The stepping-down of accented syllables from a high onset does not seem to be a feature of colloquial German, and, in teaching, I have found this onset/body pattern psychologically difficult for German learners of English. These observations lead me to distrust von Essen's, although it may be that he was describing a variety which differs in this point.

3. 2. 6. American Treatments I shall concentrate here on Moulton's description ( 1 9 6 2 ) , which uses the same Trager & Smith system as Antonsen, but which is fuller and clearer. The norm for statements is said to be 2 °3 1 |, , corresponding to the post-ictic fall. Moulton also notes a pre-ictic fall, transcribed as (2) 3 °1 1 , which is described as "less common". This is in harmony with Isacenko & Schädlich, and Bierwisch, and Delattre et al . The norm for yes/no questions is given as 2 °3 3 T . This is clearly a pre-ictic rise, and contradicts the findings of Barker,

60

von Essen and Isacenko and Sch dlich. Moulton also notes the existence of a fall-rise 2 °3 1 f , which is said to express "surprised indignation". A politer form of statement is 3 ο 2 3 ΐ| , a post-ictic rise. This accords with von Essen. Moulton is not specific on the nature of progredient intonation, but he gives 2 °3 1 | as an example, which is a fair transcription of some of von Essen's examples, although 2 °3 3 j would appear to be regarded as more normal by von Essen; Moulton does not give the latter. Moulton has a number of other patterns for specific types of sentences and degrees of politeness, friendliness etc. Some of these are accurate, e.g. the intonation of greetings, others questionable, as for example when he says that the enclitic fragte er after a passage of direct speech continues the upward movement of the question. I shall not discuss the details of Moulton's other observations here, but refer to them where relevant in section 4 . 4 . below.

3.2.7.Hallidayan Treatments: Pheby and Kohler Some confusion can arise when comparing these two, owing to their d i f f e r e n t inventories and numbering of tones, which I shall set out before proceeding to discuss them: (tone) Pheby Kohler 1 fall fall 2 rise high rise 3 level low rise 4 fall-rise ' level 5 rise-fall fall-rise 6 rise-fall Both authors follow Halliday ( 1 9 6 7 , 1970b) in recognizing a separate "broad" fall-rise; Kohler, like Halliday, regards it as a variety of high-rise, while Pheby regards it as a variety of fall-rise. Apart from the inventory of tones, both authors differ from von Essen in specifying a number of meaningful pre-nuclear patterns, which are seen as constituting sub-classes of the nuclear tones. To this extent they are relatable to Moulton, though he is much less

61

detailed.

Both agree that only the fall and the rise are sub2 classified in this way. Owing to the notion of "delicacy", it is difficult to compare these systems with others. Sometimes the pre-nuclear tone is a differentiating factor; where it is not, it is not specified. It is d i f f i c u l t to decide in such cases

whether the pre-nuclear tone is a matter of free variation, or is omitted because there is only one possibility, which cannot therefore "expound" any system. There are theoretical difficulties here: what is implied is that where a system is not expounded by a distinction, free variation exists in principle, whether or not it does in practice. As the particular variant which is used in practice is not always described (as with tones 4,5 and 6 here), comparisons become difficult. Both Pheby and Kohler admit the existence of a rise-fall and fall-rise, Kohler being, I think, the only native phonologist to do so in print. Neither takes any account of the pre-/post-ictic distinction; as both were aware of IsaSenko & Schädlich's work, the omission may be an indication that the difference was not considered of significance. For Kohler, the progredient intonation is level; as Kohler makes it clear that the pre-nuclear contour here ends low, and the level nucleus is mid, this looks like a pre-ictic rise: in Moulton's terms, 1 2 2 I . Pheby has no single progredient intonation: the tone depends on the relationship of the two parts of the utterance. The basic distinctions are: primary contrast fall dissociative contrast fall-rise associative contrast rise simple contrast level The details of these distinctions are explained in sections 4 . 2 . 3 and 4 . 2 . 5 . of (Pheby 1 9 7 5 ) . Here I merely note that he makes them, and that simple contrast .(level) is said to be the most common: thus the most common case accords at least with von Essen. It might also be noted that "primary contrast" involves "new" information ( 1 9 7 5 : 137-38). There are close parallels here with distinctions drawn by Halliday's term for the degree to which sub-classification is pursued.

62 Jackendoff and Brazil for English (see 2 . 5 . 2 . above). For questions, Pheby gives: Fall questions which are 'vergewissernd 1 (i.e., I think, seeking for confirmation) Rise neutral Fall-Rise implicatory: "Gegenstand gewisser Erwartungen" He thus differentiates between types which are described (implicitly) by other authors as being in free variation. Kohler's neutral yes/no question is a high rise. It is quite unclear whether this is pre- or post-ictic. He also gives a low rise, with low onset and body, as "friendly". More friendly still is the same with a high onset and body. These can be translated into Moulton's transcription, but Moulton does not give the patterns. Kohler and Pheby list a number of other variations of a mostly attitudinal kind. Reference will be made where relevant in section 4.3. While working within the framework of a Hallidayan approach, Fox (1978) extends the notion of "paratone group" (see Fox 1973) to German. The advantages· of such an approach are the same as for English, namely, it takes into account an obvious fact of inter-tonegroup relationships. Fox concludes that intonational meaning is textual rather than grammatical, and in this sense his "paratone groups" would appear to be related to Brazil's Pitch-Sequences; his work would then represent the beginnings of a "discoursal" approach to German intonation. My own view is coloured by my scepticism, made clear above, of the value of looking for any particular " function" of intonation.

3.2.8.Stock & Zacharias The description used by these authors is based on a system of socalled positive and negative intervals, by which are meant upward and downward pitch movements respectively, distinguished also according to whether they are pre- or post-ictic. The expression they use is "Vor-und Nachakzentintervalle" ( 1 9 7 3 : 9 9 ) . In this way it resembles the approaches of Isacenko & Schädlich and

63

Bolinger, with the important modification that the pre-ictic and post-ictic configurations surrounding each accented syllable are taken into account. It represents an attempt to extend the Isacenko & Schädlich system to real language. As with Bolinger, non-nuclear accents are included. Unlike him, however, they postulate what is in effect a hierarchy of accents, which resembles the outcome of Trim's major and minor tone-unit analysis in this respect. Accents are classified as "Hauptkernakzente" ,''Kernakzente" and "Nebenakzente", which correspond respectively to the nuclei of major tone-units, the nuclei of minor tone-units and non-nuclear accented syllables. In conjunction with the pitch contours immediately surrounding them, these accents form what are called "Motive". "Nebenakzente" and "Kernakzente" form "Nebenmotive", while "Hauptkernakzente" form "Leitmotive". The latter are classified into "Informationsmotive" with falling tones and "Kontaktmotive" with rising tones. Thus we arrive in e f f e c t at the familiar three-fold division into progredient (Nebenmotiv), terminal (Informationsmotiv) and interrogative (Kontaktmotiv), although the authors are at pains to point out that while the Kontaktmotiv is very often associated with questions, it is not a question-intonation as such ( 1 9 7 3 : 1 1 ) . Rather, it is used when an appeal is made to one's interlocutor, "an sein Gewissen, sein Gefühl, sein Interesse usw.", and when this is "wichtiger als die gegebene oder die erwartete Information". In general, it is said, the pre-ictic and post-ictic contours are of opposite kinds, thus either \ / or / \ If there is no syllable before the accented syllable, the pre-ictic part of the contour is absent; if there is no syllable after the accented syllable, the contour takes the form of a glide. There are two further variants of the Informationsmotiv:

\ and \ . The first is 11 "emotionslos and relatively rare ( 1 9 7 3 : 1 2 9 ) . The second is more common; it is said to be "erregungsdämpfend" (1973:130) and corresponds to a pre-ictic fall. Further, there is an emphatic form, in effect a rise-fall, which cannot be fitted into the system (1973:133) This is the form that Delattre e* . ( 1 9 6 5 ) regard ~« normal.

64 There are two further variations of the Kontaktmotiv. first,

.S , is said to be rare.

common" variant,

>

ί./

The

There is also a "more

, characterized as emphatic

(1973:145). Nebenmotive usually have a pre-ictic level, which is called a "Semikadenz" in the case of nuclei, a "Zwischenlauf" otherwise (which forms the pre-ictic segment of the following Motiv). The basic type h a s a pre-ictic rise, thus:

s

T

h

i

s corres-

ponds exactly with Isacenko & Sch dlich, and in large measure with Pheby, Moulton and Kohler. There are four variants of this basic type.

_/

/

The first is

, and is used for "adversative Konjunktion" ( f o r

example, alternative questions ( 1 9 7 3 : 1 5 1 ) ) .

The second,

is used to emphasize the following nucleus.

The third,

is,

/

or can be, used for all but the last of a series of Nebenakzente.

The fourth, \

is said to be used in the middle of lists.

There are certain problems with this analysis.

One concerns

the status of the representations, of which the following is an example:

Wollt

In general, all

ihr

ρ'ψβ

suchen

tones are shown as level unless they are f i n a l ,

and the authors say: "Die Richtung der Striche zeigt den Melodieverlauf an" ( 1 9 7 3 : 1 9 ) , which means the level tones actually are level. I have not been able to hear the tapes associated with this book, but no variety of German I have heard is actually like this, and Delattre

e

t al.'s instrumental investigations also do

not suggest that German intonation consists of a series of level tones.

But if Stock and Zacharias have undertaken some idealiza-

65

tion, they should say on what basis.

The point is

important,

because the pre- or post-ictic timing of the pitch-movement depends crucially on when the pitch-movement is deemed to have taken place. Another problem is concerned with boundaries. The authors seem to regard these as being marked by actual pauses, which are "meist ...

deutlich wahrnembar" ( 1 9 7 3 : 7 3 ) .

Certainly they do not appear

to be marked melodically; for instance, the following sentence is given both with and without the internal boundary, but with identical intonation ( 1 9 7 3 : 1 5 0 ) :

\

Sie gehen am/ Wald entlang, weil sie \JPi,lze suchen wollen If pauses are seen as the only marks of unit boundaries, it

is not

surprising that there are relatively few of the latter in the examples, even with quite long sentences. Thus we have (1973:

153) :

Die Delega/tion fuhr mit dem / Vagen naoh \Buchenwald f I ·** This is given as one phrasing-unit, which is possible, but not normal. Three would be more natural. Not only this, but three units would also rescue their own analysis from a namely that, as it

difficulty,

stands, the Motiv centring on -ion is different

from that centring on Wa- ~ There is clearly neither a phonetic nor a semantic reason for distinguishing between them, and if fuhr were to be regarded as starting a new phrasing unit, there would be no need to.

66 3.2.9.Lieb Lieb (1980)appeared after the research reported here had been completed, and is in any case only a preliminary version of a major project. For both reasons it would not be in order to go into his work in detail. However, I include a mention of it in this survey both for the sake of completeness and also because it seems noteworthy in a number of points. First, it represents another version of the pitch-accent theory, which is further evidence that such an approach is increasingly being seen as appropriate to German. Secondly, Lieb agrees with the present author in not wishing to classify (or, at least, separate) different kinds of intonational meaning (Lieb 1 9 8 0 : 2 9 ) . Third, the fiction that accents are level tones is not maintained. Lieb's purpose is primarily theoretical: "There is, however, a very elementary question that to my mind has not been answered in a satisfactory way : the question of what syntactic accents are . . . " ( L i e b 1 9 8 0 : 1 ) . In the paper under review, he does not go into semantic, or, especially, tonetic detail, and concentrates on the "rise-fall" or "post-ictic" f a l l , which he re-names the "downward contrastive accent", and whose meaning he characterizes in largely thematic terms (appropriate to this tone). For this reason no general comparison can yet be made between this approach and that of others, Nevertheless at the present stage it seems definitely promising.

3.2.10.Miscellaneous Observations Kuhlmann ( 1 9 3 1 ) derived his data from a recording of one speaker reading a short passage aloud. He cannot, I think, claim any generality for his findings,but there is no reason to doubt his main conclusions, although his method of representing tonal movements does not make them easy to interpret. When he writes that a tone has the form ^) , he cannot literally mean this, but we are not told precisely what he does mean. The most significant point that he makes is the following: the most prominent ("Stärkstbetont") syllable in a tone-unit ("Sprechtakt") "im eintaktigen Satz ... ist in drei Viertel der Fälle steigend" ( 1 9 5 1 : 1 9 6 ) . 3 The most common shape is ( , which looks like a rise-fall with the maximum of intensity on the rise.

67 This is also the most common tone in final tone-units generally ( 1 9 5 1 : 1 9 7 ) . "Nur als letze Silbe ... hat sie regelmäßig die Kurvenform ) " ( 1 9 5 1 : 1 9 7 ) . This observation can be related very easily to those of Trim and Delattre, although his pictorial representation of the form of the rise d i f f e r s in important respects from Delattre's +*S*\t (see esp. Delattre et al. 1 9 6 5 : 1 4 5 ) ) . Wittig (1956:80) makes a similar observation: "im Deutschen werden häufig in der fallenden Melodie die Tonsilben im Satzinnern mit in sich steigendem Ton gesprochen". Similar conclusions can be drawn from transcriptions by Wodarz ( 1 9 7 8 ) .

3.3.

Summary

3.3.1.Observational Equivalence There is considerable agreement among some of the shorter works referred to that prominent syllables in German generally have a rising tone: it is the better-known and longer works which make no reference to this feature, though as we have seen, Bierwisch makes tentative reference to it. My own observation supports the view that all progredient and many, if not most, terminal nuclei have a rising tone: they differ in the tone of the tail, or in the final part of a tail-less nucleus. I shall assume that this is in fact 4 the case for colloquial sytles approximating to the standard. In addition there is certainly a pre-ictic f a l l , though how it d i f f e r s functionally from the type described above has yet to be established. Fall-rise patterns have been described by a number of the authors discussed above, and my own observation is that they certainly occur quite commonly, especially in questions. The tone takes the form, as far as I can establish by observation, of a rise-fall-rise, with the intensity peak on the first rise, and a sharp drop from this to

3

4 5

page references are to the more accessible (Kuhlmann 1 9 5 1 ) , in which Kuhlmann reproduces his results from the earlier work. for a discussion of style and dialect, see Pheby (1975:2630). see also (Fox 1 9 8 1 ) .

68

the start of the next, thus: */ J . This is compatible with von Essen's unexplained transcription (reproduced in 3.2.1.above) so long as one re-interprets his level tones as rises, which in view of the work of Delattre et al. may be legitimate. The latter themselves have no tones of this sort, but they did not investigate questions, where they are most common. No reference at all is made to any falling-rising pattern by Bierwisch, Isacenko & Schädlich, or Stock & Zacharias. These authors all work in East Germany, and it has been suggested that it is a West German phenomenon, the implication being that it is an anglicism. The difference in form between the German and English tones speaks against this view. Moreover, Klinghardt, who thought it was a very English tone, opined that it resembled the intonation of German heard in Saxony (i.e. in what is now the GDR)(Klinghardt & Klemm 1 9 2 0 : 7 9 ) . It may be, then, that the East German writers regard it as dialectal (and quite possibly as sub-standard: Stock & Zacharias make it clear in their foreword that their book is intended among others for dialect speakers wishing to acquire the "Hochlautung"). In spite of proposals made by Pheby, Moulton and Kohler, I think it has yet to be established what functional difference there is between a rise and a fall-rise in questions. The fall-rise certainly also occurs in progredient contexts, though probably less commonly. There are no examples of it in Delattre et al.'s data, and it is not mentioned or illustrated by Moulton or von Essen or Barker (in addition to the East German authors). Pheby makes suggestions as to its functional differentiation from the rise, but these have yet to be substantiated, and are rather vague. There is clearly some doubt as to whether a progredient rise differs from an interrogative rise, or indeed whether there is a progredient rise at all. On the second point there is not really much room for doubt: Delattre et a Z . ' s observations make it quite clear that there is a progredient rise. The f i r s t is more d i f f i c u l t , however. Isacenko & Schädlich claim to have shown the two to be perceptually distinct, but they do not claim that either actually by Professor Neubert of Leipzig in conversation with J.L.M. Trim, who reported it to me.

69 occurs in the form they investigated.

Attempts on my own part

to elicit the pronunciation of such minimal pairs as : Kommt er morgen, ist

alles in Ordnung

and

Kommt usually result in Kommt

er morgen? er ^morgen for the f i r s t , and Kommt er

v

morgen for the second, which does not c l a r i f y the issue of whether, if rises are used for both, they are of d i f f e r e n t kinds. I think the question must be regarded as open. On the question of the rise-fall

(whose existence is asserted

explicitly by Trim, Pheby and K o h l e r ) , one might note that if Delattre et al.'s observations are correct, then it is indistinguishable from the post-ictic f a l l .

It has not been shown, nor I

think asserted, that German has a rise-fall resembling one of the English forms, namely with a low-to-mid level prominent syllable, followed by a high falling weak syllable. Pre-nuclear contours in German are described in detail only by Pheby and Kohler, and then only in conjunction with certain nuclear tones. any.

Very little is said about their functions, if they have Moulton occasionally differentiates between onsets of

different pitch, but not systematically or in detail, nor are there patterns differentiated solely thus.

It will be suggested below

that the whole notion of a pre-nuclear contour is for German.

inappropriate

3. 3.2.Forms of Analysis It will be clear that analyses of German intonation follow similar lines to those used for English, both in the matter of segmentation, and as regards the description of contours.

One distinction

is made explicitly by Trim ( 1 9 6 4 ) , who asserts that German should not be analyzed as having non-nuclear accented syllables.

The

observations of Delattre et al. are compatible with such a view, which also receives implicit support from Gibbon ( 1 9 7 9 ) .

If

it

is correct, the notions of onset and body have no substance for German. The two-tune analysis is maintained by Klinghardt; extended to

70

three tunes, it is adhered to by von Essen. Whole-contour analyses have been applied by Pheby and Kohler in one tradition, and Moulton in another. An autosegmental analysis has not been applied to German, nor has a head-plus-nucleus approach. The pitch-accent theory is represented for German by Isacenko & Schädlich, Stock and Zacharias, and Lieb. As the theory does not require nuclear and other prominent syllables to be differentiated (which, if the view outlined above is correct, they are n o t ) , the theory has a certain attraction. However, it makes critical use of the fiction that tones are level; in view of the fact that most tones in German are rising glides, or contain one, the height of the 'level 1 (i.e. whether it is deemed to be at the top or bottom of the glide) is either arbitrary, rendering the theories largely vacuous, or needs justification in a form which has not yet been given. For this reason, if for no other, the theories need to be treated with some reserve. It appears at the moment that some -tune theory is best suited to German. There appear to me to be four distinctive tunes - the rise, the fall-rise, the pre-ictic fall and the post-ictic fall. There may be a f i f t h , if the level or a sub-class of the rise is distinctive. The extent to which one would be justified in reducing this number to more basic tunes is an open question, but I see no virtue in such an attempt.

Trim deals briefly with the auditory distinction produced by a crescendo or diminuendo in the rise, which may have some bearing on this matter ( 1 9 6 4 : 3 7 8 ) .

71

4.

CONTRASTIVE STUDIES IN ENGLISH AND GERMAN INTONATION

4.1.

A Survey of Existing Studies

4.1.1.Introduction There have been a number of studies expressly devoted to comparing aspects of English and German intonation. Also, a number of studies of English intonation have been undertaken by German scholars, and vice versa, and comparisons of a more or less incidental, but no less instructive nature can be found scattered through them. Some books devoted to the one language make occasional reference to the intonation of the other. Some works consider intonation in conjunction with other linguistic systems, especially where the correspon4 dence is not exact across the two languages. Finally, there are two existing surveys.

1

Kuhlmann ( 1 9 5 1 ) , (Anderson 1 9 7 9 ) , Delattre 1 9 6 5 ) , (Delattre et al. 1 9 6 5 ) , (Pürschel 1975) , (Moulton 1962),(Fox 1 9 7 8 ) , and sections of (Gibbon 1 9 7 6 , 1 9 7 8 ) .

2

(Kurath 1 9 6 4 ) , ( K l i n g h a r d t 1 9 2 3 ) , {Klinghardt & Klemm 1 9 2 0 ) , (Schubiger 1 9 3 5 , 1 9 5 8 ) , ( W i t t i g 1 9 5 6 ) , (Barker 1 9 2 5 ) , (Trim 1964).

3

e.g.

4 5

(Schubiger 1 9 6 5 ) , (Bublitz 1 9 7 8 ) . (Bald 1 9 7 6 ) , (Esser 1 9 7 8 ) .

(Jones 1 9 1 8 ) ,

(Kingdon 1 9 5 8 ) ,

(Stock & Zacharias 1 9 7 3 ) .

72 4.1.2.Summary of Opinions ( i ) : Phonetics of Intonation Most of the opinions and observations reported in the works listed in the preceding paragraph have already been discussed in the relevant sections of chapters 2 and 3. I shall here attempt a general summary. Opinions on contrastive English and German intonation have been extreme. Thus Barker asserts that "English and German intonation are fundamentally different" ( 1 9 2 5 : v i i i ) . Moulton, however, thinks that "English and German have identical intonation systems" ( 1 9 6 2 : 1 2 9 ) . Part of this discrepancy may be due to the fact that Moulton is referring to American English, and Barker to British (about which more below). However, with reference to British English, Kingdon asserts that "the intonation of German is very similar to that of English" ( 1 9 5 8 : 2 6 7 ) , and Kuhlmann states: "Man kann allgemein feststellen, daß im Deutschen und im Englischen die Grundformen der Tonhöhenbewegung gleich sind" ( 1 9 5 2 : 2 0 6 ) . This particular assertion of Kuhlmann 1 s is rejected in its turn by Pürschel: "Dieser Auffassung muß entschieden widersprochen werden" ( 1 9 7 5 : 2 8 ) . Kingdon's observations, at least, seem to be very accurate on intonation generally, but none of the other opinions need to be taken particularly seriously. Barker mentions explicitly only one difference, which hardly justifies the opinion quoted. As for Moulton, he actually notes numerous differences; what he appears to mean by the systems being "identical" is that he can apply the same analysis and transcription to both languages to his own satisfaction. Neither Kuhlmann nor Pürschel present sufficient evidence on which to base any sweeping statement. Sweeping statements are in any case inappropriate; it is obvious that English and German do not have identical intonation systems, and it is equally clear that the differences between them are not fundamental. It is in order at this point to deal briefly with the differences between British and American intonation, so as to establish what is being compared. Much must be inferred from individual descriptions of the two systems, though there is an expressly contrastive account by Engler & Hillyer ( 1 9 7 0 ) , and Wittig (1956) makes a threeway comparison throughout. There are also numerous scattered references by Kingdon, all to the effect that American prefers a fall-rise in positions where it is - or was - less likely in British English. Bolinger asserts that "resemblances are pervasive;

differences sporadic and n ore a matter of frequency than of

73 pre-

sence or absence" ( 1 9 5 9 : 1 9 9 ) , Engler & Hilyer conclude that there are "differences between the intonation patterns of B.E. and A . E . . . which are consistent and systematic" ( 1 9 7 O : 1 O 8 ) . Wittig observes: "Das Englische hat kontinuierliche Gefalle und Anstiege, das Amerikanische eher bestimmte Tonstufen" ( 1 9 5 6 : 7 5 ) . It is d i f f i c u l t to find points of agreement in these generalizations. The systematic difference referred to by Engler & Hilyer is the same as that mentioned by Wittig, and finds its expression, according to both works, in the systems of transcription most generally used for the two systems. From the numerous published descriptions, and from my own observation, I would venture the following summary: i) accented syllables in the body of an American tone-unit are raised above a base-line, with the maximum of intensity on the falling glide back to the base-line (see Delattre ( 1 9 6 5 ) , Wittig ( 1 9 5 6 ) , Anderson ( 1 9 7 9 ) , Bolinger (esp. 1 9 5 8 b ) ; this is in contrast to the high onset and stepping-down level accents of the most common R . P . pattern; ii) variations in onset and body pattern are not reported as significant for American, whereas at least five, (excluding emphatic variants), seem to be distinctive in British (steppingdown, glissando , high level, low level, rising) ,' iii) rises in American appear to be pre-ictic (see Moulton ( 1 9 6 2 ) , Wittig ( 1 9 5 6 ) ) , in R . P . post-ictic. German is reported by Esser ( 1 9 7 8 : 5 ) not to have a high onset, from which it follows that it can have no stepping-down or glissando body. One can readily agree with this opinion. Indeed it was remarked by Klinghardt that "dieser ununterbrochen abwärts führende Gang des normalen Sprechtakts ist die für den Deutschen schwierigst nachzuahmende Erscheinung der englischen Sprechmelodie" ( 1 9 2 3 ; 1 9 ) . In this German resembles American (a view contradicted, however, by Kingdon, who notes ( 1 9 5 8 : 2 6 7 ) the common occurrence of "prelusory Tone IL" in German; this has a "high level head" ( 1 9 5 8 : 7 3 ) ) . The body of a German (major) tone-unit is widely reported (see Delattre ( 1 9 6 5 ) , Trim ( 1 9 6 4 ) , Jones ( 1 9 1 8 ; 1 9 6 2 : 3 2 3 ) , W i t t i g ( 1 9 5 6 ) , Gibbon (1979)} to consist of a series of rising glides on the prominent syllables, followed by level tails at the height of the top of the rise. In this, there is a certain systematic resemblance to American, in that the prominent syllables are obtruded upwards

74

from a base-line, but the phonetic details are quite different. If German has a pre-ictic rise, as asserted by many, this is in contrast with most R.P. rises, and was the major point of difference noted by Barker ( 1 9 2 5 : 1 ) ; it is also noted by Jones ( 1 9 6 2 : 3 2 2 ) , Klinghardt ( 1 9 2 3 : 2 7 ) and Schubiger ( 1 9 5 8 : 3 0 ) . It is not a point of contrast with American. As for nuclear falls, there is good evidence for believing that there are two distinct varieties in German, which are phonetically quite different. The pre-ictic fall resembles the R . P . low fall; the post-ictic fall, which begins with a marked riset does not really resemble either an R.P. high fall or rise-fall, in both of which there is a marked falling glide which is absent from German, as was noted by Klinghardt ( 1 9 2 3 : 2 6 ) and (I think, although his presentation is not clear) Kuhlmann ( 1 9 5 2 : 1 9 6 ) . Schubiger (1958:10) and Gibbon ( 1 9 7 8 : 2 5 ) both state that "glides" are less frequent in German; this is true of falls, but not of rises. I have suggested above (3.3.1 .) the possibility that the rise-fall reported for German is another way of describing the post-ictic fall. I have also noted how the German fall-rise differs from the English - again, note the absence of a falling glide in German. Other general phonetic points have been made concerning pitchrange and pitch-setting in the two languages. Barker ( 1 9 2 5 : 4 ) , Kuhlmann ( 1 9 5 2 : 1 9 9 ) and Klinghardt & Klemm (1920:23) all state that the pitch-range of English is narrower than that of German, and Wittig may mean the same when he says that British English is "weit ruhiger, gemäßigter, zurückhaltender" ( 1 9 5 6 : 7 4 ) . Gibbon, on the other hand, asserts that German has a "narrower overall band-width" ( 1 9 7 8 : 2 5 ) , and my own experience supports this view. Kuhlmann states that "im Englischen, verglichen mit dem Deutschen, ziemlich tief gesprochen wird" ( 1 9 5 2 : 2 0 1 ) . This surprises me, but as Kuhlmann had only one experimental subject for each language, and as individuals certainly d i f f e r in this particular, I do not think his evidence is of general application. The conclusions presented in this sub-section are my own. Individually, they all receive some support in the literature. Nevertheless, there is still wide disagreement, and I cannot support Anderson's assertion that "there emerges from the literature a relatively clear picture of -etic similarities and differences" (1979:26).

75

4.1.3.Summary of Opinions ( i i ) : the Semantics of Intonation in English and German

On the semantics of intonation in the two languages, there has been less said, but more agreement. Esser opines that "the functional load of intonation in English ... is greater than in German ( 1 9 7 8 : 4 9 ) . While not all authors assert this view explicitly, I have not found one who denies it, or maintains the opposite. This view underlies Schubiger's ( 1 9 6 5 ) article comparing intonation in English with modal particles in German, and is repeated by Bublitz: "Vor allem die Intonation ist im Englischen so leistungsfähig" (1978: 1 9 1 ) , and the corollary was stated by Trim when he said that the "expression of attitude" by intonation in German was "rudimentary" ( 1 9 6 4 : 3 7 5 ) . All these writers note that certain functions of intonation in English (and they turn out to be not only attitudinal) can be exercised in German by the use of modal particles and the exploitation of freer word-order. While these means are available to a lesser degree in English also, no case has been reported, and I know of none, where German intonation is expressed in English by some other part of the language system. One should not look at any of these devices in isolation; both languages make use of a variety of other means to express similar types of meaning, not the least important of which are various syntactic constructions, and the lexicon. Many of these devices are explored in considerable depth by Bublitz, and I shall not go into them. Bublitz also takes intonation into account, but it is unfortunate that one often has to infer indirectly what he means, as his use of transcription (the tonetic-stress-mark system) is inconsistent. Bublitz notes some attitudinal uses of intonation in German, though always in conjunction with some other device (see, for example, ( 1 9 7 8 : 1 7 4 ) ) , but these meanings are very vaguely characterized. More comprehensive are the treatments referred to in chapter 3 by Kohler ( 1 9 7 7 ) , and, especially, Pheby ( 1 9 7 5 ) . However this is an area in which more work needs to be done; one reason for its neglect is the unwillingness of German scholars to regard these functions of intonation as a proper object of linguistic study, and an

76 apparent belief on the part of many that the aim of any study is to achieve the maximum reduction in the number of categories. Trim ( 1 9 6 4 : 3 7 8 ) states that "one of the most important functions of intonation in German, and one which differentiates it sharply from English" is the correlation between the height of a syllable and its semantic weight. I have mentioned the theoretical problems of such a view, including the difficulties of verifying it, in 2 . 1 above. This aspect of the functions of intonation has certain affinities with those of termination and key, and in a contrastive study is probably best investigated in conjunction with them. Such an investigation forms no part of the present study.

4.2.

Concepts in Contrastive Linguistic Studies

4.2.1.Correspondence, Equivalence and Congruence Nickel, in the Introduction to his Reader zur "kontrastiven Linguistik ( 1 9 7 2 : 9 ) , notes that extravagant assertions have been made in the past in the field of contrastive linguistics: "Kontrastanalysen haben sich nicht nur auf rein linguistische Feststellungen beschränkt, sondern auch Wertungen sprachlicher Systeme auf dem Wege des Vergleichs herauszuarbeiten versucht". Such attempts are also to be met with in comparative studies of English and German intonation; thus Wittig: "Soweit wie möglich sucht ... das Amerikanische (und Englische) Geschehnisse und Dinge nebenzuordnen, wo das Deutsche unterordnet; dies entspricht der pragmatisch-pluralistischen Vorstellung des Amerikaners" ( 1 9 5 6 : 9 3 ) . Like Nickel, I shall content myself with one example of the kind; the object of contrastive linguistics must be f i r s t of all to establish what the contrasts are; in intonation studies,this process still has a long way to go. Contrastive studies in intonation can proceed in a number of ways depending on what is taken as the tertium comparationis. In the case of a phonetic comparison, this will be the abstract quantity whose variations constitute what we call intonation, and the object of study to establish how these variations d i f f e r . Alternatively, meaning may constitute the basis of comparison. Here, given that meaning is expressed intonationally in one language, the object is to discover how it is expressed in the other. Thirdly,

77 intonation patterns may be the constant; here, we ask what a given pattern means in each language. The phonetic aspect was considered in 4 . 1 . above, and I shall have little further to say about it. This is not to deny the importance of -etic differences, if only because the learner certainly, and at the present time the linguist also, cannot be sure that a phonetic difference is not functional. However, my procedure, outlined in chapter 1, and to be described in detail in chapter 6, is to take the patterns of one language only, and to investigate distinctions assumed to be functional. This procedure also involves a combination of the other two approaches: I shall attempt to establish how German renders given meaning distinctions made intonationally in English, in order to predict and explain how German speakers interpret a given intonation pattern in English. The terms "congruence" and "equivalence" are taken from Krzeszowski. Sentences are "equivalent" if they have the same meaning, or more strictly, if they have the same semantic input: "Äquivalente Konstruktionen haben identische Eingabestrukturen (semantische Strukturen)" ( 1 9 7 2 : 7 7 ) . This presupposes a linear model, starting with semantics and ending with phonetics; we need not accept this, however, for the term to be of some use to us. Krzeszowski makes it clear that translation equivalence in practice may not be the same thing. He suggests that this is a matter of performance, but I think the reasons for the differences are quite fundamental. It is clear that insofar as the form of the message constitutes part of the message (not only in extreme cases such as puns, rhyme etc., but also in such matters as length, elegance e t c . ) , there can in principle be no equivalence across languages. The same is illustrated by such pairs as Meine Kusine wohnt in Hamburg / My cousin lives in Hamburgt where information is lost in the English translation (the sentences are not equivalent); attempts to recover the lost information result in My female cousin lives in Hamburg, which is also not equivalent. "Equivalence" must be understood with these qualifications as to its absoluteness. "Congruence" is used by Krzeszowski to refer to the formal identity of equivalent sentences. Of course, no sentences from different languages are congruent at the phonetic level. Krzeszowski

78

therefore makes it clear ( 1 9 7 2 : 7 8 - 7 9 ) that one can only talk of congruence at a particular level of representation, whereby "equivalence" can be redefined as "congruence at the semantic level". A formal definition obviously depends upon a previously defined grammatical model but an informal and more generally applicable definition is possible and still useful. We can speak of congruence between sentences in different languages if an element of meaning is expounded in the same way in each. A third term is needed to refer to identity of realization where there is no equivalence, for which I shall use correspondence. It will be clear that there is a certain amount of congruence in English and German intonation, both systemic, in that intonation is the means by which certain equivalences are realised in the two languages, and tonic, where the same tone has the same meaning, for example, in that a fall to low can signal finality. But lack of systemic congruence is also evident , and it is at least possible that there is a degree of non-congruent correspondence (for example if the post-ictic fall in German is perceived as a rise-fall by English hearers, but has quite different connotations).

4.2.2.Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis The purpose of the present investigation is in part to identify contrasts in the intonation systems of English and German, and to evaluate their importance in practice. It is felt that this will contribute both to the theory and practice of translation, and to the teaching of English. The usefulness of either a contrastive analysis or an error analysis for the latter purpose has been doubted by some (e.g. Newmark & Reibel ( 1 9 6 8 ) ) , but common experience teaches one that speakers of different L..S will tend to make different types of error in the common L«. There has also been some controversy as to whether a contrastive analysis of the languages or an analysis of learners' errors is the more promising approach, the main argument in favour of the latter being that there is little point in going to any trouble to predict errors when we can see them being made before our eyes (see (Corder 1967: 1 6 2 ) ) . It is also said that contrastive analysis can only predict

79

those errors resulting from L.. interference, which is clearly not the only source of error. This is true, but it is in fact an argument for contrastive analysis, for only thereby can the source of error be identified or excluded. It is also plausible to suppose that errors resulting from L 1 interference may best be combatted in different ways from those resulting from other causes. There are a number of these latter: the most obvious is the over-generalisation of L- patterns. Another may be wrong information from the teacher, based perhaps on a more widespread misconception. In the field of English/German intonation, the following is a good example: Not infrequently, a gentle rise replaces the normal fall in statements, requests and specific questions in friendly or polite discourse, apparently more commonly in England than America. This alteration of the normal pitch-figure does not change these sentence types into yes-no questions. This "intonation of politeness" may reflect a personal attitude of the moment or it may be habitual. Among certain social groups in Great Britain, it is regardes as a mark of good breeding (Kurath 1 9 6 4 : 1 3 0 ) . This is, I believe, simply untrue, but it appears to have wide currency, and may also underlie the assertion of Stock & Zacharias that the English fall normally ends in a slight rise ( 1 9 7 3 : 1 1 5 ) . Two other reasons for intonational errors have been suggested. Gibbon suggests that rising intonations may be used with the implication 'Is what I'm saying correct? 1 reflecting lack of confidence on the part of the learner ( 1 9 7 6 : 3 9 ) ; and Brazil thinks that pupils imitate their teachers' classroom manner, which may well be inappropriate to other social situations (suggested to me in conversation). An important reason for conducting a contrastive analysis is that a learner's productive errors - the kind that stare us in the face - are not the only measure of his lack of proficiency. First, structures, words/ intonation patterns etc. may be avoided, either because the learner knows of their existence but is uncertain of his ability to use them correctly, or because he is ignorant of their existence. Secondly, errors of interpretation are not directly observable, but can only be inferred from observation of behaviour. Sometimes this may be almost infallible: if one asks a learner to open the window, and he passes you the chalk, there is prima facie evidence of lack of comprehension. If however one says Sit down

80

please with the intention of being polite, and the learner interprets the request as haughty, his resentment may not be observable

all. The present investigation is concerned with the latter aspect, partly because it is largely unexplored, partly because it lends itself well to empirical study. It takes the form of a contrastive

at

analysis, on which certain hypotheses are based, and of a form of error analysis, in which these hypotheses are tested. On the latter, one point must be noted. "Error" analysis presupposes that we recognize an error when we see one. However, intonation studies have not yet reached the point where we can say that pattern X has meaning A, and if the learner thinks it has meaning B, then he is wrong. Nor can we be confident about the reaction of experimental subjects to the experimental situation. The use of native-speaker subjects in these experiments thus serves a twofold purpose: first, to establish the 'correct 1 answer; and second, to assess the effects of the experimental situation, i.e. to act as a control group. The first of these considerations has led me to include certain tests where the contrastive aspect was not the primary motivation.

4.3.

General Hypotheses

Corder ( 1 9 7 2 : 1 7 9 ) distinguishes between superficially deviant, superficially well-formed and appropriate, and superficially wellformed but inappropriate utterances by learners. For acts of speech reception, one can distinguish between utterances which are understood, those that are misunderstood, and those that are not understood. The same is true of intonation patterns. When presented experimentally with sets of intonation patterns to be matched to meanings, the subject may match them correctly, systematically incorrectly, or randomly. Hypotheses predicting answering behaviour can be formed on the basis of the contrastive considerations presented in 4 . 1 . above. Among the general hypotheses (no claim is made that the list is exhaustive) are the following: 1) German-speakers can be expected to be in general less sensitive to intonational differences. All descriptions suggest that into-

81

nation is less important in German, and that the inventory of patterns is smaller; ii)they can be expected to be particularly insensitive to melodic differences in the body of a tone-unit. It is by no means certain that such differences exist at all in German, or that it is appropriate to analyze German intonation in such terms; iii) as discontinuities along the parameter of pitch-height have not been described for German, German-speakers might not be expected to be sensitive to the difference between the high and low rising nuclear tones, nor between the narrow and broad falling-rising nuclear tones; iv)given that the post-ictic fall in German is a rise-fall, Germanspeakers may not be sensitive to the distinction between the high fall and the rise-fall in English (though this is tentative, the English rise-fall being marked by other features); v) German-speakers can be expected not in general to be sensitive to the attitudinal meanings of many English melodemes, especially those ending in the same direction; vi)they can be expected not to recognize the intonational component of specific sentence types in English, in those cases where its role is distinctive; vii)they can be expected to be sensitive to the difference between the rise and the fall-rise nuclear tones in English, but not to know what value to attach to each; ix)they can be expected to be in general sensitive to the difference between a falling and a rising tone; accent assignment and nucleus placement (where these do not have specifically attitudinal meanings) ; and tone-unit boundary placement (again, where this does not have a specifically attitudinal meaning). In a number of these areas, while plausible hypotheses can be made about the responses of native-speakers on the basis of published accounts and one's own observations, precise predictions cannot be made with absolute confidence. Implicit in the hypotheses concerning the responses of German-speakers are therefore hypotheses concerning the responses of native-speakers.

82 4.4.

Detailed Analyses and Hypotheses

4.4.1.Introduction This section consists of a detailed contrastive analysis of a number of areas of English where intonation has an important role, and in general where, on the basis of the general hypotheses stated above, there is reason to suppose that German-speakers might be insensitive or less sensitive to the intonational distinctions involved.

For ease of reference, the analyses are related directly

to the corresponding experiments, which are described, with results and discussion, in the same order in chapter 7. For each experiment or group of experiments the nature and function of the intonational distinction in English will be b r i e f l y discussed; this will be followed by a discussion of means of realizing equivalent distinctions in German. sis,

On the basis of each analy-

predictions of the experimental responses will be stated.

4 . 4 . 2 . T h e Scope of Quantifier and Negation: 'not ... any 1 (Experiment 1} It is well known that a sentence such as She won't dance with anyone is, without intonation, ambiguous as to the relative scope of quantifier and negator. A sentence of this type was used by Palmer in the Introduction to his English Intonation ( 1 9 2 2 ) as, so to speak, a justification of the book.

It is probably the clearest

example in English of a minimal semantic pair differentiated by melody alone. It is possibly the only case where the truth-conditions (as opposed to illocutionary or attitudinal meaning) depend on melody alone.

This makes it a very convenient example to use as

a demonstration of the importance of intonation, although in view of its

uniqueness, there must be some doubt about whether

typically demonstrates anything.

it

It was pointed out by Arnold that

"minimal pairs of the kind She doesn't speak to anybody constitute a minute proportion of possible utterances" ( 1 9 6 1 : 1 4 ) . Be that as

83

it may, these are nevertheless excellent control items for experimental purposes. The intonational difference in question is: /'o ^n/ vs v / ο n / , the nucleus being in each case on the word any. I shall assume that it is the nuclear tone which is distinctive (though I have not tested this, for example by eliciting judgements of sentences where body and nucleus were artificially mismatched) . The semantic difference is that the scope of the quantifier is either within that of the negator ( f a l l - r i s e ) , or vice versa ( f a l l ) . The second meaning can be expressed by an alternative string of formatives, namely: She'll dance with nobody

The intonational distinction is neutralized if the nucleus is moved to another word, thus: She won't or

She won't

\ ^

dance with anybody dance with anybody

My own (untested) intuition is that these have the ' f a l l 1 meaning. The same I believe is true if another tone is used, for example as an echo-question: She

won't

dance with

anybody

My intuitions fail me when the nucleus is a low rise. Such distinctions would be interesting material for further experiment. This distinction has been discussed by Bolinger ( 1 9 5 8 c ) , Lee ( 1 9 5 6 : 3 4 7 ) , A. Cruttenden ( 1 9 7 0 : 1 8 9 ) , and Hirst ( 1 9 7 5 : 1 2 3 - 2 4 ) . A similar, but I think less frequently made and less consistent distinction, with all as the quantifier, preceding not, is discussed by Jackendoff ( 1 9 7 2 : 3 5 2 f ) and by Ladd ( 1 9 7 7 ) . Jackendoff's example is:

84 v

vs

\.

All

the men didn't go

All

the men didn't go

(where the transcription represents my interpretation of Jackend o f f ' s unsatisfactory notation).

These are said to mean respective-

ly:

Not all

the men went

and

None of the men went

which accords with my intuition.

Jackendoff maintains this distinc-

tion to be a special case of the fall vs fall-rise distinction in more general contexts, and I think he is right. Jackendoff 's formulas are designed to reflect the fact, as he sees it (and I think it is an important insight) , that single-focus fall-rise sentences are of opposite polarity to their "presupposition", their "assertion" being that the focussed element does not satisfy the presupposition. Paraphrasing his formula for the sentence *All the men didn't go, he says "some number of the men went" - the presupposition - "but all is not the correct number" - the assertion.

The working-out is then: "hence the number that went must be

less than all

(since there is no greater number) " (1 972 : 356) . As

Solinger put it in his discussion of the not ... any sentences, "we infer the sense and reject the nonsense, as we always do" ( 1 9 5 8 c : 3 4 ) . The argument is analogous to that for such sentences as She

^

likes

I

V

talians, which would run: There are people she

does not like; but Italians are not among them. And, importantly for our present purpose, it is just the same for any, which is a universal quantifier no less than all. use make paraphrases more d i f f i c u l t , greater number than all

The restrictions on its but just as there is "no

, there is also no greater number than any.

on the difference between different universal quantifiers, see (Vendler 1 9 6 8 , ch.3) and (J.M. Anderson 1 9 7 3 ) .

85

In the respect under discussion, She

^

won't dance with

V

all

She

^

won't dance with

^

any of the men

the men

and

mean the same thing. (Of course, their meanings d i f f e r in other respects, which are hard to define.) With a falling nucleus, Jackendoff's theory states that it is asserted that the focussed element satisfies the presupposition. In the case of the sentence She won't dance with x a n y o n e } the reasoning is: There is a certain number of people with whom she won't dance, and any is that number. If one bears in mind that in the respect under consideration any means the same as all, this is the same as saying: She'll dance with no one, which is what the sentence means. I will defer further remarks on this explanation of fall-rise sentences until 4 . 4 . 3 , which deals with this intonational distinction in a wider range of contexts. German has no single translation equivalent of any. The ambiguity of not ... any in the English sense does not arise. Where the universality of negation is meant, a single negative quantifier or pro. form is used, congruent with the alternative English expression, is used; thus: kein ( ' n o ' ) , nichts ( " n o t h i n g ) , niemand ( ' n o o n e 1 ) , nirgends ( ' n o w h e r e ' ) . Where negation of universality is meant, German uses a negator followed by a universal quantifier; thus: nicht ... jede (r) ('not ... every', 'not ... a n y ' ) . As the gloss makes clear, these German expressions are in their turn indeterminate As noted above, the difference between any and other universal quantifiers is difficult to define, and this is not the place to explore it (see Vendler (1968) and J.M. Anderson (1973) for interesting discussions). Both sentences: Jackendoff fails to make the point that occasioned by the fall-rise contradicts pretation of the text of a sentence, an This is the case with vAll the men went

if the reasoning any possible interanomaly will result. and She'll * dance

86 She

won't dance with

anyone

and

She won't dance with everyone mean: 'There are people with whom she w o n ' t dance 1 .

In this example,

the difference appears to lie in the reasons, namely, respectively, " . . . because she's choosy 1 and ' . . . because there's no t i m e ' . This distinction lacks generality, of course, but there is some evidence (gathered from observation and informal elicitation) that the two sentences should be translated into German as

Sie

tanzt nicht j mit

jedem

Sie

, tanzt nicht I mit

^jedem

and

The first sentence is an example of an intonational cliche, which occurs in a wide range of negative sentences, such as Er

Λ

wohnt

nicht ^weit, and whose meaning I am uncertain of. It is clearly not specific to the construction under consideration, and is almost certainly in part attitudinal.

Sie

tanzt

However, all my informants reject

mit

^keinem

which means there is a correspondence, probably co-incidental and therefore not a congruence, with the English patterns. In view of this, we might expect a degree of positive transfer from German to English,albeit for the wrong reasons. For the results of experiment

I,

see 7 . 2 . 1 .

4 . 4 . 3 . D e f i n i t e and Implicatory Statements (Experiment II) II deals with the same melodic difference as I.

The relative

contributions of the glissando body and fall-rise nucleus are investigated in a number of experiments described below ( X a , Xb, Xlla, Xllb, XVIII and XIX) .

87

The semantic distinction has often been described.

For Halliday

(1970b) it is the first distinction to be given, and the meanings given as "neutral" for the fall, and "reservation, or contrast, or personal opinion offered for consideration" for the fall-rise ( 1 9 7 0 b : 2 6 ) . O'Connor & Arnold give a number of descriptions of the fall-rise pattern, starting from "contrast" and "concession", and going on to more attitudinal descriptions such as "defensive dissent" ( 1 9 6 1 , 1 9 7 3 : 6 8 - 6 9 ) . All their examples can however be characterized by one of Halliday's three descriptions. Similar descriptions will be found in Sweet (1886) and all of the descriptive works on English intonation already referred to. More theoretical treatments are offered by Jackendoff ( 1 9 7 2 ) , Ladd ( 1 9 7 7 ) and Hirst ( 1 9 7 5 ) . I have already dealt with the working out of Jackendoff's theory in the previous section; the theory itself is based on the notion that a fall-rise marks the "independent" variable, or "given" element (of (Brazil 1 9 7 5 ) ) . In the case of single-focus fall-rise sentences, the dependent variable is the affirmative/negative distinction ( 1 9 7 2 : 2 6 3 ) . Thus we arrive at the result that such sentences assert that their focussed element does not satisfy the presupposition (this being the new information). The "presupposition" in Jackendoff's terms is the "implication" or "reservation" noted in most descriptive treatments; the fact that the focussed element does not satisfy it accounts for the "contrast" ο which has also been noted.1"' Ladd's opinion ( 1 9 7 7 : 4 ) that the fall-rise marks "focus within a given set" is another way of saying the same thing. The "given set" seems to be what contrasts with the focus; that the focussed element is a member of this set is a matter of pragmatic interpretability. Hirst explains the fall-rise as a combination of the features ^contrast} (for the fall) and [ -terminal] (for the r i s e ) . He goes on: 8

I do not think Jackendoff actually draws these conclusions, but they are the best interpretation of his proposals. This is, however, by the way; I refer to Jackendoff not to j u s t i f y his theories, but to make use of certain insights. A particular weakness in his approach is the generalization of the term "independent variable" to refer to "given" items in twofocus sentences, and "new" items in single-focus ones.

88

What we shall be calling contrast corresponds to what British phoneticians refer to as two different intonation patterns. The first of these, when contrast is followed by a terminal boundary, being the equivalent of a 'high f a l l 1 , and the second, when the contrast is followed by a non-terminal boundary, being the equivalent of a fall-rise. The analysis of intonation into distinctive intonative features allows us to bring to light the essential identity of the feature contrast in its different occurrences(1975: 117) . The view expressed in the last sentence does not, I think, amount to any more than saying that both tones imply an element of contrast; what contrast actually means is not in fact defined. It is intuitively correct that fall-rise tones often imply a contrast with something yet to come (the "implication"), and the [-terminall (i.e. progredient) boundary accords with this intuition. These abstract analyses serve a useful purpose even from the descriptive point of view in that in principle they help to separate the meaning of the fall-rise pattern from that of the lexical items which it accompanies. I have already noted that there is uncertainty concerning the functions, and even the existence, of the fall-rise tone in German (see 3.3.1. above). It has nowhere been suggested that it has the function it has in English, however the latter is formalized. The simplest translation of the English / " / into German is, as variously observed, (e.g. by Trim ( 1 9 6 4 : 3 7 5 ) and Schubiger ( 1 9 6 4 : 2 5 5 ) ) , the pre-posing of the element equivalent to that bearing the fall-rise in English. Such pre-posed elements usually have a rise in German (though Pheby notes fall-rises in this position). x Thus She's * pretty becomes f Hübsch \I ist sie. One often hears the particle ja appended, thus: , Hübsah \ ^ist sie Ja. Another possibility is Sie ist zwar , hübsch^ but this is spelling out the contrast; the rising tone here is progredient, as zuar demands a following aber (although this may be left unsaid). Schubiger suggests than an English fall-rise is often equivalent to the German particle doch ( 1 9 6 5 : 7 3 ) ; however she also gives doch as a translation of every other tone in English, and it is not at all clear that doch and the fall-rise are at all equivalent; rather, it sometimes happens that the best translation equivalent of a sentence with one is a sentence with the other.

89 In view of the possibility of rising intonations in sentences containing zwar, and the fact that a fall-rise is unmistakably different from a fall in English, the prediction is that Germanspeakers will be sensitive to the distinction where their attention is drawn to it (as here; in the later experiment X I X , the melodeme /*o vn / is contrasted with six other rising patterns.) See also III

and IV described in 4 . 4 . 4 . and 4 . 4 . 5 . immediately

below.

4 . 4 . 4 . ' L i m i t i n g ' and 'Extending 1 Statements (Experiment

III)

As noted above, the fall-rise is quite d i f f e r e n t from the f a l l . It is also quite different with it.

Both are 'marked

from the rise-fall, but often confused 1

tones, phonetically in the sense of

"complex" and semantically in that neither has a 'neutral 1 meaning. For this reason it was decided to supplement experiment II with two experiments contrasting the fall-rise with the rise-fall. One convenient set of contrasting minimal pairs is provided by such as the following:

It It

^

v

wouldn't surprise me to see a bright

, wouldn't surprise me to see a bright

red

one

red one

The first implies that I would be surprised to see other colours; it

limits my lack of surprise to red.

The second implies that

nothing would surprise me, not even red; surprise to red.

it

extends my lack of

The two patterns, which are phonetically almost

mirror-images, have almost exactly opposite meanings. The rise-fall pattern means the same as even, and is often found together with it. This was noted by O'Connor & Arnold ( 1 9 6 1 , 1 9 7 3 : 7 9 ) and by Schubiger, who says, however, that "the rise-fall is a purely emotional variant of the fall ... the even relation can be expressed by means of the rise-fall only in emotional speech" (1965:519).

I doubt whether this assertion is verifiable, as I

imagine "emotional speech" would have to be defined by the relatively frequent occurrence of certain features of which the rise-fall

90

might be one, in which case the argument is circular. But in any case I do not believe it is true; there is no doubt that the risefall has uses which might be described as emotional, but this is not one of them. Further, as I have said before, I see no virtue in classifying meanings thus. Whole theories of semantics seem to turn on the status of even (see Kempson 1975:200-2), and what applies to even applies to this use of the rise-fall. As Kempson's discussion is inconclusive, for all its length, and as there is no doubt about what the German equivalent is, I do not intend here to go into the semantics of even or the rise-fall. As far as I can tell, the equivalent sentences in German do not make use of intonation, but only of the particles sogar, in certain contexts auch, and, with negatives, einmal. There is therefore no congruent opposition in German to the one under investigation. In view of this, and as neither tone is marked in relation to the other, the prediction is that German-speakers will be insensitive to this distinction. As for native-speakers, it seems that without 9 training they find the phonetic distinction d i f f i c u l t , but the semantic distinction is very obvious, and I predict no difficulty.

4.4.5.Questions and Exclamations (Experiment IV) Like III, IV is concerned with the ability to associate the contrast between a rise-fall and a fall-rise with a given semantic contrast, namely question us exclamation. In this experiment, the pre-nuclear patterns were different, namely a stepping-down body with the risefall (instead of a rising body), and a high level body with the fallrise. I am not sure whether the stepping-down and high level bodies are functionally distinct; the forms of the melodemes in this experiment reflect my own usage, however. Syntactically the pattern is of a negative interrogative structure, and the contrast is thus between such pairs as :

9

Trim reports this as his experience as a teacher of phonetics; it was certainly mine as a learner.

91

Don't

they have nice

furniture

and

Don't

Ι

they have nice

Λ

furniture

It may not be correct to say that the two structures are both interrogative; one could equally well say that the inversion structure is used for both interrogatives and exclamatives. There are differences in their behaviour, such as the possibility of the inclusion of any, and the difference in intonation may be regarded as of the same sort. The use of the rise-fall in exclamatives of this type seems very common indeed, although there is no more than incidental mention of it in the standard descriptive works. Halliday says the rise-fall is "asserting or expressing some other form of commitment" ( 1 9 7 0 b : 2 7 ) . This has an interesting parallel in Kempson, who is troubled by the fact that exclamations do not conform to the Maxim of Quantity, as they impart information which is already known. She goes on to say that "one possible explanation ... is that they are not mere statements of fact but are communications of the strength of the speaker's commitment" (1975: 1 7 2 ) . On the same lines, Brazil says of certain kinds of rise-fall utterance that "their matter contributes nothing to their information value, so we must attribute whatever communicative function they have to co-occurring intonation choices" ( 1 9 7 8 : 5 3 ) . The semantics of exclamatives and of rise-falls have then been considered in similar lights; when either is used, what is being communicated is not the message, but the speaker's commitment to it. If this is so, it is not surprising that the two are associated. As far as the rise-fall is concerned, it may be an overgeneralization, but it is a plausible common factor of a number of kinds of rise-fall utterances besides exclamatives (for example, rejoinders like Does he, No, ). The use of / "*o "n / in questions is discussed in detail in 4 . 4 . 1 3 below. In German, the negative subject-verb inversion structure is rarely used as an exclamative. There are some examples, such as:

92

Jet das nicht schön War das nicht furchtbar

The exclamatory meaning is only present in copula-plus-adjective structures; thus

Hat er kein großes Auto

can only be a question.

This limitation does not of course apply

to English. Where an exclamatory reading is possible, it seems always to be accompanied by a rising nuclear tone. A fall-rise, e.g. Jet das nicht v schön, seems always to be assciated with a question. It is d i f f i c u l t to assess the equivalence of exclamatory structures in the two languages, as their conditions of use have not been fully investigated in either. Kempson has some discussion in the passage cited above, there are observations in Quirk et .(1972: 400), and some quite detailed considerations by Hudson ( 1 9 7 5 : 1 O f ) , who notes that

Isn't that a pretty dress and

What a pretty dress are not mutually substitutable, and suggests that whereas they share one "sincerity condition", namely, that "the speaker is impressed by the degree to which a property defined in the proposition is present", the former, but not the latter, has an additional sincerity condition, namely that "the speaker believes that the hearer knows as well as he himself whether the proposition is true or false" - which means that the message is the speaker's attitude to the proposition. It is difficult to verify such hypotheses, but the notion of "sincerity condition" provides a way of looking at such structures, and at others which have not yet been considered, such as:

93

Das ist

aber ein hübsches Kleid

Another possibility is the use of the particle jo., as in

Das ist

also noted by Bublitz.

ja herrlich

Other structures are also used, such as:

Wie herrlich

Conditions similar to those suggested by Hudson may well differentiate the potential for use of these various possibilities in German, but there is no space to discuss them here. The intonation of exclamatives in German appears usually to be a post-ictic fall (which is a kind of rise-fall, as we n o t e d ) , except in those cases which are congruent to the English structure under consideration, when it is a rise. The fall-rise does not seem to occur in exclamatives. For these reasons, it is predicted that German-speakers would not in general be insensitive to this distinction, but the lack of congruence is an uncertainty factor.

4 . 4 . 6 . T w o Kinds of 'Might Have 1 Sentence (Experiment v) I am concerned here with the pair

He

might have told

Mary

and

He

\»

might have told

^

Mary

where the former means 'Perhaps he told Mary 1 , and the second (among other readings, see below) means 'He didn't tell Mary, which was inconsiderate of him'.

The first is equivalent to what is consider-

ed by some the more acceptable He may have told Mary, while the

94 second is, presumably, the apodosis of an unfulfilled conditional, the protasis being something like if he had been more thoughtful. The use of the fall-rise in the conditional might seem to be an instance of the implicatory fall-rise discussed in 4 . 4 . 3 . above, but this explanation is problematic: the nuclear tone on Mary would then have the effect of singling her out, but there is no such implication, as becomes clear when we look at the other reading of this sentence with / * ο v n / , exemplified by the context: A: Β:

'Has he told anyone about this?' 'I don't know. He * might have told "Mary. I shouldn't think he's told anyone else. '

v

in which Mary is obviously singled out. But this is a different sentence: might can be replaced by may, and it is clearly not part of a counterfactual conditional. Hirst discusses this point (1975: 7 8 ) , but asserts that the two readings are associated with different melodemes ( / ο η/ for the conditional, /'ο η / for the other, if I interpret his notation correctly). I believe he is mistaken, and that the two sentences are homotonous. Jackendoff's suggestion helps to bring out the difference. The non-conditional sentence would be analyzed informally as follows: There are certainly people whom he hasn't told, but Mary may not be among them. This is a reasonable paraphrase of the sentence itself. The conditional version would be analyzed: There are people he might not have told, if ..., but Mary is not one of them. There is no suggestion, however, that this "presupposition" is in fact correct in mentioning other people at all. Consequently, I think we have to look for a quite different explanation of the use of /*ο η / in this type of sentence. I believe it may have affinities with such uses as:

1O this word, which I have coined on the analogy of monotonous and homophonous to mean 'having the same tones' represents, I think, a useful addition to the terminology of our subject.

95

Don't

tell me he's

crashed the car

a

gain!

or: He's

^

not marrying

V

her!

which have the same connotations of exasperation. Alternatively, the fact that the onset is obligatorily on might, even if there are strong syllables preceding, may suggest an intonational cliche not explicable in general terms. The other member of the pair is less problematic. The marking given above, with the melodeme /Ό η ,,η/ , is certainly correct, although the sentence is phonetically very similar to He

might have told Mary

The differences between the two, and the meaning of / ο η η/ , will be discussed in 4 . 4 . 1 1 . below. In German, the distinction with which we are concerned is manifested by a distinction in the mood of the auxiliary which has been neutralized in English. The non-conditional version would be Viel

χ

leicht j hat

er

es

Ma ^ ria

gesagt

whereas the conditional version would be , .., ,

eigentlich ,, /> . s , Ma r^a

Er hatte es j

-„

sagen K nnen

The two structures in other words are different. It is predicted therefore that German-speakers will be insensitive to the distinction in English, unless they are consciously aware of the existence of the conditional version, which is, after all, not uncommon. Phonetically the two versions are fairly similar, in spite of the difference in nuclear placement, because of the considerable pitch movement on *might; and in both cases there is a rise on -ry. These considerations re-inforce the prediction.

96 4.4.7.Factive and Non-Factive Complements of 'Think 1 (Experiment VlJ This experiment is entirely concerned with nuclear tone placement. Its material consists of sentences beginning I thought ..., with the following

intonations:

I

\

thought she was ^married

I

thought she was ^married

I

thought she was

married

^

The first sentence presupposes taht 'she is married 1 , and the complement is therefore factive. The second presupposes that 'she is not married 1 , and the complement non-factive. I am using "presuppose* here in the sense specified in 2 . 3 . 4 .

I also suggested that

lin-

guistically the difference between presupposition and entailment was not important; in the present instance, this means that

J thought she was ^married, but she's only engaged

involves a contradiction; the second sentence.

the same is true, mutatis mutandis, of

The third sentence certainly implies that

'she is not married", but this seems to be cancellable:

A:

'

Why did you call her

B:

' J ^thought she was she is '

Mrs Smith?' married

- and so

I do not think this is a contradiction. The difference between the second and third versions in other respects is not altogether clear to me, but they are rarely, if ever, mutually substitutable. ment;

I would expect:

The first often implies disappoint-

97

J

thought we were having roast

I

thought we were having cold

N

beef

but not porridge

The third version has no such implication, but almost always implies "and that's why I acted as I did 1 . This kind of sentence has received some discussion in the literature, e.g. by Hirst, who adduces it as evidence that "centre" (= nucleus) is required as an intonative feature ( 1 9 7 5 : 3 7 ) . Chomsky presents a related example (1970, 1 9 7 2 : 1 0 9 ) : John washed the oar; I was afraid else would do it

someone

Chomsky says that "stress-assignment... plays a role in determining how the reference of pronouns is to be interpreted". Of course it does in this example/ but only very indirectly. With nucleus on afraid^ someone else is given and presumably anaphoric. With nucleus on else, someone else is new, and cannot be anaphoric. The matter of pronoun reference follows from this, but is incidental. Pronoun reference is also incidental if one thinks that nucleus on afraid indicates factivity, and on else non-factivity. But even this cannot be generalized. Any verb which is only factive or only non-factive can have the nucleus on either itself or its complement without contradiction, thus : J pre

tended she was ^married

I pre I

tended she was

didn't

I didn't

married

^ realize she was , married ' realize she was

married

98

With non-factive complements, however, the second nucleus (the rise) seems to be excluded.

I find

J pre

anomalous.

tended she was ^ married

The reasons for this probably follow from the general

status of the element bearing the rising nucleus in such patterns. In 4 . 4 . 1 1 . I shall suggest that such elements are in many ways like post-posed themes.

While it

is not impossible to thematize a

non-factive complement, such thematizations are d i f f i c u l t textualize, which would account for the anomaly.

to con-

In German, the distinction is similar in that the placing of the falling nucleus is congruent, although there is nothing corresponding to the English rising nucleus, and the distinction is reinforced by non-intonational means.

Thus when denken is factive, it

very often reflexive, and accompanied by the particle schon.

is also The

complement is atonal, thus:

Ich

dachte mir schon

sie wäre verheiratet

When its complement is non-factive, denken is often used in the present tense:

Ich

denke

sie

ist

ver

heiratet

While the functional load of the intonation is heavier in English, the placement of the fall is probably sufficient for recognition of the distinction, and no d i f f i c u l t y is predicted.

4 . 4 . 8 . Short Answers (Experiment VII) This experiment deals with intonational contrasts between answers (or rejoinders, forms:

since the stimulus may not be a question) of the

99

Yes

PRO

AUX

No

PRO

AUX

n't

The intonational patterns associated with such structures are far more varied than I realized when I designed and carried out the experiment, for which I used only the two patterns exemplified by \

Yes

ι

I

s

am

and

I 'm

No

not

on the one hand, and

Yes

I

am

and X

No

I'm

not

on the other. These distinctions were first reported, as far as I know, by Daniel Jones (1918; 1 9 6 2 : 3 1 2 - 1 3 ) , where they form part of a list of miscellaneous patterns which Jones says "are d i f f i c u l t to explain". The distinction Jones makes is that / η ι η/ agrees, while / η η/ disagrees, with the sentiment of the utterance stimulating the response. This was the contrast assumed in this experiment. The only other distinction in the linguistic literature which I know of is the more extensive one by Pope ( 1 9 7 6 c h . 4 ) . Her description of the tones is often vague, so her meaning often has to be inferred, which leads to certain difficulties when one tries to assess the merits of her analysis. One point she makes is that "disagreeing replies to statements ... have what we will call nonstop intonation" ( 1 9 7 6 : 9 0 ) . This presumably means that they consist of one tone-unit. These replies can, she states, have either an A or a B accent (using the terms in J a c k e n d o f f ' s , not Bolinger's

1OO sense).

An A accent seems to have the form Yes she

did

while a B accent is of the form Yes she

v

did

She then continues: "Replies which contradict tend to have intonation opposite (B or A) to the intonation (A or B, respectively) of the statement they are contradicting" ( 1 9 7 6 : 9 1 ) . Thus a question like You're not , going, are you? could be answered by ^ Y e s I ^ am (Pope's example, my notation). A number of interesting points arise here. One is that Pope's "non-stop" intonations are neither of them the same as Jone's singletone-group answer, and, although there may be a dialect difference, neither of hers seems to be as common. The form /„ο η / sounds v surprised or impatient, while / n / might be what O'Connor & Arnold describe as "concerned, reproachful or hurt correction", or "direct contradiction" ( 1 9 6 1 , 1 9 7 3 : 7 0 ) . More important perhaps is the effect of disagreement or contradiction on intonation. Fundamentally, Jones's distinction is "rise = disagreement, fall = agreement'. Pope says 'non-stop = disagreement'. A test-case would be her example ^ Yes I am, which is non-stop and falling. For Pope, it is an answer to You 're not

/going, are you

For me, the natural disagreeing response would be \

Yes I

am

but I would find Yes

I

am

301

acceptable also, which apparently contradicts both Jones and Pope. The same responses seem to be possible after

You 're

not

\

\ are you

going

while after

You're

not

going, are you

the two-fall answer seems preferable.

These intuitions are specu-

lative, but the matter is more complicated than either Jones or Pope present it, A serious d i f f i c u l t y is defining what is meant by disagreement. Clearly one cannot disagree with a simple affirmative yes/no question:

Is that your car?

χ

ι

Yes \ it No

I it

Ν

is

^ isn ' t

And while a negative yes/no question 'expects the answer y e s ' , the same answers would be appropriate for

Isn't this your car?

When the answer is a rejoinder to a statement, Jones's criterion applies:

This is Jack's car, I think

Yes I it No

it

and mutatis mutandis with reversed polarity throughout).

^is .isn't

The

difficult cases are tag-questions, and questions with declarative

102

syntax.

The latter may have rising or falling nuclei (counting

falling-rising as rising for this purpose).

Those with rising

nuclei follow the pattern for interrogatives given above:

This is

/Jack's

oar.

\

I

V

Yes \ it is \ . +_ No [it isn't

Those with a nuclear f a l l are treated as statements:

This is

Jack's cav, then. les j it No it

is isn 't

(but there is no doubt t h a t ^ N o \ it isn't is also possible). With tag-questions, the form of the answer depends on whether the stimulus is seen as a question to be answered, or a statement to be commented on.

This decision will be influenced by the into-

nation of the tag-question, and underlies some of the problems noted above with Pope's analysis. To sum up, we can hypothesize with some confidence that the pattern /V> ^ n / will not be heard as confirmatory by native speakers. I would also predict with perhaps rather less confidence that /*n | v n / will not normally be heard as contradictory unless accompanied by paralinguistic devices of various kinds (e.g. greater loudness, greater deliberation).

Such devices were not used in

the experiments. In German, there is a congruent structure with the English only when there is an auxiliary in the stimulus which can be repeated, although tun and machen are sometimes used as pro-forms.

Sind Sie Engländer·?

Thus:

Ja, bin ich

Holen Sie bitte die Zeitung!

Ja, tu' ich.

However, this use is not so common as in English, and the simple ja} nein or doch do not sound abrupt as yes or no alone often would in English.

The distribution of the three particles is as follows:

103

Sind Sie Engländer?

Ja

(I am)

Doch Sind Sie nicht· Engländer? Sie sind also Engländer. Ja Ja Sie sind also nicht Engländer. Sie sind Engländer, oder? Sie sind nicht Engländer, oder?

Nein

( I ' m not)

II ein

Nein

Doch

Nein

Ja

Nein

Doch

Er ist

Engländer

Ja

Sein IS ein

Er ist

nicht Engländer

Doch

nein

There is a tendency for doch to encroach on the territory of especially, I think, when the question implies disbelief:

Sind Sie wirklich Enaländer?

Doch (I am)

Die große Duden ( V o l . I X 'Hauptschwierigkeiten der deutschen Sprache 1 ) says of this usage: "in süddeutscher Umgangsprache wird oft fälschlich doch für ja gesagt". It is also sometimes said that ja confirms a negative, but I have never heard this usage, and my informants reject it. Rising and falling tones occur on all

three tones, depending on

the degree of finality. The systems of response and rejoinder are clearly hardly ever congruent in the two languages, and never congruent at the intonational level, though the realizations may occasionally correspond.

There is no reason to expect German-

speakers to be sensitive to the confirmation/contradiction distinction in English.

104

4 . 4 . 9 . H i g h and Low Onset and Body with Rising Nuclei, and their Association with Question and Non-Question (Experiments Villa and Vlllb) These experiments were conceived with the general hypothesis in mind that pre-nuclear contours are not regarded as parts of wholecontours in German and are not functionally important as they were hypothesized to be in English. Villa contrasts the melodemes /Ό n / and / ( o n / in association with superficially declarative sentences, such as

Apple trees grow well here

The hypothesized d i f f e r e n c e is between a reading as a casual or offhand statement on the one hand (with the low o n s e t ) , and a question on the other (with the high onset).

For the question

reading, it is unclear whether the sentence is a declarative, or an elliptical interrogative:

(Do) apple

trees grow well here?

I incline to the latter analysis, as

His father

like it here?

seems more natural to me than

His father

likes it

here?

(assuming the latter not to be an echo-question).

Halliday thinks

that declaratives cannot be turned into questions by intonational means alone ( 1 9 6 7 : 2 5 ) , a view also expressed by Urbain ( 1 9 6 9 : 4 7 ) . In order to avoid this problem, all

sentences in this experiment

can be taken either way. Villa contrasts the melodemes /'o on superficially declarative sentences.

n / and / , ο

'η /

, again

The hypothesized semantic

105

distinction is between contradiction (with the low onset) and echo-question (with high onset). All four patterns have been treated descriptively in the literature. I shall consider the treatments by O'Connor & Arnold ( 2 1 9 7 3 ) ; and Halliday ( 1 9 7 0 b ) . /,ο χ η / and /Ό χ n / are O'Connor & Arnold's "Take-Off" and "Low Bounce" respectively.

On a declarative sentence,

the

"Take-Off" has no questioning implications; the Low Bounce is said to be a "surprised and disbelieving question", but the examples are all of sentences which cannot be elliptical interrogatives, and I suggested above that if these are questions at a l l , they are likely to be echo-questions, which is what I interpret O'Connor & Arnold's description to mean. (See (O'Connor & Arnold 1 9 7 3 : 57-59, 6 3 - 6 5 ) ) . For Halliday these patterns are Tones -3 and .3 respectively. .3 is given as "reassuring"on a declarative ( 1 9 7 0 b : 2 7 ) ; -3 is not described, though one example ( 1 9 7 O b : 1 8 ) is given with a reading compatible with my description above. Tone 3 does not appear to occur on interrogatives. /, ο η / does not occur in O'Connor & Arnold's inventory; / ' o 'n / is their "High Bounce". It has the e f f e c t of turning declaratives into questions, which are " very often ... echoed statements" ( 1 9 6 1 ; 1 9 7 3 : 7 5 ) . Unlike the Low Bounce, the High Bounce has no implication of puzzlement, they say. /( ο η/ and /'ο 'η/ are H a l l i d a y ' s Tones -2 and .2 respectively. Tone .2 on declaratives is not given at all in the description of tonal meanings, but one example (197Ob:81) is clearly an echo-question. Tone -2 on declaratives is described as expressing "contradiction, indignant denial" ( 1 9 7 O b : 1 0 5 ) . This corresponds to what I think it means. Both versions of Tone 2 occur on interrogatives; .2 is neutral, -2 surprised. These descriptions are not in total accord. On inspection, it becomes clear that the phenomena being described are not the same. Halliday's Tone 2 is from mid-low to high, O'Connor & Arnold's High Rise from medium to high. Halliday's Tone 3 is from low to mid-low, O'Connor & Arnold's Low Rise from "low to medium or a little above". Both of O'Connor & Arnold's rising tones are a little higher than Halliday's corresponding tones. This would account in

106

part for O'Connor & A r n o l d ' s omission of descriptions, it

/to

x

n /

; from their

is subsumed under " T a k e - O f f " , one of whose

meanings is "contradiction" ( 1 9 6 1 ; 1 9 7 3 : 5 8 ) .

In view of these

discrepancies, I include here contours of the melodies I use myself.

These, and subsequent, contours were established by spectro-

graphic analysis: the 0-16OO Hz section of a narrow-band (42 H z ) spectrogram was magnified by f i v e ; the tracing of the fourth harmonic is reproduced here.

Susan's new

shoes suit Lulu

Fig. 1

tSusan's

new ,shoes suit Lulu Fig.

2

107

Susan 's neu

'skoes suit Lulu Fig. 3

Susan's new

shoes suit Lulu

Fig. 4

It will be observed that the pre-nuclear and nuclear contours are not independent.

The high onset versions have steeper rises, and

the high onset is higher with a high rise than with a low rise. This experiment compares melodemes as bundles of features, and nothing in the discussions should be interpreted as referring to the relative contribution of any individual feature.

108

There is undoubtedly a naive view that questions are spoken with a rise, and also, I suspect,that declarative sentences spoken with a rise are to be interpreted as questions. The latter is probably a prose-writer's convention, but, like Halliday, I doubt if it occurs much in real speech. Among linguists, Lieberman holds the naive view emphatically. It has of course been shown (by Fries ( 1 9 6 4 ) ) that the naive view is not tenable without serious qualifications.

This must cause

problems for those, like Lieberman, who base their theories of question-intonation on the premiss that a yes/no question is in fact the f i r s t half of an alternative question, and the question intonation simply an instance of progredient intonation. This syntactic analysis of questions dates from (Katz & Postal 1 9 6 4 : 95-96) I believe; but it was proposed informally, together with its intonational implications, by Coleman as long ago as 1 9 1 4 . It is taken up again by Hirst; according to him, a rising intonation results if the second alternative is deleted, a falling intonation if the f i r s t is deleted (1975:100-3). As there are no independent grounds for specifying which, if either, is deleted, nothing is explained. Pope also derives yes/no questions from alternatives ( 1 9 7 6 : 8 7 ) . She does not attempt to explain the falling tones, but does try to show why fall-rises are not used. It is because in disjunctions "the more nearly true opposites the two terms are, the more likely it is that the B accent [= rise or fall-rise] will take the form of a plain rise". As questions derive from a disjunction whose second term is Or not 1 , the likelihood of a rise is very great. This argument is unconvincing, not least because yes/no questions very often ape spoken with a fall-rise (see 4 . 4 . 1 3 . below). Brazil explains the common occurrence of a rise (or fall-rise) in questions thus: "If an utterance has only referring tones, it * serves to present matter as presumed common ground; the next speaker is constrained to confirm that it does, in fact, have that status" ( 1 9 7 5 : 3 0 ) . The next speaker would only be "constrained" in this way if the rise was in fact "referring", and no evidence is brought to show that this is actually the case. In (1978:26) Brazil offers a different explanation, namely that "high termination sets up expectations of a polar response" . Most of the high

109 terminations exemplified are in fact neither rises nor questions, however. Hirvonen concluded from his experiment (discussed in 5 . 4 . 6 . below) that intonation "sets general questions apart from all other sentence categories ... The distinctive point (besides the head) is the portion of the breath-group after the nucleus, during which the pitch rises very high"; and secondly, that "intonation differentiates between communication proper and communication with an appeal". This latter category includes questions, requests, commands, invitations etc., and is distinguished by "the beginning of a contour, which has a relatively high pitch". He goes on: "It seems rather surprising that the current textbooks of English intonation do not even mention this intonational feature. The only mention of it that has come to my knowledge dates from the 16th century" ( 1 9 7 0 : 6 6 - 6 7 . The reference is to Hart ( 1 5 6 9 ) ) . Another piece of experimental work on the intonational distinctiveness of questions was carried out by Uldall ( 1 9 6 2 ) . She played a recording of a declarative sentence with fourteen d i f f e r e n t melodic patterns, and discovered that f a l l s were interpreted predominantly as statements, high rises predominantly as questions and that low rises were indeterminate. The earlier points of the contours appear not to have been distinctive. I do not intend to speculate on why questions have certain melodies, but, like Uldall, to concentrate on establishing what melodies they have. My own intuition, based on what I believe to be my own usage (which underlies the whole experiment) is as follows. Given an interrogative structure, all four melodemes treated here, and a number of others, are natural enough, the distinction being attitudinal. In verbless structures, certain melodemes are excluded if the structure is to be interpreted as a question. Among these, I believe, are /;o , n / and /, ο ' η / . There is some truth I think in Hirvonen's claim regarding high onsets, although where a question is signalled well enough by other means, they need not occur. Unambiguously declarative

11 For a discussion and critique of U l d a l l ' s experimental method, see 5 . 4 . 7 . below.

110

structures are rarely ordinary questions (as opposed to echoquestions) . As observed in chapter 3, the reported facts on question and statement in German agree that questions generally have a rise, though Bierwisch ( 1 9 6 6 ) and Stock & Zacharias ( 1 9 7 3 ) are clear that they can also have a f a l l .

quite

For the latter, the important

intonational distinction is not between question and statement, but between "Informationsmotiv" and "Kontaktmotiv", which parallels closely the distinction made by Hirvonen (drawing on works by y

Danes ( 1 9 6 0 ) ) between "communication proper" and "communication with appeal". As for the form of the rise in German questions, it is usually said or implied that it is post-ictic, as are the English rises in this experiment which follow a high body. It was hypothesized that pre-nuclear contours in German have little or no semantic function, although it might be noted that Kohler thinks a question is more friendly if it has a low pre-nuclear contour. In general, rises on statements are not described as frequent in German; von Essen and Bierwisch both refer to "rhetorische Bindung", which involves replacing a terminal intonation by a progredient one, but obviously cannot apply to sentences in isolation. One also sometimes hears such utterances as

Das kannst du doch nicht

'machen

with a fairly high end-point; as this sentence-type is congruent in some ways with the English type associated with /,ο / n / » there may be some sensitivity on the part of the German-speakers towards the meanings of the tones in Vlllb.

However, this is not a common

intonation in German, and it is predicted that in general all the patterns under consideration will sound like questions to German hearers. Note: the melodemes investigated in this experiment are also investigated in XIX, together with three others. XVIII also deals with the intonational characterization of questions, as do Xlla and Xllb, The dlscriminability and differentiation of the high and low rise are also discussed in experiment XVlb. Attention is drawn to the report and discussion of these experiments in chapter 7.

11 1

4 . 4 . 1 0 . The "Broad" Fall-Rise

(Experiments IXa, IXb and IXc)

Halliday's inventory of tones in English includes a variant which is not described elsewhere, which he calls Tone 2_. It is normally found only with the high pre-tonic, and itself has a falling-rising movement (unlike other varieties of Tone 2, which are all simple rises.

This fall-rise d i f f e r s from that

described more generally (which Halliday lists as Tone 4) in a number of ways which Halliday lists systematically (1970b:20). This tone is certainly part of my own inventory, and a spectrogram of my production of it

is shown in Fig. 6 beside that of a

standard fall-rise for comparison ( f i g . 5 ) .

The Tone has no

notation in the tonetic stress-mark system; I shall use represent the melodeme thus:/

Susan's neu

ο

^η /

.

shoes suit Lulu Fig. 5

Susan's new * shoes suit Lulu Fig. 6

V and

112

This melodeme seems to me to be equivalent to /

ο

'η / ; and

while it is unwise to assert, in our present state of knowledge, that two melodies are in free variation, I do not know what the difference between them is. As the tone has been so little described, its separate identity is worth establishing. This can be done by investigating its discriminability vis-a-vis the standard fall-rise. In the three experiments considered here, the following contrasts were made: 1Kb /'n / vs / V n / , with no pre-nuclear syllables; the postulated semantic contrast is 'echo-question vs 'implicatory statement 1 . IXa /Vn /

ys / v n /

vs /^,η j, with no pre-nuclear prominent syl-

lables; the semantic Ordinary question 1 . discussed in 4 . 4 . 1 3 . | v n / and A n / are speakers)

contrast is 'echo-question' v s The status of /"h/ as a question is below. It is hypothesized that both ordinary-question tones (for native-

IXc /"*o v*n / vs I o v n / . Here the semantic contrast is between 'implicatory statement' vs 'echo-question' ys Ordinary question 1 . According to the hypothesis (see also 4 . 4 . 1 3 . b e l o w ) , the response Ordinary question 1 is not appropriate and will not be given by native-speakers. In German, according to Pheby, the rising tone (2) also has a fall-rise variant distinct from the 'standard 1 fall-rise ( P h e b y ' s tone 4 ) . Pheby distinguishes the two as "breit" and "eng" respectively ( 1 9 7 5 : 6 2 ) . The semantic import of the "breit" version is "Erstaunen" ( 1 9 7 5 : 6 O ) . If this is so, its form and function closely parallel the English tone. I am not myself convinced that there are two fall-rise tones in German. Pheby does not give clear criteria for distinguishing them, and one may be an emphatic version of the other. The prediction is that German-speakers will not be sensitive to the distinction in English. Note:

the melodeme / ο ^η / also forms part of the material for experiments XVIb and XIX.

113

4 . 4 . 1 1 , The Fall-Rise and the Fall-plus-Rise (Experiments Xa, Xb f Xc, Xd ; The distinction in question here was the subject of considerable debate during the nineteen-fifties, being the subject of works by L e e ( 1 9 5 6 ) , Schubiger ( 1 9 5 6 ) , Sharp ( 1 9 5 8 ) a n d Hultzen ( 1 9 5 9 ) , the last being an attempt to explicate the data presented by Sharp. Halliday, in his treatment of the matter, is clearly influenced by Hultzen's work, while O'Connor & Arnold are clearly indebted to Lee and Sharp. Kingdon does not appear to have paid any attention to the debate, and I think it fair to say his work is the poorer for it. By 1960 the position was a great deal clearer than it had been earlier. The problem, stated briefly, is that in minimal contexts, such as O'Connor & Arnold's example J like chocolate, the same melody (fall on like, rise on choc-) can have two quite d i f f e r e n t meanings, namely: i) ... but I ' m not allowed to eat if ( f o r example) ii) ... so I greatly appreciate your o f f e r , and will accept (for example). When the sentence has prominent syllables before the f a l l , and/or between the fall and the last prominent syllable, as in My favourite aunt comes from Ireland, certain distinguishing features are often present, suggesting that there are two different patterns involved. These were called by Lee the "fall-rise tone" and the "fall-rise sequence", by Sharp the "fall-rise" and the "fall plus rise", by Halliday Tone 4 and Tone 13, and by O'Connor & Arnold the "Switchback" and the "High D i v e " . I shall use Sharp's terminology and his abbreviations FR and F + R. The question of how to treat the two patterns taxonomically can be answered in one of three ways. Either they are variants of the same tone; this is the position taken by Kingdon ( 1 9 5 8 ) , Stannard Allen ( 1 9 5 4 ) , and most pre-war writers. Or the fall-rise is one tone, and F-»-R is a sequence of two nuclear tones in successive tone-units; this position is held by Trim ( n . d . ) , Brazil (implicitly, 1975, 1 9 7 8 ) , Jassem ( 1 9 5 2 ) and probably Palmer ( 1 9 2 2 ) . Finally, one can regard the FR as one tone, and F+R as another, the view held by Sharp ( 1 9 5 6 ) , Halliday ( 1 9 6 7 , 1 9 7 O b ) , O'Connor & Arnold ( 1 9 6 1 ) , Crystal ( 1 9 6 9 ) , and Hirst ( 1 9 7 5 ) .

114

The first of these positions can be supported by pointing to the similarity of the tones and the fallibility of the alleged distinctive features (see below); but a unified semantic treatment is then impossible. The second position can be supported by two arguments: i) the alleged F+R is unique in requiring to be spread over two words at least; and ii) the f a l l , certainly, and the rise, perhaps, have the functions normally attributed to them. B r a z i l ' s view that the f a l l "proclaims" new information, and the rise "refers" to old, is nicely exemplified in the example J like ^chocolate. However it is precisely in such patterns that these meanings are best demonstrated, given the two tone-units. For the third position, there are two arguments against the f i r s t , and two against the second: i) the semantics of the patterns are d i f f e r e n t ; ii) the phonetic differences, while unstable, are nonetheless present; iii) the analysis with two tone-units must posit an entirely artificial boundary with no syntactic motivation or phonetic effect; and iv) the absolute exclusion of a high onset in the second tone-unit remains unexplained. For these reasons I accept the third view. The phonetic distinction has been written about at some length, and with some general measure of agreement. It is also agreed that the distinction is not consistently made, but as Sharp says, if it were, "no ... confusion or hesitation between FR and F+ R would have arisen" ( 1 9 5 6 : 1 3 0 ) . The distinctive features which have been proposed are as follows. Lee states that with FR, the rise can start immediately after the fall, which it does not in F+R ( 1 9 5 6 : 6 7 ) . Sharp quotes this opinion with approval ( 1 9 5 6 : 1 3 3 ) , and O'Connor & Arnold agree explicitly ( 1 9 6 1 : 1 9 7 3 : 3 0 ) . Sharp suggests another test: "in my own speech at least there is a distinct tendency for F+R to fall to a lower pitch, and finish on a lower pitch, than FR" ( 1 9 5 6 : 1 3 3 ) . O'Connor & Arnold agree with the first observation ( 1 9 6 1 ; 1 9 7 3 : 2 9 ) , while Halliday roughly agrees with second ( 1 9 7 O b : 2 O ) . Sharp also points out that a rise on a weak syllable (e.g. with a reduced vowel) is a sign of FR; O'Connor & Arnold agree ( 1 9 6 1 ; 1 9 7 3 : 1 2 9 ) . This test is of course of limited applicability. Schubiger ( 1 9 5 6 : 1 5 8 ) and Halliday (1970b:20) both maintain that FR is preceded by a rise, and for both this is distinctive.

Halliday has two further suggest-

115

ions: one is that the F+R has "two distinct movements" as opposed to the "one continuous movement" of the FR.

This may be relevant

and true if there is a stretch of utterance between the two syllables in question, otherwise it comes close to saying that speech is literally segmented. Halliday's other distinctive feature is that with the FR the "main force is on the f a l l " , while with F+R there is "even force on the rise and f a l l " .

This may

just be another way of saying that the F+R requires two accented syllables. The contours below are typical of the tones as I pronounce them. The higher rise of F+R, and the greater prominence of the rise, are visible (albeit not clearly) on the longer sentence. In the shorter sentence, a delayed but steeper rise on F+R is discernible. The most obvious difference on the shorter sentence however is the greater duration of the falling syllable of FR, giving an auditorily smoother e f f e c t . This feature of FR, which was noted by Denes & Milton-Williams ( 1 9 6 2 : 5 ) can clearly distinguish FR from F + R . 1 2 Finally, one can distinguish not only between the tones, but between the melodemes in which they characteristically appear. The F+R is usually preceded by a high onset and stepping-down body, and the melodeme can be represented thus: / ' o

v

n

xn

/

.

One of the

melodemes in which FR occurs, that with which we are concerned here, we have already represented/ ο v n / . the contours of the two patterns.

'Susan's neu

N

shoes suit

The diagrams below show

Lulu

Fig. 7

12 it is this feature, together with the characteristic double peak of intensity, which explains the typical representation in writing of this tone, thus: Ye..es.

116

neu

hoen

suit

Lulu

Fig. 8

Shoes do

Shoes ^d

Fig. 10

Fig. 9

The semantics of / /

ο

η

x

n/

o

v

n / a r e discussed in 4 . 4 . 3 . above.

Those of

are discussed in some detail by Sharp, H u l t z e n ,

Halliday, O'Connor & Arnold, and Hirst. answered is: why is there a rise at all?

The main question to be There is no space here

to go into the question of nuclear placement; what is most relevant here is Halliday's notion that what follows the nucleus is "given".

The rising nucleus o f /

follows the falling nucleus. tail?

ο

η

Why is it

χη

/

is also given, and

not simply part of the

Hultzen states that in F+R tone-units, there are two

information points, one bearing the f a l l and the other the rise.

117

However his definition of "information point" is "wherever the speaker has freedom of choice in what he says" ( 1 9 5 9 : 1 0 7 ) . If this can be made to cover both new and given information, it is fairly vacuous. Not only can the element bearing the rise in F+R very often be predicted as to its lexical content, but the two "information points" are clearly not equal: My

^mother's home town is

^Sheffield

is not equivalent to

Sheffield's

my

mother's home town

To overcome this d i f f i c u l t y , Halliday introduced the idea of the "half information point" ( 1 9 6 7 : 3 7 ) . This is explained in simple language in (1970b:43) thus: "The two tonics are unequal in value... The major tonic [ = f a l l ! carries the principal new information in the tone group. The second tonic expresses information which is in some way secondary or subsidiary to it". True, but no explanation of why it is a tonic at all. "One and a half" information points explains nothing. Another approach is taken by Sharp, O'Connor & Arnold, and Hirst. All three note that the rise of a F+R often occurs on an element which can naturally be fronted; and it seems to be the case that even where a fronting of the element bearing the rise is unnatural, it is nevertheless usually still possible. O'Connor & Arnold give as an example ( 1 9 6 1 ; 1 9 7 3 : 8 4 ) : My

\

mother comes from

Sheffield

which is very nearly equivalent to: Sheffield's

where my

mother comes from

Fronting is not always as natural as this.

Thus:

118

Fred's got a

car

can only clumsily be paraphrased as A

oar's something that

Fred's got

Sharp suggests in fact that a final rise is an alternative device to fronting, where the latter would be clumsy or syntactically impossible. In other words, the second nucleus is a form of thematization device, and is in many ways equivalent to an onset, as Hirst also suggests ( 1 9 7 5 : 1 0 7 - 1 0 ) . In addition to the reason given by Sharp, there is another explanation for this device, given by O'Connor & Arnold: "By using the High Dive [_=F + R] , the speaker is able to avoid creating the impression, as he might if he used the High Drop [ = High Fall] on the first nucleus only, that he is bringing the conversation to an end" ( 1 9 6 1 ; 1 9 7 3 : 8 3 ) . This explanation addresses itself to the real problem of why we have a rise. Brazil's category of "termination" is relevant here. Unfortunately, his conclusions seem to be contradictory. For him the F+R is to be analyzed as two tone-units. He addresses himself to the problem thus ( 1 9 7 8 : 5 6 ) : Undoubtedly, both the existence of a lexical item after the tonic syllable, and the choice of r-tone in a separate tone unit can often be interpreted as indications that the item is in some degree "given" or "recoverable". There must be profit in seeing in what respects, if any, they d i f f e r . He then quotes examples where either pattern could be appropriate, and concludes:"Each time, it seems to be the social implications of r-tone rather than the content that constitute most of the information load" ( 1 9 7 8 : 5 8 ) . This is what O'Connor & Arnold said. The difficulty is that it is not easy to determine the "termination" signalled by the low rise: if it is low, it is to be regarded as an "exchange closer", while the high termination signalled by the high fall is not. I think both Sharp's and O'Connor & Arnold's explanations are

119

correct.

In addition, the rise may be on an element which, while

related, is not strictly the topic, and, if thematized by f r o n t i n g , might sound awkward. breakfast?,

Thus in the context What shall we do about

someone might say

The

farmer

sells

milk

where the looser relationship of breakfast

and milk seems better

expressed thus than

Milk's on sale at the

farm

But the importance of the social meaning should not be underestimated.

The F+R almost always means Ί have no objection to pursuing

this s u b j e c t ' .

It may be the origin of the widespread belief in

Germany that English commonly uses a rise as a sign of politeness (compare my quotation from Kurath in 4 . 2 . 5 . ) There appears to be no equivalent device in German.

Although

many more classes of items can be readily fronted, to do so implies contrast, and is often equivalent to a fall-rise in English (as noted in 4 . 4 . 6 . above).

There thus appears to be no readily avail-

able way to differentiate between, e.g.:

J

haven't

seen the

,news

I

haven't

seen the news

and

Both would be translated as

Ich habe die

Nachrichten

noch nicht ge

sehen

habe ich noch nicht ge

sehen

To say

Oie

^Nachrichten

120

would mean ' ... but I have seen X Y Z ' , is equivalent in other words to Si

haven11

seen the

V

news

If one wished to translate J

haven't

V

seen the news

(which, in these experiments, would be the pattern contrasting with I haven't seen the ^ news') one would have to say

Ge

sehen

habe iah die

but this is a very emphatic contrast. probably be explicit: Ich habe die

Nachrichten]

^nicht

In practice, one would

^ Nachrichten Ιη{,ΰ^ ge'sehen l nur geh rt

In view of the facts discussed above, one can predict that native-speakers will distinguish the melodemes fairly well when there is a pre-nuclear body, less easily when there is not, and with some difficulty when there is neither a pre-nuclear body nor inter-nuclear (in the case of / ' ο ν η , n / ) syllables. It cannot be expected that German-speakers will demonstrate any sensitivity to this difference whatever.

4 . 4 . 1 2 . Implicatory Statements and Contrastive Themes (.Experiment XI) In this experiment, pairs of the following type are contrasted: Cambridge is a university city Cambridge | is a uni versity city

121

Sentences of the first type have been discussed in 4 . 4 . 3 . above (but see immediately below for discussion of a further complication) . The second type d i f f e r in that (i) the fall-rise nucleus occurs on a "given", and not a "new" item; and (ii) the item which is "given" in the first is "new" in the second ( i . e . , here , university). Like those with / ο ν η ,n /, sentences of the second type are good examples of how the tones are used as Brazil says they always are, as "referring" and "proclaiming". However, the information value of the two items is apparently reversed, yet one of them retains the same nuclear tone, a fact which must present problems for Brazil's theory, but which we can attempt to explain. The single-focus sentence can be used in (at least) the following type of context:

He said Cambridge, Winchester and Salisbury were ancient university cities. Well, Cambridge is a university city (but the others aren't).

This usage is no different

from that discussed in 4 . 4 . 3 . , and can

be analyzed similarly. The second is a two-focus sentence. Now although Jackendoff's theory seems to have been worked out primarily to handle these, his proposals for single-focus sentences are perhaps more helpful. But we can apply the latter to the analysis of each tone-unit of two-focus sentences individually. Assume the following context:

13 as also for Jackendoff's, though he is less explicit about what is meant by "dependent" and "independent" variables.

122

A. I ' m thinking of settling in East Anglia. Is there much to choose between Cambridge and Ipswich, would you say? B. ^Cambridge | is a uni v versity city. Ipswich, on the other hand, has a successful football team.

For tone-unit 1: There are things which do not have a certain property; Cambridge is not one of them. For tone-unit 2: This property is that of being a university city. University city is new; Cambridge is not, but its contrastive aspect is. What the single-focus and two-focus sentences have in common is the contrast between Cambridge and other places. The giveness or newness of Cambridge is irrelevant. At a late stage in this investigation, I realized that the context I had employed in the experiment for Cambridge is a university city (single-focus) could not be analyzed in the way suggested above. The context is: A. I ' m looking for a university city where I can start a language school. B. Cambridge is a university city. But you'll find a lot of competition. The 'presupposition' (or assumption, as I have called it) here is: There are university cities that are good for starting language schools. This is clearly quite different from: There are some places that are not university cities. In fact this latest example has much in common with the F+R version, which would fit into a similar context: A. r'm looking for a university city where I can start a language school. B. "Cambridge is a uni , versity city. Why don't you try there? In both cases, university city is not only given, but topicalized, I suggested in the preceding sub-section that the rise of F+R was a kind of thematization device. Now the two 'language school 1

123 examples given above do not d i f f e r in respect to the thematic status of university city; where they d i f f e r is in whether Cambridge is implicitly contrasted with any other. example it is,

and in the second it is not.

In the first

There is no doubt that

I pronounce the first example in precisely the same way as if it had a fall-rise nucleus on Cambridge and no other, in other words like the first example on p . 1 2 1 , and not like the F+R version which it resembles semantically in the respects mentioned.

In view of

these considerations(and others, resulting from the German equivalents; see below), I tentatively propose that there might be an underlying melody

Cambridge is a uni ^ versity

oity

in which the rise of the fall-rise, and that of the rise, are conflated, so that the surface form is indistinguishable from

Cambridge is a university

city

While I am extremely reluctant to propose "deep" intonations for which there is no empirical verification, this particular one captures the contrastive and thematic relations in this sentence, distinguishing it both from the F+R and the single-focus FR versions. Moreover, as I shall try to show, the surface singlefocus FR version requires different German translations according to which underlying version is meant. I shall tentatively assume this hypothesis, and with it the melodeme / *o v η , η / . The other patterns a r e / * o v n / (single-focus FR) , / *o ^n I 1 o s n /(two-focus) and / ' ο ν η ,™ / ( F + R ) . We are not concerned with the last in this experiment, which, to recapitulate, contrasts /*o v n | Ό ^n / on the one hand w i t h / * o v n / or l* o "n , τ\ / (undifferentiated) on the other. The German equivalent o f / * o

v

n / , would, according to the

considerations set out in 4 . 4 . 3 . above, have a contrastive theme, thus:

124

Cambridge

\ ist

"schon eine Universit tsstadt

(the particle schon emphasizing the contrast and avoiding unnatural accent on ist). English Λο ν η | Ό N n /would be translated by the same pattern with the nuclear fall on a different element:

^Cambridge J ist

eine Universi *t tsstadt.

The English pattern I have represented as/ ο rendered as

Eine Universi

t tsstadt

w re

ν

η

xn/

is to be

Cambridge

I think the subjunctive is necessary; with an indicative, the sentence would translate the English X

Cambridge is a uni ^versity

city.

It must be emphasized that these equivalences were established on the basis of informal observation and elicitation, and need to be verified by much more thorough empirical work. If they are correct, however, German-speakers should have no difficulty in identifying the meaning of "Cambridge \ is a university city, as the German equivalent is nearly congruent. For this reason, they are likely to identify the other pattern correctly by elimination« Owing to the fact that the distinction is not congruent, however, German-speakers can be expected to show more confusion.

125

4 . 4 . 1 3 . The Fall-Rise Tone in Questions (Experiments X I I x , X l l b ) The history of the discussion of the questioning fall-rise in English is curious.

No text-books of English intonation recognize

that the fall-rise can be used in questions at all. puts it:

As Sharp

"There seems to be something of a conspiracy of silence

where the association of falling-rising is concerned" ( 1 9 5 6 : 1 4 2 ) .

It is not all silence, however.

Palmer says of the fall-rise that "it Statements

patterns with questions

is used exclusively for

and Commands, never for Questions" ( 1 9 2 2 : 8 2 ) .

noted this assertion and found it

Sharp

"decidedly singular" ( 1 9 5 6 : 1 4 2 ) .

I first came across it when I knew relatively little about intonology, and it made me wonder whether I had some fundamental misconception, for I thought then, as I think now, that the f a l l rise was the commonest tone for yes/no questions.

In this opinion

I am supported by Jassem, who asserts that "this is an altogether common intonation" ( 1 9 7 2 : 2 5 1 ) .

Kingdon suggests that it

is a

recent development, but "far from widespread" and "an individual pecularity" ( 1 9 5 8 : 2 1 0 ) .

Jassem also speculates on its

recent

development ( 1 9 7 2 : 2 4 9 ) .

However that may be, the usage is surely

now well-established. In contrast to Jassem, who thinks that d i f f e r e n t body patterns are "apparently in free variation before a question-phrase fallrise" ( 1 9 7 2 : 2 5 1 ) , I believe that a fall-rise in a question is preceded by a high level body, and not the glissando body typical of implicatory fall-rises. trasts /"^o

"n/with/ ο

The f i r s t of these experiments conν

η / ; the second, as a control, contrasts

implicatory statements and questions with fall-rise nuclei, but no pre-nuclear syllables (for a description of the experimental procedure, see 7 . 2 . 1 2 . ) .

The hypothesis is that in Xlla (with

pre-nuclear accents) differentiation is possible and the prediction is that native-speakers will differentiate consistently; in Xllb there is no phonetic contrast. For German, the "conspiracy of silence" is also present, and extends to all

fall-rises.

My own observation is that a fall-rise

(with the phonetic shape described in 3.3.1. above) is the norm for questions.

Only Pheby expressly states that fall-rises occur

on questions ( 1 9 7 5 : 1 5 5 ) ; as we have noted, von Essen transcribes

126

two questions with fall-rises, but treats them as unexplained variants of a rise. In view of the general observation that body patterns do not form, together with nuclei, whole contours in German with distinctive meanings, it is not to be expected that German-speakers will be able to differentiate between the two melodemes in Xlla. Note: the difference between the rise and the fall-rise questions is the subject of experiments XHIa and (see 4 . 4 . 1 4 below), and the contrast between/* ο a n d / * o v n / forms part of experiments XVIII and

in XHIb "η/ XIX.

4 . 4 . 1 4 . "Dominance' (Experiments Xllla and X H I b ) Brazil (1978:47-50) suggests that there is a system of "dominance" expounded by tone.

Within the general framework of "referring"

tone, the fall-rise is said to refer to "vividly present background", the rise to "matter, which, while deemed to be present in the area of convergence, has need of reactivation".

The line of reasoning

is pursued as follows: There are instances where the placing of the matter on any scale of immediacy or remoteness is so equivocal a business that it is tempting to regard tone r [ = fall-rise] and tone r* £.= rise] as sometimes in free distribution ... To do so would be to overlook the essentially social basis of the option and the fact that, like all others, it can be exploited. Then: "speakers see their roles as in some sense superior or inferior to the roles of others". From these considerations, he concludes that to "reactivate" or to "remind" is to assert superiority, which is thus associated with vise, and inferiority, conversely, with fall-rise.

I am not convinced by the reasoning,

but the conclusion is plausible as a statement of fact. There are scattered implicit references to this view being held by other authors.

On questions,

for instance, Jassem suggests that "general

questions ending with a FALL-RISE ... compared to similar questions ending in a final rise, are more FRIENDLY, FAMILIAR, INFORMAL or INTIMATE" ( 1 9 7 2 : 2 4 9 ) .

These are attributes which one would associate

with the general description "non-dominant".

Others, e.g. 0'

Connor & Arnold ( 1973:65) and Trim ( n . d . ) note that jussive sentences with rises are patronizing, while with a fall-rise they are anxious warnings. tinction.

These descriptions reflect a similar

dis-

127

These experiments are concerned only with rise and fall-rise. It has been said, e . g . by Pope, with some plausibility, that a fall "correlates with assertiveness" and a rise with "lack of assertiveness" ( 1 9 7 6 : 7 9 ) . For experimental reasons, the f a l l was not considered here. I know of no such intonational distinction in German. The matter is discussed in very general terms (of "Milderung" and "Verstärkung) by Bublitz ( 1 9 7 8 : 2 1 2 - 1 6 ) , but he does little more than list a considerable number of lexical and syntactic devices in both languages, including the use of a large number of modal particles in German for both purposes. In view of the belief in Germany that a rising intonation is polite in English (and thus in some sense non-dominant), it is predicted that German hearers will not systematically distinguish between the two tones, but tend to assign the stimuli in general to the category "non-dominant". XHIa and Xlllb d i f f e r as follows: XHIa presents a variety of syntactic types, allows for the possibility of a neutral response, and includes both t h e / ^ o v n/melodeme and the/^o "n/melodeme according to the syntactic type. Xlllb presents only questions, without the neutral possibility, and has only one fall-rise melodeme, namely/ o V n / . These changes were decided upon in view of certain preliminary results from Xllla.

4 . 4 . 1 5 . Tag-Questions (Experiment XIV) In spite of Hudson's assertion that he has "found no evidence that the difference between rising and falling intonation contours [ on tags 1 carries a different meaning ... from that which it carries on ordinary interrogatives" ( 1 9 7 5 : 2 7 ) - whatever the latter may be - there is considerable evidence from one's own observation, supported by published descriptions, that intonation is not only important to the interpretation of a tag-question, but that the rise or fall on the tag is only one factor, the rise or fall (or other tone) on the declarative, and the number of tone-units, being also of significance. Both this discussion, and the experiment it introduces, are limited to reversed-polarity tags.

Hudson asserts of these that

128

they must all

be negatively conducive (unlike yes/no questions,

which may or may not be "conducive", i.e. suggestive of an answer). His analysis suppose that declaratives have a "sincerity condition" "The speaker believes that the proposition is true" ( 1 9 7 5 : 2 4 ) , and that this applies equally to the tagged declarative.

Thus, with

reversed-polarity tags, the speaker "is asking the hearer to consider whether the proposition is true ... reversed-polarity tags are simply instances of negatively conducive interrogatives" 26).

(1975:

So He's going, isn't he? and Isn't he going? are equivalent,

as negative yes/no questions are pragmatically bound to be "conducive"

(1975:17).

With positive yes/no questions, which are "un-

marked" for polarity ( 1 9 7 5 : 1 7 ) , there is normally no conduciveness; but this is pragmatically imposed on the tag-question by the declarative which it

tags.

Conduciveness, and thus the meaning of

tag-questions, are thus seen as pragmatic rather than semantic matters.

It may be that they developed this way, but it does not

seem to me to be true of the present state of the language: the sort of mental computation leading to pragmatic interpretation is not required either in negative yes/no questions, or in tag-questions, as the syntax has already done the work.

In other words,

the notion of conduciveness has passed into the meaning of the sentence.

It is nonetheless central to the meaning of tag-ques-

tions; neither

He ' going, isn't he? nor

He isn't going, is he?

can be used to mean

Js he going?

when this is a straightforward request for information. Nevertheless, intonation changes the function of a tag-question; it restricts its potential for interpretation, and thus contributes towards its

meaning.

The most comprehensive account of the intona-

tion of tag-questions in English seems to be that of O'Connor

129

( 1 9 5 5 ) . He lists the following possibilities (renumbered h e r e ) : 1. Fall on the declarative, fall on the tag (second fall lower): "invitation to confirm the speaker's assertion". This corresponds entirely to Hudson's description. 2. Fall on the declarative, rise on the tag (rise no higher than start of f a l l ) : as ( 1 ) , but "softened". 3. As ( 2 ) , but with the rise going higher than the start of the fall: "speaker appears to develop doubts". If by this it is meant that the doubts appear during the enunciation, we may be dealing with performance factors. if it means that the speaker is uncertain, then Hudson's sincerity condition is under strain. 4. Rise or fall-rise on the declarative, low f a l l on the tag: "appeal for confirmation or support - coaxing, confidential". 5. As ( 4 ) , but with high fall on the tag: as ( 4 ) , but "not so coaxing, more adult". I am not sure whether this "appeal" is to be equated with the "invitation" of (1) and ( 2 ) . 6. Rise or fall-rise on the declarative, rise on the tag (two tone-groups): "calling upon the listener to revise his opinion; manifests uncertainty". 7. As ( 6 ) , but one tone-group: as ( 6 ) , but no uncertainty present. I find it difficult to know what is meant by "one tone-group" here. If there are two rises, then presumably there are two tone-groups. However, common intonations for tag-questions are a rise or fall-rise on the declarative, the tag forming the tail. As neither of these is mentioned otherwise, they may be what are meant here. There seem to be two semantic variables present here: the speaker's confidence in the truth of his statement, and his relationship to his listener. A third, not mentioned, is his attitude towards the proposition. Kingdon says of the pattern "fall-rise followed by high fall" that "the speaker very much hopes the statement is true" ( 1 9 5 8 : 2 5 0 ) , and Trim ( n . d . ) says of the single fallrise (tag as tail) that it expresses "an anxious plea for reassurance". In practice it is d i f f i c u l t to keep these factors apart: if one "very much hopes" that something is true, one cannot be entirely confident, nor would one express "an anxious plea" to a

130

subordinate.

Which aspect predominates is also likely to be deter-

mined by the wording and polarity of the sentence. For these reasons it was decided to use the notion of "confidence" as the contrasting semantic feature, as this contains elements of all three factors, and does not require too much semantic differentiation on the part of the experimental subjects. The phonetic contrasts investigated were as follows: 1. Low rise on the declarative, high fall on the tag, /"*o ^n p n / (O'Connor's pattern (4) in my re-numbering); 2. High fall on the declarative, low fall on the tag, / ' ο N η | sn / / (O'Connor's pattern ( 1 ) ) ; 3. Fall-rise on the declarative, tag part of tail,/ ο v n / (in my speech, this has a glissando body; the pattern is only mentioned by 4. Fall-rise on (one variety 5. Low rise on

Trim ( n . d . ) , but seems very common to me) ; the declarative, high fall on the tag, / * o of O'Connor's pattern 5 ) ; the declarative, low rise on the tag,

y

n'jxn/

/"*o χ η | ^ η / , (one variety o f O ' C o n n o r ' s pattern ( 6 ) ) ; 6. Low rise on the declarative, tag part of tail,/ ο „ η / , (not mentioned in the literature - but see my note on O'Connor's pattern 6 - but seems a very common pattern to m e ) . To arrange these in order of "confidence" is not easy if one relies on published descriptions. Pattern ( 3 ) , Trim's "anxious plea", would come bottom of the list, but it may correspond to O'Connor's ( 2 ) , which, as an "invitation to confirm", would be quite high on the scale of confidence. For me, this pattern reflects complete lack of confidence. O'Connor & Arnold think that /Ό η Iv n / (pattern ( 2 ) ) "demands agreement"; I think, however, that at most it invites agreement, and probably is usually meant as a statement of fact requiring no response at all. Pattern (4) ( / * ο v n | v n / ) is said by Kingdon to express the speaker's sincere"hopes" that the statement is true" I interpret this as meaning that little confidence is expressed, and this may also be the meaning of "appeal", which O'Connor associates with his corresponding pattern ( 4 ) . My pattern (1) (/"*o f n | s n / ) a l s o corresponds to O ' C o n n o r ' s ( 4 ) , but for me is much more confident. I am inclined to agree with O'Connor & Arnold that "it demands agreement" ( 1 9 6 1 , 1973:55) - though the need to demand may repre-

131

sent a degree of uncertainty absent from the two-fall pattern. Of the two low-rise patterns,

( 6 ) , with one rise, is notdescribed any-

where, but for me expresses the speaker's surprise that doubts have been raised, unlike ( 5 ) , with two rises, which for me expresses serious doubts on the speaker's part. No such wealth of devices is available in German. What does exist is discussed by Bublitz ( 1 9 7 8 : 1 2 6 - 1 2 9 ) . There are "tags" which turn statements into questions: the particles nicht, ne, nicht wahr, oder and, regionally, gell are used in this way. All of them have rising tones, and all

have separate tone-units.

The conditions

on their use are goverened by syntactic considerations: thus nicht and ne seem to be impossible after negative declaratives. Some of them have wider application than the English tags, thus nicht wahr (and gell)

are used in mid-sentence as "Füllwörter" (Bublitz

1 9 7 8 : 1 2 8 ) , and Bublitz also draws attention to/the sentence-initial use of

nicht wahr,

as in /

Nicht wahr, wir gehen am Sonntag wieder in den Zoo.

The speaker's confidence plays a role insofar as oder? cannot be used where disagreement would be perverse (see Bublitz 1 9 7 8 : 1 2 7 ) . Thus Hot, isn't it can be translated as Heiß, nicht but not as Heiß, oder. To this extent the semantic category in question is present in German, but in a very rudimentary form.

There certain-

ly appears to be no congruence. In view of the considerations discussed above, it is

difficult

to predict the responses of the native-speaker subjects; indeed, a test of this kind is required before one can make hypotheses with any confidence on the meaning of tag-questions and their intonational variants in English. As for the German speakers, one would expect the direction of the f i n a l tone to be criterial (falling for "more confident", rising for "less c o n f i d e n t " ) .

There

is no evidence to suggest whether, or what,further d i f f e r e n t i a t i o n will be made.

132 4 . 4 . 1 6 . Sarcasm and the Rise-Fall (Experiments XVa, XVb and XVc) The rising-falling nuclear tone in English is associated, in addition to its use as a substitute or reinforcement for even (see 4 . 4 . 4 . above), with a number of fairly marked attitudinal meanings distinguishing it semantically from falling tones. Kingdon says that it "can be used in most utterances for which Tone II

£ = f a l l j would be considered to be fundamentally suitable"

(1958:131).

For him, the meanings of the rise-fall range from

"enthusiasm or archness, whichever suits the context" to a "suggestion of impatience, and at times,intolerance", discussed under the heading of "mocking" statements

(1958:221).

O'Connor & Arnold

give a long list of attitudes: impressed, awed, complacent, selfsatisfied, smug, challenging, censorious, disclaiming responsibility ( 1 9 6 1 ; 1 9 7 3 : 7 9 - 8 0 ) . Halliday gives it as "asserting, or expressing some other form of commitment" ( 1 9 7 O b : 2 7 ) ; with a low pre-tonic, "showing awe (which may be sarcastic) or disappointment" ( 1 9 7 0 b : 3 2 ) .

He attempts to seek more abstract meanings by

componentialization: the rise conveys the meaning "there may seem to be a doubt", but the fall corrects this: "but in fact all is certain" ( 1 9 7 O b : 2 3 ) .

The tone is thus regarded as "assertive".

A similar conclusion is reached by Brazil ( 1 9 7 8 : 5 3 ) , where the risefall alternates with the fall in the system of "dominance", being the "dominant" term, and thus compatible with Halliday's. "assertive" meaning. Halliday's examples (see 1970b:91-92, 111-12) do not, however, easily support his view that the tone is assertive, and he is also reduced to giving a list of isolated labels. Brazil admits that he has so few examples in his corpus that his hypothesis must be tentative. In fact, assertiveness seems to me to be associated with the high fall rather than the rise-fall; the tones are auditorily quite distinct, however, so the possibility of confusion must be ruled out. 1 4 14 although the F contours are very similar, the tones are easily distinguished by the timing of the pitch movement in relation to the prominence peak (see 2 . 2 . 3 . ) ; in particular, when there is a tail, it invariably begins low after a high f a l l , high after a rise-fall.

133 O'Connor & Arnold's labels are undoubtedly accurate; the explanatory problem is to find a common denominator. It seems that the examples can be roughly divided into two groups. First, there are those in which the speaker is reinforcing his (or, I suspect, usually her) intimacy with the interlocutor by admitting to being impressed; this is the use found in exclamatives (see 4 . 4 . 5 . ) , but it is not confined to those structures: H a l l i d a y ' s example Look at the

time

meaning ' I s n ' t it late! 1 is of the same kind. Such examples tend towards the "archness" noted by Kingdon. The second group is quite different; far from reinforcing intimacy, the speaker is setting himself apart. This use gives rise to the examples variously labelled self-satisfied, sarcastic, shrugging off responsibility. Halliday sub-categorizes the rise-fall according to its height. The "neutral" version is high, with a rising body. The other version is low, the body syllables forming a descending series of fall-rises, this being the version indicating "awe (which may be sarcastic)". However I do not think the two groups of meanings outlined above can be distinguished thus, and Halliday's own examples (1970b: 111-112) cannot be forced into such a correspondence. Kingdon suggests that a variety of pre-nuclear contours are possible with the rise-fall ( 1 9 5 8 : 1 3 2 ) , but the only semantic distinction he makes is that the "enthusiastic" or "arch" version is low("Tune IV LE" ( 1 9 5 8 : 2 2 1 ) ) . If my grouping of the meanings is correct, Kingdon's and Halliday's descriptions are not compatible. For me, however, there is a phonetic difference which has not been mentioned in any of the descriptive works. The distinctive feature is the height at which the tone ends. The confidential version falls to low,the distant version to mid, ending level. Λ distinction of a similar sort (not in relation to r i s e - f a l l s , particularly) was noted by Crystal ( 1 9 6 9 : 2 2 3 - 2 4 ) . It is also likely that paralinguistic features such as nasalization are

134 involved (see Fonagy & Magdics 1963; 1 9 7 2 : 3 0 2 ) . The pre-nuclear contours in my speech are usually of the high-onset, steppingdown-body variety; I suspect that a low-onset, rising-body variety is sometimes used in either. I shall represent the melodemes as / Ό Λ η / and / ' o *-n / (see Figs. 11 and 1 2 ) . The first two of the experiments in this group were completed before I had established the phonetic distinction outlined above. The contrast was between / Ό *h/ and/'o s n / .

Didn't Timothy

sing

* brilliantly

Fig. 11

.*\ Didn't

Timothy

sing

Fig. 12

^brilliantly

135 For the semantic correlate of / ' o ^ n /

the description

"sar-

castic" was chosen, as being easier to understand than "censorious" ,"smug"etc., as well as being easier to contextualize, and probably more independent of the wording.

However, this is not

meant to imply that this is the melodeme's only meaning, although it has been a widely noted one, indeed from a quite early date (see Sweet ( 1 8 8 6 : 4 3 ) . It may be said that sarcasm and the recognition of it do not depend on phonological features of the utterance, but on the obvious divergence of its contents from the evident facts, or the speaker's known opinions. It is true that irony is almost certainly more effective if it is not phonologically signalled. Sarcasm is rather different, its purpose being to signal the speaker's feelings unmistakably and without humour. It is an extreme form of the speaker 'distancing'himself, which we suggested was the basic meaning of the melodeme. It has been noted in a number of places above that the German post-ictic fall is similar acoustically to the English rise-fall. Where there is no tail, the similarity is very strong. However, the presence of post-nuclear syllables brings the differences to light:

\ ^_ wonderful

wunderbar

The English high fall would be

wonderful N (The variant ^ ^wonderful _^__ of the English rise-fall resembles the German post-ictic fall more closely; I think however

it is less common, and it is not the version used here.)

136 The question is whether German-speakers can distinguish two patterns in English which both resemble a native pattern, but which both d i f f e r from it. One would predict that they would not; in particular, the German post-ictic fall more closely resembles the English rise-fall, and given that the post-ictic fall is neutral in conversation in German,there are plausible grounds for supposing that the rise-fall might be heard as neutral by German-speakers. This pattern of expectation is somewhat disturbed by the fact that the contrast in the first two experiments is between the high fall and the rise-fall-level. The mid-level ending of the latter is different from anything in German, and if the end-point is judged as criterial, the post-ictic fall and the high fall might well be associated. There is, however, nothing in German to suggest to German-speakers that the rise-fall-level is associated with sarcasm. In view of all this, the prediction is that German-speakers will not consistently associate the rise-falllevel with sarcasm when it is contrasted with a high fall. The third of the experiments contrasts / ' ο η / w i t h / ' o *" n/, the semantic distinction being maintained. As it is hypothesized that the height of the ending is the only feature distinguishing / ' ο *~ η / from neutral patterns in German, it is predicted that the results of XVc will not d i f f e r appreciably for German-speakers from those of XVa and XVb, as this contrast was present in all three experiments. For the English participants, on the other hand, one would expect perhaps more uncertainty in the case of XVc as the phonetic redundancy is less. If this expectation is not f u l f i l l e d , and native speakers perform equally well on both sets of contrasts, then the hypothesis concerning the phonetic difference may be considered to be reinforced,at least to the extent that the main signal of sarcasm is heard in the mid-level ending.

4 . 4 . 1 7 . Attitudinal Meanings : (i) in Jussives (Experiments XVIa and XVIbJ In section 2 . 3 . I concluded that while intonational meaning is of various kinds, classification is generally pointless. However, there are certainly classes of sentence where the meaning contrasts re-

137

alized by intonation are most easily described as attitudinal; the clearest examples are those involving "communication with an appeal" (though here too the meaning contrasts could often be described as illocutionary). The experiments introduced in this sub-section are concerned with jussive sentences.^ For the sake of consistency, all the sentences investigated begin with the words do or don't.

For negative jussives (except

those containing a word such as never or nothing), there is no alternative except to prefix the sentence with please; for affirmatives/ do has itself an attitudinal meaning, and generally excludes please before it. However, considerable intonational variation is still possible. No unified account is available of the intonational variations of jussives with do, or of of scattered references to integrate, owing to descriptive terms, and

negative jussives in the literature (i) uncertainty as (ii) in many cases

generally. The number is large, but difficult to the meanings of the uncertainty as to the

melodic pattern being described. What follows is an attempt to identify some of the more common patterns, and to relate these to published accounts. I shall consider '

S

X

0

ο

ο χ ο

3 X 0

Ο

Λ 0

1

0

/. ο χ ο * ι 2 3

is

Fig. 13

ο

ο

χ e>

Μ

β χ

0

Ο χ

0

Ο

ϊ

Χ

s

Ο

Χ

Χ

χ ο

t

ϊ

*

27

Χ

(1 y

Vlllb

ιι χ

0

participants,

10

x

9

English

ο ο

high-onset items

0

« X } X

0

ο ο ο ο

ι ς «f.

X X

3

X

2

X

Ο

0

X

Ο

0

X

Ι

ο

ι

.a

3

»-

s

*

' 8

ft.espoM.ses

Fig.

28

Vlllb English participants, low-onset items Ρ «. rfri'cί ρ α, »Λ+S

H-

χ

3

χ

1

ι

6 0

Χ

χ χ . ο x χ ο χ ο Α

χ

ο

ι

ι

3

*

ο

ο

ο

ο

Ο

Ο

0

0

r

t.

»

»

Fig. 29 The much greater polarization with the high-onset items is obvious at a glance; the differences are also more pronounced with the English-speaking participants than with the German, and with Vlllb than with Villa.

213

To test for the significance of some of these differences,

the

Wilcoxon test was applied to the differences between the (Qa - Ss) q and (Ss - Qq)5 scores, with results as follows: Villa German: // = 23, T = 3O.5; significant at English: N = 13, T =

1 . 5 ; significant at

VHIb German: N = 2 1 , T = 14; 7

English: Λ =

9, Τ = 0 ;

.OO5 .01

(one-tailed) (two-tailed)

significant at

.005 (one-tailed)

significant at

.01

(two-tailed)

In 4 . 4 . 9 . , it was hypothesized that all four patterns are associated with 'question 1 in German: hence the treatment of the German d i f f e r ence scores above as one-tailed. It was predicted that the German population would answer the high-onset stimuli correctly more often than they would the low-onset stimuli, and that is what the tests whose results are given above in fact demonstrate. No such hypothesis was made for the English participants, hence the use of the two-tailed test, although it transpires that the d i f f e r e n c e is in the same direction. The scores of the two populations on the different melodemes was also compared. The U test was applied to the (Qq - Ss) and the (Ss - Qq)

S

scores of the two populations, on both experiments, with

results as follows:

υ Villa (Qq - Ss) q Villa (Ss VHIb (Qq VI lib (Ss -

Ss)

q

Qq) s

- 8

ζ

5.21

124.5

1.48*

-16.5

5.48

90

2.09

Ρ

< .00003 .069 < .00003 .018

Table 20 The non-significant result relates to the low-onset items of V i l l a , and can be seen in conjunction with Figs. 23 and 25 above. The other results relate to histograms 22 and 24, 26 and 28 and 27 and 29 respectively. e) Discussion The following genreal conclusions can be drawn from the somewhat complex data presented above:

214

the English participants recognized high-onset items as questions, in accordance with the hypothesis

(see Figs. 24 and 2 8 ) ;

the German-speakers did likewise, in general

(see Figs. 22 and

26); the English performance was significantly better on these items (see Table 2 0 ) ; on VHIb (high-rise) the English recognized low-onset items (in general) as non-questions (see Fig. 2 9 ) ; the Germans in general did not (see Fig. 2 7 ) ; they performed significantly less well than the English on these items; on Villa (low-rise), the English tended to recognize the lowonset items as non-questions (see Fig. 2 5 ) ; to judge by Fig. 23, the Germans displayed no such tendency; however, this apparent difference was not significant at the required level. The superior performance of the English participants was due more to their recognizing high-onset stimuli as questions than to their recognizing low-onset stimuli as non-questions.

This is particular-

ly the case with Villa, with the low-rises; there is therefore the suggestion that / ( o

xn/

is more question-like than / t o

These conclusions were not predicted in this form. reason to believe that German uses /

ο

/

n/

or / ο

'n /

.

As there is no 'η/ as non-

questions, the failure of the German participants to recognize the high-onset items as questions consistently may be attributable to a degree of random answering on their part, itself attributable to general uncertainty in the face of this contrast. Inspection of the original response sheets reveals considerable variation between the consistency and correctness of responses to individual items.

For most of this variation I have no explanation,

but the German responses to two items of Villa are interesting as high-onset items with a preponderance of Ss responses; the corresponding sentences with low onsets had very strong S/s responses also. The items in question are: These cakes taste nice and His neu clothes look nice. In both sentences (i.e. all four items) the nucleus was on the word nice, and there was no tail. It may be that the short, low sonorant part of the syllable, though rising, was not heard as such by the Germans; as voiceless consonants do not

215

have the effect of shortening preceding vowels in German, it

is

plausible to suppose that the Germans were not prepared for the shortness of this rise, or that much of it would be indicated by the frequency of the noise of the

/s/.

The data and conclusions of this pair of experiments should be seen in conjunction with those of XVIII and XIX below.

7.2.9.Experiments IXa, IXb and IXc (The Broad Fall-Rise as an Independent Tone) a) For background, see 4 . 4 . 1 0 . Section A : Experiment IX c b) Task: Part I, contextualization; Part II, participants were asked to decide, for each item, whether it sounded like an implicatory statement, an ordinary inquiry or an echo-question (S/s, O/o and E/e respectively). Note : there were only two patterns, /~*o ^ n / and/"* ο v n / , and thus no one-to-one correspondence of stimulus and potential response; O/o was not however predicted. Throughout, O/o is given as φ/£ when in response to a/ o v n/ stimulus. c) Exampless

A. 'My friend can't see it yet. ' 'your friend can't *see it yet?! What en earth do you πβαη? ' Β.

'Your "* friend can't v s e e it able to hear it though. '

C.

'Your friend

so.

can't see it

yet. He should be

yet?'

'Ho, I don't think

I'll ask. '

d) Results Ν

German 25 ( + 2 )

English 11 12

m

10 11

C

9

11

cc

7

10

CI

2

1

CD

5

Μ

13

9

Table 21

(max. 16)

216

Analysis Applying the Wilcoxon test to the scores on each Part, we have: German: N = 2 4 , T = 86; p > English: N = 9,

.05

Τ = 4 ; significant at

.05

Part II was performed significantly better by the English. Comparing the 'consistent 1 scores of the two populations, we have: z

P

91 .5

1.57

.058

70.5

2.30

.011

U

c cc CI

183

1 .56

.059

CD

69

2.35

.009

Table 22 The two populations d i f f e r significantly in respect of the CC and CO scores. Further Observations The German scores show considerable differences from one type of item to another. The only really consistent response was SS to /*o v n / (median 5 ) . Ee was preferred to Oo, and both to Ss, as responses to /~*O V n / ι but the totals were small. Oo was significantly preferred to fa (N = 16, Τ = 10; significant at .01). No such differences were recorded in the English responses. The difference between the number of correct Ee responses in the two populations was highly significant:

V = 21.5

ζ = 3.98

ρ < .00005

Discussion

It is clear that both populations identified/"o v n/ as a statement with some confidence, their performances not d i f f e r i n g in this respect. It is also clear that the English could identify/^o ^h/ with some con-

217

fidence, whereas the Germans could not.

Quite often it was identi-

fied as an ordinary question, hardly ever as a statement.

This was

the reason why the German Oo score was higher than their ^-'-' -"(i)

(ii) *» >»

Uncertain

(iv)> ^

" "(iii) ^

Fairly unacceptable Quite unacceptable

~Xiv) (v)-

---------

(v)

I have moved the ( i i i ) apart on the two scales in spite of the lack of significance

established above, (a) because the difference was

still appreciable, and (b) because most English participants told me that they would not themselves use this pattern, although they could imagine others (e.g. Americans) using it. RP competence, the lower level is

As a reflexion of

justified.

My general conclusions are as follows: there is obviously a difference between the fall-rise melodemes for the English (pace Jassem ( 1 9 7 2 ) ) ; contrary to my hypothesis, the Germans are sensitive to this difference to a certain extent (compare also Xlla) ; the fall-rise with a high level body is regarded by the English population as more acceptable as a question (given this structure) than the low rise, which makes its omission from the textbooks all the more surprising; -

the evaluation of /,o the structure.

-

fr\./

by the English seems to depend on

In Villa, there was an alternative interpreta-

tion; here there was no such alternative, but still considerable uncertainty. Given a f u l l interrogative structure, it would probably be quite acceptable; the unexpectedly high Ss score by the Germans o n / * o ,η/ in Villa was probably the result of such distraction; there was no uncertainty here. There were no severely anomalous individual-item scores for

the English; from the Germans, there were very low Υ scores on both fall-rise versions of the sentence The power station been here long.

This was the only sentence with no tail; my earlier specula-

234

tion, that Germans might not hear a rise if it

is not given room

to rise f a r , is at least supported by this observation. See also XIX below.

7 . 2 .1 4 .Experiments XHIa and XHIb (Dominance) a) For background, see 4 . 4 . 1 4 . b) Task: Participants were required to decide for each item whether the utterance was made by a speaker who considered himself to be socially superior to his interlocutor, or socially inferior.

The following attitudes were given

as "superior": domineering, condescending,

patronising,

demanding, self-confident; the following as "inferior": d i f f i d e n t , timid, tentative, uncertain or pleading. In Xllla, a third alternative, "neutral", was given. These responses are referred to as +, - and 0. ministered once; XHIb twice, in d i f f e r e n t

Xllla was adsessions. The

participants were given no written texts. c)

Examples: Experiment Xllla you

know that car you sold me yesterday

ve You

know that car you sold me yesterday

Experiment XHIb Does Mr. Jones drive a^Rover?

vs ·> v Does Mr. Jones drive a Rover? d) Results Section A : Experiment XIla

....

235

German

English

N

29

17

Median score of correct responses M

9

9 (max. 2 4 )

Median score of incorrect responses MI

7

5

Median score of 0 responses MO

10

10

Median score of + responses M+

10

8

Median score of responses M-

5

7

Table 42 Analysis Comparing the differences between the two populations for significance, we have: z

U

P

M

180.5

1 .50

.067

MI

357.5

2.52

.006

MO

234

0.28

.779

M+

363

2.65

.008

M-

121 .5

2.84

.005

(2-tailed) (2-tailed)

Table 43 Testing the differences in the distribution of responses in each population for significance,we have for the difference ((-) - ( + ) ) _

a n d ( ( + )- ( ( - ) ) +

:

German:tf = 27, T = 3.5; p < .01 English:/!/ = 17, T = 74 ; p > .05 The German population gave + responses significantly more often than - responses.

236 In neither population was 0 given as a response predominantly to one melodeme: comparing the difference (O f , , _ . (0i l. S G) , we have: German: Λ7 = 22,

Γ = 92.5; ρ >

7

English: Λ = 16, Τ = 58

; ρ >

) and

.05 .05

e) Discussion The pattern of results can all

be explained by one phenomenon;

namely, German-speakers gave a far larger + response, especially on fall-rise stimuli, than did the English.

This result is altogether

surprising, and contradicts the prediction that German-speakers would be insensitive to the distinction, and would tend towards -. I cannot explain this. The English results generally confirm the hypothesis. The results show interesting patterns when broken down by syntactic type. When presenting them, I shall work with aggregate scores expressed as percentages. I

All items Ger.

Eng. + R

FR

38.5 19

•

-

18 43.5

+

0

-

0

43.5

45

16

38

39.5

36

22

42

Table 44 Table 44 shows in different form the results presented above, and are given for comparative purposes.

237

English +

-

II Jussives (Two Pairs) R 16 12 FR

III

18

59

German 0

+

-

0

24

64

5

31

24

21

34

45

Tag-Questions (Two Pairs) R

26

21

53

26

21

53

FR

18

44

38

26

21

53

IV Yes/No Interrogatives (Three Pai rs) R

14

22

65

25

24

50

FR

10

37

53

33

22

47

V Please-Interrogative (One Pair) R

76

6

18

76

14

10

FR

18

59

24

41

34

24

VI Declarative (Two Pairs) R

65

6

29

50

16

34

FR

15

24

62

38

19

43

VIII WH-Interrogatives (One Pair) R

15

22

53

57

16

28

FR

38

41

21

59

10

31

Table 45 Summary This breakdown must be treated with some caution, owing to the small number of items in each category.

Single anomalous results can have

a distorting effect; this is certainly the case with the Wh-interrogatives, where one item, What are you ''doing? was almost universally answered +, for reasons which I cannot establish.

238 In general, it appears that the hypothesis is most strongly true ( f o r the English) of non-interrogative structures; interrogatives, on the other hand, tended towards neutral.

With declara-

tives ( V I ) there was a tendency to contrast + and 0. The Germans make the hypothesized distinction only in then not clearly.

( I I ) , and

In every other case + prevails over -; in the

case of tag-questions, the intonational contrast is entirely neutralized. Section B: Experiment Xllb As the response 0 might be regarded as ' d o n ' t know 1 by some participants, the forced-choice character of the procedure is weakened, and the amount of polar data is reduced. 0 responses were particularly evident with interrogatives in Xllla; for these reasons, XHIb was held, using only interrogatives, and without the 0 option d) Results German

(+4)

English

22 (+3)

N

21

Median correct scores (1st session)

ΜΙ

13

15

Median correct scores (2nd session)

ΜΣ

13

17

C

14

16.5

cc

1O

13

CI

5

3

CO

4

10

C+ C+ Cc-

8

8

6

8

Median ++ scores Median — scores

((max. 22)

Table 46 Analysis Comparing the scores of each population across the two sessions, we have:

239

German: N = 18, T = 75; not

significant

English: N = 19, T = 43; sig. at

.05

Comparing the ( ( — ) - ( + + ) ) _ a n d ( ( + + ) - ( — ) ) + scores of each population, we have: German: N = 16, T = 33; not

significant

English: N = 17, T = 3 9 . 5 ; not

(just)

significant

Comparing the scores of the two populations, we have:

υ

ζ

Ρ

Ml

146

3.23

.OO07

M2

121 .5

2.66

C

2.53

CC

335.5 383.5

CI

332

2.45

CD

377.5

3.56

.OO4 .006 .OO01 .007 .0002

C+

219

0.29

ο-

368

3.32

3.70

.772 .001

(2-tailed) (2-tailed)

Table 47 e) Discussion The English participants responded in general according to the hypothesis; the Germans show a less confident tendency in the same direction. The German tendency towards + responses, noted in Xllla,

is

manifested in XHIb in a somewhat different form, namely that they gave a significantly lower number of — responses. Breaking down the responses by syntactic type, we have tent responses only; figures in percentages):

(consis-

24O

English

I

German

Yes/No Interrogatives: Affirmative R

65

35

59

41

FR

15

85

55

45

II Yes/No Int< »rrogatives: Negative R

72

28

43

57

FR

4

96

24

76

19

79

21

73

46

54

III Wh-Interrcjgatives R

FR

81 27

Table 48 From this, it can be seen that many of the German — responses were concentrated on negative interrogatives; there is a strong inference that they were responding as much to the wording as to the intonation. There is clearly evidence from both XHIa and XHIb that the "meaning" of an intonation pattern depends in part on the syntax with which it is associated.

7 . 2 . 1 5 . Experiment XIV (Tag-Questions) a) For background, see 4 . 4 . 1 5 b) Task: Participants were asked to decide whether each item represented (a) a simple statement, the tag being purely rhetorical, no answer expected; (b) a confident statement, for which agreement is invited; (c) a less confident statement, the tag expressing the hope that it will be confirmed; (d) an anxious plea for reassurance, manifesting the fear that this will not be forthcoming.

241

These responses are referred to as 4 , 3 , 2 and 1 respectively.

The experiment was administered twice, in d i f f -

erent sessions. c) For wording of sentences, see below. d) Results N

English: 25 (of whom 3 did not

repeat)

German: 25 (of whom 4 did not repeat) The patterns are numbered as in 4 . 4 . 1 5 . The median number of consistent answers across the two hearings

was: English: 8 German: 7

(18 items)

The distribution of the responses across the patterns (in percentages) is given in table 49. Table 50 records the percentage of consistent answers given to each pattern, and table 51 the tribution of responses between the sentences, which were:

dis-

(a) He doesn't drive, does he? (b) She can manage, can't she? (c) There are no problems, are there? 1

2

3

4

4 8 21 3./ "o n/ 4./"o "n fn/ 18 5./*o χ η |/i/ 18 4 6./-Ό x n /

13 8 54 12

35 35 21 35

37

12

English 1·/*ο 2./ Ό

χηΓη/ x n | % n/ v

All patterns

German

1

2

3

4

48 48 5 35

12 7 15 15

20 12 32 17

32 20 33 36

36 60 20 32

30

14

20

40

34

7

37

43

17

21

34

25

20

27

33

28

15

26

30

29

Table 49

1

2

3

4

5

English: 47

47

48

German: 44

48

37

30 43

39 29

Table 50

6 48 46

242

English

a

b

c

1 2

22 28

6 23

30

3

36

37

27

4

14

35

34

a

b

20 31 27 22

12 24

23

34

30

30

35

German 9

c 12

Table 51 Analysis The two populations do not d i f f e r significantly in the incidence of consistent responses:

C

υ

2

203

.68

Ρ

.248

' 'able 52

For the purpose of testing the significance of the differences between the populations in their responses to the various patterns, the responses themselves were treated as forming an ordinal scale (i.e. as "ranks"), and the V test applied, with the following results (where n 7 and η are the total numbers of German and English responses, 138 and 141 respectively): 0

J.

υ Pattern 1 2 3 4 5 6

11459 8756 6996.5 9890.5 662.5 11358.5

ζ

2.73 1 .60 4.05

Ρ

.006 .110 .OOOO6

.24

.81

.98

.33

2.41

.016

(The probabilities given are Table 53

two-tailed)

e) Discussion There is little difference between the populations in their consistency or in the total distribution of their responses.

In fact,

243 in broad terms, they agree in assigning the "less confident" responses to the rising patterns ( 3 , 5 and 6 ) , and the "more confident" to the falling patterns ( 1 , 2 and 4 ) . There are significant differences of detail, however. The d i f f erence in the respective responses to pattern 6 results from the English seeing this as, in general, "more confident" (the median and the mode of their responses being 3 ) , although it is a rising pattern, while the Germans heard it as "less confident" (median and m o d e : 2 ) . The German responses to this pattern were in fact very similar to those on pattern 3 ( f a l l - r i s e ) , while the English d i f f e r entiated the two very clearly, the latter being obviously the "least confident" (which confirms T r i m ' s description of it - see 4 . 4 . 1 5 above), hence the highly significant difference on this pattern. The other difference concerns pattern 1. For the English, there was virtually no difference between this and pattern 2, while for the Germans the latter was much more confident, perhaps because of its two falls. Other points to note are the relatively low consistency score for pattern 4 by the English, which may be a sign that it is not a very usual pattern. The low consistency score by the Germans on pattern 5 (two rises) is a little surprising in that it is the typical German pattern, and one much used by Germans speaking English. Table 51 makes it clear that the individual sentences had an influence on the responses. They were chosen to include a negative declarative, an affirmative declarative, and a negative declarative with an affirmative meaning (no problems). There may of course be other variables, a subject for further investigation, but sentence ( a ) , which is the negative declarative, has far more 1 and far fewer 4 responses than either of the others, from the English; a similar, though less marked, tendency is apparent in the German results. It may be that the speaker's hopes or fears when uttering the words He doesn't drive, does he? are more easily contextualized as "less confident". On this matter, see section 8 . 1 . 2 . below. I indicated in 4 . 4 . 1 5 above that this experiment is exploratory, and no specific predictions were made. The general prediction for

244

the Germans, that the major distinction was between rising and falling patterns, is generally confirmed.

A similar distinction

appears to be made by the English, albeit with considerably more differentiation within the two major types, whereby the single rise pattern (6) occupies an ambivalent position. The contrast between 6 and 4 (fall-rise) suggests strongly that the question of "dominance" (see the discussion in 4 . 4 . 1 4 . above) cannot be ignored.

Sweeping conclusions are out of order, however, until more

is known about the interaction between intonation and polarity and wording.

7 . 2 . 1 6 . Experiments XVa, XVb and XVc (Sarcasm and the

Rise-Fall)

a) For background, see 4 . 4 . 1 6 . b) Task: Part I, contextualization XVa, XVb only); Part II, participants were asked to decide whether the utterance was meant sarcastically or not (S/s, N/n responses respectively) . Part II was the pattern of both XVc hearings, at different, session«. c)

Examples: Experiment XVa: A.He'ε an absolute two and two. B.He 's an of

I

absolute

genius . . . . Really, he oan't even add up x

genius. He went to university at the agt

sixteen,and was made a professor

when he was

twenty-four.

Experiment XVb: A.'What colour tie

shall I buy Jack?'

'Why not give him a

bright red one? He seems to like the colour. ' B. 'Look at this tie a bright

I've bought grandad. '

red one? It

couldn't be any more ridiculous. '

Experiment XVc: A. 'Hasn't Hasn't her * * spelling B. Hasn't her "spelling

'Why not give him

improved. improved.

245

d) Results XVa

Eng.

XVc

XVb

Cer.

Eng.

Ger.

Eng.

Ger.

N

5

20

6

21

21

21

M

12

10

13.5

11

8

m

15

14

14

10

8

C

12

11

13

9 12 11

12

11

'C

11

10

11 .5

9

9

5

0

1

1

2

4

6

11

9

10.5

8

4

1

Ί 'D

Table 54

Analysis The differences between the two parts of each experiment were tested for significance for each population, as follows: N XVa

English:

XVb XVc

English:

XVa XVb XVc

German: German: German :

English:

T

p

insuf f ici(snt difference scores insufficient difference scores 16 48.5 not sig. 18 16 19

6.5 19.5 64.5

sig.

sig . at .01

not sig.

Table 55 Comparing the scores of the two populations,

at .01

we have:

246

XVa

υ

ζ

Ρ

50

0

.5

1.14

CD

66.5 58.5 64.5

.127 .281 .161

C

84.5

c cc CI

XVb

XVc

.58 .99

CC

89

1 .25 1 .51

CI

80

.99

CD

88

1 .46

.106 .066 .161 .072

2.19 3.92 3.27 2.72

.014 .OOO05 .007 .003

C CC CI CD

307.5 376.5 350.5 328.5

Table 56 e) Discussion Owing to the small number of English participants in XVa and XVb, only tentative conclusions can be drawn from these experiments. Both populations performed considerably better than random, the English somewhat better than the Germans, but not, on the evidence we have, significantly so. This contradicts the prediction that German speakers would be insensitive to the contrast. However, the hypothesis is not disconfirmed thereby; there is evidence from XVIa (below) that rise-falls are not associated with sarcasm by Germans, and it may be that we have a situation such as might have existed with II, namely that one of the intonations, and one of the meanings, was "marked", and the two were associated for that reason. An improvement would be to contrast/*o *n / with/'o "*" η / . The case of XVc is quite different; the differences between the two populations here are among the most highly significant in the series. The English participants could quite clearly distinguish the patterns, and the hypothesis concerning/'o *"n/ is thereby supported. The German answers were hardly better than random; they were however more consistent than random, which suggests that some

247 criterion, which I cannot identify, was being employed. It is reasonable to conclude that there is a signaller of sarcasm in English not recognized by German-speakers. the / ' o *~n/

melodeme.

It includes

I believe this to be the crucial element,

but without independent control of the variables, this must remain a hypothesis.

7 . 2 . 1 T.Experiment XVIa (Attitudinal Meanings with A f f i r m a t i v e Jussives) a) For background, see 4 . 4 . 1 7 b) Task: Participants were asked to give an attitudinal label to each item (see list of attitudes and melodemes in 4 . 4 . 1 7 . ) The responses are referred to as follows: Brusque - B;

Polite Invitation - P; Nagging - N ; Sarcastic - S; Embarrassed Surprise - E; Condescending or Patronizing - C. The experiment was administered twice, at d i f f e r e n t sessions. c) The sentences were worded as follows: Do sit down Do take your coat

off

Do turn the radio down Do acme in d) Results This experiment generated a large quantity of data. In general, total scores give a better overview than medians, and I shall use these for exposition; decisions on significance will however be made on the basis of non-parametric tests appropriate to ordinal data. The patterns will be referred to by the same numbers as were assigned to them in 4 . 4 . 1 7 . Pattern 4 occurred twice (for purposes of comparison); where necessary, the two sets will be distinguished

248 as 4 and 4 ' . Table 57 gives a coarse overview:

English

German

N

18

29 ( + 2 ) *

C

13.5

12 5 7

CC

10

CI

3

(max. 28)

two German participants were unable to attend the second session. Their responses are taken into account (except of course where "consistent" scores are given). Table 57 Table 58a gives the modes of the distribution of responses for each pattern, taking into account individual responses only, the figure is the percentage of all responses to the pattern which the mode represents. The next most common response is given if more than 50% of the mode. Table 58b takes into account consistent responses only, and ignores the fact that some patterns were answered consistently more often than others.

249

English (a)

Mode

%

72

B

75

P

74

P

46

N

69

N

37

S

42

P , E ,N each 22

S

38

B

25

C 22

E

23

B 21

P

44

C 29

Pattern

Mode

1

B

2 3 4 4

1

%

2nd

6

P, E , B , S 2 1 + 1 c 38 P 26

1

B

87

B

89

2

P

90

P

67

3

N

87

N

46

4

S

70

E , N 24 each

4'

S

58

B

5

P, E , B , S , C all 20+1 c 54 P 35

5

(b)

German

6

2nd

S 27

34

N 32

E , B 26 each

54

P

Table 58 Table 59 shows the percentage of consistent responses given to each pattern (irrespective of which response); while Table 6O shows the degree of consistency associated with each response (thus "N 66" means that in 66% of the cases where one N was given, the same participant answered N to the same item on the other occasion). Eng. 1

64

65

B

2

71

45

P

3

66

53

N

43

40

51

35

5

34

6

37

4 4

1

Ger.

Eng.

Ger.

S

56 59 66 59

47

33

E

24

36

51

C

41

37

Table 59

61 55 50

Table 60

250

It was generally the case that if a participant had given an item a particular response on one occasion, he was far more likely to give that response than any particular other response on the other occasion. However there were some relatively common combinations. The following each accounted for more than 5% of the total: English

German

C/B 6 . 0 % P/B 5 . 4 %

C/P 6 . 2 % C/B 6 . 2 %

P/E 5 . 2 %

P/E 5 . 4 %

P/B accounted for 2 . 8 % of the German total, C/P for 4 . 2 % of the English The semantic labels were not distributed evenly over the individual sentences. Table 61 gives the distribution in percentages (individual answers). (a) Do sit

down

(b) Do turn the radio down (c) Do take your ooat off (d) Do aome in English

C P B S E N

German

a

b

c

d

a

b

c

d

28 28 25 22 24 19

30

27

27

17

24

10

27

32

28

21

29

25

23

21

35

23

24

26

21

24

1O

26

33

40

19

25 31 24 27 31 14

32

15

16 34 15 22 30 22

45

20

21

Table 61 Significance The differences apparent in Table 57 were tested for significance as follows:

251

υ c cc

183.5

CI

412.5

59

ζ

Ρ

1 .70

.045

4.42

.00003

3.32

.0005

Table 62 Tests were also carried out on the d i f f e r e n t i a l response patterns of the two populations in areas of prima facie

interest.

In what

follows, only consistent responses have been taken into account. i) Predicted Responses: There were no significant differences in the predicted responses to patterns 1 ( B B ) , 5 ( E E ) , 6 ( C C ) .

υ

ζ

Ρ

1

267.5

.14

.444

5

280.5

.43

.334

6

230

.69

.245

Table 63 There were significant differences in the numbers of predicted responses to patterns 2 ( P P ) , 3 (NN) , 4 ( S S ) and 4 ' ( S S ) .

υ

ζ

Ρ

2

446

4.04

.00003

3

111.5

3.27

.O007

4

125

2.74

.003

4'

99

3.54

.OOO2

Table 64 ii)Non-Predicted Responses: The following were noted: Pattern 3: German participants showed a significantly higher SS response; pattern 6: Germans showed a significantly higher PP response. Figures as follows:

252

z

U

P

3

395

2.93

.004 (2-tailed)

6

353

2.01

.044 (2-tailed)

Table 65 e) Discussion Table 57 shows that the English responded both more consistently and more in accord with the hypotheses than the Germans. In every case except that of pattern ( 5 ) , the mode of the distribution of the English responses, both individual and consistent, was as predicted(Table 5 8 ) . largely confirmed.

I therefore consider my hypotheses

Pattern (5) is clearly not generally associated

with the meaning I gave it,

nor consistently with any other.

As for the Germans, they agreed about the meaning of ( 1 ) . In the case of ( 5 ) , they agreed with my intuition more often than did the English, but not significantly so.

In the case of (6).,there

was no significant difference between the populations in the number of predicted CC responses, but the Germans gave even more PP responses, significantly more than the English. On (2) and ( 3 ) , while the majority verdict of the Germans was for the hypothesized responses,

it was significantly smaller than that of the English.

On ( 3 ) , moreover, the Germans gave significantly more SS responses. On ( 4 ) , the Germans did not associate the pattern with sarcasm, which they clearly associated more strongly with ( 3 ) . These results show that: i)

only

Ό

sn

is common property; and even here, the English

participants were more ready to give it a P interpretation, ii) iii)

though not consistently; otherwise German-speakers do not in generally fully appreciate the meanings, of the patterns; in certain cases misunderstanding is quite possible. In particular, there is considerable confusion among the Germans between the P and C categories, especially on the /fc „ n / pattern. Non-recognition of the sarcastic nature of / ^ o ^ n / i s potentially hazardous, as is its v

ciation with/ n / ;

(incorrect) asso-

253

iv)

the Germans do not recognize fully the very clear implications o f /

v)

ρ (ο

χ ιι/

and /

v

n/ ;

the same two patterns are not adequately described in textbooks of English intonation; both are obviously extremely distinctive. These and other matters will be discussed f u r t h e r a f t e r the

results of XVIb have been presented.

7 . 2 . 1 8 Experiment XVIb (Attitudinal Meanings with Negative Jussives) a) For background, see 4 . 4 . 1 7 . b) Task: as for XVIa.

The attitudinal labels were:

Β - Brusque; Ν - nagging; W - warning; S - sarcastic; C - condescending; Q - echo-question. The experiment was administered once. c) The sentences were worded as follows: Don't touch that uire Don ' t be late Don't leave those tools lying

there

Όση't drive too fast d) Results The patterns will be referred to as listed in 4 . 4 . 1 7 . A coarse overview is given in table 66: English 21

M

German 28

(max.24)

15

Table 66

254

The modes of the distributions of the responses for each pattern are given in table 67 ( cf Table 5 8 a ) . English Mode

German

%

2nd

Mode

% 50 30

N 28

Q 37

B C C

41

W 24 C 22

1

B

3

N

62 71

6

C

38

7

W

49

W

35

8

Q Q

69

Q Q

53

9

82

37

2nd

W/N 21

Table 67 Table 68 shows the distribution of responses, irrespective of pattern (note that S was not predicted for any pattern; and Q for two patterns). English

German

N

16% 14 17

S

4

23% 14 14 8

W

17

20

Q

32

20

C B

(The predicted answering behaviour would have produced 17% for each, except: 0% for S, and 33% for Q) Table 68 The labels were not distributed evenly over the sentences used in the experiment, as shown in table 69. (a)Don't touch that vire (b)Don't leave those tools lying there (c)Don't be late (d)Don't drive too fast

255

English

German

a

b

c

d

a

b

c

d

c

23

27

30

20

27

30

22

B

18

28

35

18

21 19

23

36

21

N

19

26

29

26

25

39

21

16

S

16

21

16

47

22

15

30

32

W

38

23

13

26

27

15

21

35

Q

26

24

23

26

33

28

16

22

Table 69 Significance Comparing the coarse scores represented by their medians in table 66 for significance, we have:

υ 531.5

4.80

.00003

Table 70 The following were also compared for significance: i) numbers of predicted responses: The English had significantly more Ν responses on (3) and significantly more Q responses on ( 9 ) ; the difference in the number of B responses on ( 1 ) and Q responses on (8) was not significant on the two-tailed test appropriate for these patterns; nor were the differences in the numbers of C responses on (6) or W responses on ( 7 ) : figures as follows:

256 z

U

3

95

9

96

1

208

8

212

6

322.5 217.5

7

4.02 4.00 1 .73 1 .66 .58

1 .59

P

.00006 (2-tailed) II .OOO06 11 II II .082 H II .096 M II .562 II II .112

Table 71 ii)Non-predicted responses: The Germans had significantly more C responses on 3, Ν responses on 9, and W responses on 9, than the English. Figures as follows;

υ

ζ

Ρ

3

399

2.12

.034 (2-tailed)

N 9

412

2.38

.016

II

II

W 9

461

3.37

.001

tl

II

Table 72 Within each population, the difference in the number of Q responses between 8 and 9 was not significant for the English (N = 16. T = 4 2 . 5 ) , but was significant for the Germans (N - 22, T = 6 3 . 5 ; significant at .05), with 8 having more Q responses. The difference in the numbers of Q responses between 6 and 8 (low and high rise) is obvious for both populations. e) Discussion The results for the English-speakers (Table 67) confirm the hypotheses, though only weakly so in the case of 6. It is clear from table 67 that the German population was in general not able to associate particular attitudes with particular intonations, although their ability varied considerably according to the intonation. Thus there was no significant difference in their performance on patterns 6, 7 and 8. The last is not surprising; in view of their responses to 6 in XVIa, the first is not surprising either; how-

257 ever, there was no reason to expect a good performance on 7, the pattern not being reported as being used for "warning" in German. It was observed in the discussion of iXc above that German participants did not recognize / "*o ^n/ as an echo-question consistently. The same observation can be made here also in their responses to 9, where they gave significantly more W responses than the English, suggesting a less sharp distinction between this pattern and / *o * n /. Nonetheless, it is clear that both they and the English can distinguish fairly consistently between the two fall-rise patterns, and also between the two rises; while both populations gave Q quite often as a response to 6 (low r i s e ) , it was much less often than to 8. The results of XVIa and XVIb are certainly compatible insofar as they are comparable. The high recognition rate accorded by the English to 3, the "nagging" pattern, is again particularly striking in view of its omission, in any clear form, from the text-books. My prediction that German-speakers would only judge according to final tone movement is not f u l f i l l e d . Pattern 3, where it was not judged N, was more often than not judged S or C in both experiments; neither of these can be called "friendly" attitudes, which I had predicted would be associated with rising intonations. And pattern 9 was often associated with N , also not a "friendly" attitude. The only responses which accorded with this prediction at all were: the high P score for 6 in XVIa (P was not an option in X V I b ) ; the relatively high P score for 4. Some observations on the form of these experiments and their validity will be made in chapter 8 below.

7 . 2 . 1 9 Experiment XVII (Attitudinal Judgements in Wh-Interrogatives, Judgements of Prominence) c) For background, see 4 . 4 . 1 8 and 4 . 4 . 1 9 . b) Task: Participants were asked (a) to give an attitudinal judgement on each item; (b) to write down the word in each iterr. they heard as 'most prominent 1 (this was not d e f i n e d ) . Both tasks were performed on the same hearing. Attitudinal

258

responses are referred to as: B - Brusque, D - Demanding; C - Condescending, Patronizing; S - Surprised, Shocked; P - Polite, Neutral; I - Question is part of a longer Inquiry, Insistent. Prominence responses are referred to as : w - wh-word; a - auxiliary; p - pronoun; v - verb c) The sentences were worded as follows: What are they doing? How does he know? Where does he live? Who did he tell? d) Results N = 17 (English); 25 (German) The following tables give total results as percentages;

signifi-

cance was tested by non-parametric methods, assuming ordinal data.

1

ω α ρ Νν

Eng.

Ger.

Eng.

Ger.

C

34

16

W

32

B

15

16

a

0

24 2

P

26

40

16

27

I

21

24

P v

51

47

s

4

4

i) attitude

ii)

Table 73

prominence

259

The C and P scores d i f f e r

significantly:

z

U

P

C

134

2.01

.04 (2-tailed , as throughout)

P

286

1 .96

.05

Table 74 2.

ω α ρ ν

Eng.

Ger.

9

15

w

B 32

26

a

6

11

I 49

42

P υ

4

6

i) attitude

C P

S

ii)

prominence

Eng.

Ger.

97 0 1 1

100 0 0 0

Eng.

Ger.

Table 75 No significant differences. 3.

w a p

v

Eng.

Ger.

4

6

B 13

18 20 19 37

i) C

P 32 I 38 S 12

ii)

P υ J

Table 76 The I,

22 4 0 74

u α

S and v scores d i f f e r

significantly:

U

z

I

124.5

2.26

.02

S

325

2.88

.004

υ

295.5

2.13

.033

Table 77

P

11 1 0 88

260

4. ω

α ρ Eng.

Ger.

C Β Ρ

34

31

w

15

14

α

4

3

p

Ι

4

16

v

S

43

36

i) attitude

ii)

prominence

Eng.

Ger.

0 97 O 3

5

90 2 3

Table 78 No significant ι

5. ω α ρ

differences.

υ Eng .

Ger.

C

15

11

u

Β

4

5

α

Ρ

41

54

p

Ι

28

21

v

S

12

9

i)

)

Eng.

Ger.

22 3 0 75

13 1

24 62

Table 79 There is a significant difference between the p scores of the two populations (U = 340, z = 3 . 2 7 ; p = .001). 6. w ^ α ρ

ν

Eng.

Ger.

B

15 1

P

6

I

19

34 18 6 13

i) C

Eng.

)

w α p v

1

Ger.

1

8 59 0

7

33

90

Table 80 There are significant differences between the C, B, S, α and ν scores of the two populations:

261

υ

2

P

C

3 18.5

2.72

.007

Β

3D3.5

2.33

.019

S

94.5

3.02

.002

α

76.5

3.49

.001

υ

35 2 . 5

3.59

.OOO 4

Table 81 7. w

αρύ

Eng.

i) attitude C Β Ρ Ι S

Ger.

ii)

prominence

Eng.

Ger.

12

17

W

1

1

24

34

α

97

99

10

10

0

0

44

28

P v

1

0

10

11

Table 82 ant differences. 8. 'ω

α ρ

v

1)

Eng .

Ger.

3

9

Eng.

Ger.

D

24

24

ii)

C B P

30

16

a

1

0

34

40

0

1

I

26

24

F v

75

74

Table 83 No significant differences. Tables 84 to 88 show the relationships between judgements of prominence and of attitude. Those cases are shown where there is a prima facie relationship. It should be remembered that some of the totals on which these percentage figures are based are f a i r l y

262

small, and thus of questionable reliability. 1. υ α ρ

λ

ν

English l·)

C Β Ρ I S

36 9 23 32 0

German

V

P

ω

v

P

37 20 26 14 3

10 10

13 17

13 9

21 29

40 20 20

13 52 4

57 17 4

36 11 4

α ρ

^

Table 84

3.

6.

ω

English

C Β Ρ Ι S

W

y

0 1 40 47 7

6 14 30 36 14

German

υ C

ρ ,υ

C Β Ρ I

s

α 43

19 25 9 28 19

Β Ρ Ι S

Table 85

5. ω α

Λ

16 3 5 33

Table 86

English

German

W

υ

W

t)

P

14 7 43 29 7

12 4 43 27 14

0 8 42 33 17

11 5 58 16 10

13 4 50 29 4

Table 87

263 8.

w a p

v

English

German

W

v

ω

u

C

6

0

4

11

B

38

29

17

16

P

25

37

42

39

I

25

27

29

23

S

6

6

8

11

Table 88 Table 89 shows how the responses were distributed over the d i f f e r ent sentences (figures in percentages): (a)

What are they doing?

(b)

Where does he live?

(c) (d)

How does he knoa? Who did he tell?

i) attitudes English

C B P I

s

German

a

b

c

d

a

b

c

32 31 33 14 22

27

18

24

38

23

20

30

22

17

22

19 34

22

22

19

23

24

32

29

16

23

30

22

33

14

28

24

33

17

38

22

19

14

44

23

26

22

24

27

22

21

24

33

26

25

24

25

28

24

26

22

66 23

0 28

33

0

31

22

37

9

26

23

23

29

22

26

d

ii) prominence

w a P V

Table 89

264 e) Discussion i) Prominence I shall look first at those patterns where the majority of English participants recorded a as being the 'most prominent 1 item, namely w * α ρ υ, w a p v and ω α ρ χ ν. a was nuclear only in w*a p υ, and it was of lower pitch than the nucleus in w , a p x y . The auxiliaries are and does are marked for prominence by their strong forms, but this does not apply to did, and from table 89 it can be seen that sentence ( d ) , in which did appears, received a responses as often as the others. The Germans shared this judgement for but not for w ^a ρ ^ υ. It is clear that nuclearity either, nor can the unreduced role; it appears that low pitch inhibits way that it does not for the English.

w 'α ρ x y and w ^ α ρ ν, their criterion was not auxiliary have played a perceptual prominence in a

The pronoun was judged as prominent only in w a p x w and 'ω α ρ ,v , where p was the last syllable before a pitch drop, and it is plausible to attribute its prominence to this fact. The English insofar as they judged ρ as prominent at all - did so only with 'ω α ρ N y ; their perception of the tone was thus unchanged (except from low fall to 'higher 1 f a l l ) , only the perceived nucleus was shifted. The German ρ response was equally strong on w α ρ / υ . Both sets of German ρ responses are consistent with the suggestion that low pitch inhibits perception of prominence by Germans. The ρ response o n ' ω α ρ ,v is interesting because it requires that the tone be received as a fall-rise with nuclear p , which at least suggests that such a tone is not unnatural for Germans, providing further evidence that it is a natural part of the German tonal inventory. (It is no more than a suggestion: the number of ρ responses was not very great; and an alternative explanation is that, having become accustomed to fall-rise tones in English, the German learner hears them when they are not there.) Nuclear w was heard almost universally as prominent. This is not surprising, there being no 'competition". More interesting are the cases with nuclear ν and onset w. Taking the English results f i r s t , there is a fairly constant ratio of υ to ω responses of about

265

three to one (with the exception of 'ω α ρ Ν ν , where the figures are not comparable owing to the ρ responses).

I conclude that

English-speakers may have two criteria for judging prominence in a number of common melodemes, leading to a decision for either onset or nucleus, which are applied f a i r l y constantly in the ratio mentioned. The Germans reflect the English pattern in ' ω α ρ ^v and 'υ α ρ

ν.

x

In the case of Λ υ α ρ y , they come down fairly heavily for v: this is consistent with the hypothesis that low pitch (here,on u ) inhibits perception of prominence.

Against this, the high onset,

low nucleus ' u a p ^v had a low w score; this may have to do with the ρ responses. ii) attitudinal judgements Results are less conclusive than in XVIa or XVIb; a second hearing may have introduced greater clarity, but it was impossible to arrange one.

Also, the semantic categories may have been less spe-

cific and clear-cut than desirable. Patterns Ν ω α ρ ν

and

w

χ

α ρ ν

, with nuclei that are most

easily interpreted as contrastive, gave similar results for both populations, the majority preference being for I, with a substantial minority for Β (tables 75 and 8 2 ) . This result was predicted, the I category having been intended to describe precisely these patterns. The Germans admittedly reversed the B/I preferences for w

Ν

α ρ ν;

this may be because I and Β are not mutually exclusive,

but

may apply to d i f f e r e n t aspects of the same utterance. Pattern

w a p ^v

(table 73) produced results that were not

pre-

dicted. While low falls produced fairly universal Β responses for the jussives, here the English preference was for C and the German for P. This pattern of preference is however compatible with XVIa, where an English preference for C (on a different pattern) accompanied a German preference for P. The pattern in question was the low rise: here there is no such disagreement: both populations chose P, although in both cases it accounted for only around half the choices. Both the low fall and the low rise seem, for the native speakers/ to be associated with different attitudinal meanings depending on the syntactic structure with which they are used.

266

From Tables 84 to 88 it appears that a w judgement on prominence on w a p X L> is more likely to be associated (by both populations) with an I response on attitude. This may mean that those who responded w in fact heard ν ω α ρ υ . As the acoustic effect is quite d i f f e r e n t , this would surprise me. However, the question is raised whether those who responded υ were saying, in e f f e c t , "w is the nucleus", or "the onset is more prominent". We do not have the evidence to decide this question. The pattern * u a p * ν is considered by O'Connor & Arnold to be the neutral pattern in English; this view is weakly supported by the English data (table 8 3 ) , where Ρ is the mode of the distribution, but with only one-third of the preferences. The German responses were no d i f f e r e n t at the required level of significance. would, it was predicted, be answered S by the English. Λυ α ρ * ν In fact, it was answered very like 'w a p s v (see table 7 6 ) . The Germans, on the other hand, answered in the way predicted for the English, and quite differently from 'υ α ρ ν υ . Now, in XVIa, the answer Ε predicted for the same pattern (which corresponds roughly to S here) was also chosen by the Germans more often than by the English. In other words, there are two pieces of evidence that / ^ o ^ n/ is interpreted by Germans as indicating surprise. The distinction made by the Germans between ' w a p ^ v and ^w a p ^ v is a counter-example to the hypothesis that German-speakers pay less attention to pre-nuclear contours. The shift of onset from ^w a p x v to ω ^ α ρ ^ ν (table 80) makes an enormous difference to the English responses, which here exhibited the predicted S judgement with greater frequency than any other response to any item in this experiment. This is an indication that it is not melodemes which have meanings, but melodemes in association with particular elements of particular structures. The Germans reacted to the shift in onset quite differently. Their answers seem to depend on the prominence judgement: where α was heard as prominent, C and S were given; where v, then B and I. I have no explanation for this behaviour. I also find it surprising that w a p^ v and ω Λ α p N y , which are tonetically similar and have no congruent forms in German, should have been distinguished to the extent to which they were. Pattern w ' α ρ N v would, it was predicted, receive an S response

267

from the English.

This was indeed the mode of the distribution,

but it was closely followed by C.

It happens that all three par-

ticipants who are over f i f t y , and no others, answered S throughout this pattern. If it is in fact associated with older people, it is plausible that it might be heard as condescending by younger ones, hence the relatively high C response.

Against this, it

is unlikely

that the Germans would be sensitive to such influences, yet their response pattern was almost identical (table 7 8 ) .

7 . 2 . 2 0 . Experiment XIX a) This experiment is not specifically introduced, but tests a number of contrasts, all vidual experiments.

of which have formed the subject of indi-

b) Task: Participants were asked to supply a semantic label for each item.

The contrasted patterns were:

1. / Ό N n , n/ 2. /*ο "n /

5./*o 'n / 6./*o , n /

3. / *o v n / 4 . / ,o 'n /

7./*o *n/ 8./,o ,n/

The choice of labels was: A. - statement making a new contribution to a subject under discussion; B. - statement implying a following "but . . . ' ; C. - condescending or patronizing statement; D. - contradiction; E. - echo-question; F. - question; G. - casual, off-hand,

statement.

c) The sentences were all declarative, with the possibility of an 'elliptical question' reading, as in Villa and Vlllb, as follows (onset and nucleus underlined): a) 'Penelope's new silk blouses come from

Italy

b) The old ladies in the shop in Harvey Road sell Spanish onions »— > c) Most of the camping sites in CornwalI have modern facilities

268 The experiment was administered twice. d) Results N: German, 21 ( + 4 who did not repeat) English, 22 (+ 3 who did not repeat) The median consistent scores are as follows:

Eng.

Ger.

12

8

(max. 24)

Table 90 Tables 91 and 92 show the modes of the distributions of responses for each pattern, in percentages, and other frequent responses (91 individual responses; 92:consistent pairs o n l y ) .

English Mode

%

German Others

Mode

%

Others

33 33

B 17 B26 G 15

1.

A

65

2.

A

40

B 30 G 22

A A

3.

A

40

G 21 F 16

A

27

B24 C 16

4.

D

77

E

33

F22 D 20

5.

E

65

F 27

E

32

F24 C 17

6.

F

41

E 31

G

35

C19

7.

E

31

A 30 F 26

D

28

E20 F 14

8.

G

42

C 27

G

33

C17

Table 91

269

English Mode

German

%

1.

A

84

2.

A

38

3.

A

4.

Others

Mode

Others

%

A

40

A

50

61

B

36

A 32

D

88

E

42

5.

E

76

E

43

6.

F

60

G

41

7.

E

39

D

35

D C C E

8.

G

56

G

52

B 27 G 22

A 32 F 24

25 26 F 2 29 23

Table 92 Table 93 shows the distribution .of Question (E and F) and Non-Question ( A , B , C , D , G ) responses (individual answers o n l y ) .

German

English Q 1. 2.

9 0

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

22 13 92 72 57 3

Non-Q

Q

Non-Q

91

16

84

100

1

99

78

19

81

87

55

45

8

56

44

28

29

71

43

35

65

97

22

78

Table 93 Table 94 shows the degree of consistency associated with each pattern; table 95 the distribution of responses between the three sentences.

270

1. 2. 3. 4.

Eng.

Ger.

48 56 42 76

32

Eng.

Ger.

5.

68

37

35

6.

38

27

35

7.

58

41

38

8.

41

32

Table 94

English

German

a

b

c

a

b

c

A.

33

31

37

42

21

38

B.

39

23

39

34

25

41

C.

26

33

41

25

37

37

D.

32

34

34

26

36

39

E.

30

33

37

27

47

25

F.

47

37

17

42

31

27

G.

27

38

36

29

42

3O

Table 95 Analysis The populations d i f f e r significantly in their degree of consistent responses, as shown in table 96:

u C 373

z 3.45

P

.OOO3

Taking the FR and F+R patterns (1, 2 and 3 ) , which, separately, have formed the basis of earlier contrasts, and examining all three for relative frequency of B and F answers (thus paralleling in part experiments X and X I I , the Friedman Two-way Analysis of Variance by Ranks (see Siegel, pp. 166-73) gives the levels of significance shown in table 97.

271 2 P

English German

B

18.78

.001

F

6.72

.05

B

10.10

.01

F

6.14

.05

Table 97 Applying the Wilcoxon test to individual pairs of patterns,we find that the difference in the number of B responses between patterns 1 and 3 ( / ' o 98) .

N

n

,n/

and / "*o

v

n/

) is not significant

T

N

English: 7 German : 12

(table

P .05

7.5

28.5

.05

Table 98 The difference between the B scores on patterns 1 and 2 ( / ' o and /*o

w

n/

x

n

,,n/

) , and on 2 and 3 are significant for the English but

not for the Germans (table 9 9 ) . N

T

1 -- 2 English: 18 German : 20

3.5

3 -- 2 English: 18 German : 15

P .01

79

.05

10

.01

59.5

.05

Table 99 Looking in the same way at the difference in the F scores, we have the results shown in table 100.

272

T

N

German:

5 7

1 - 3 English:

10

1 - 2 English:

(irisuf f icien t) 0 < .01 2.5

< .01

22.5

> .05

10

Ο

< .01

11

0

< .01

German: 2 - 3 English:

German

Ρ

Table 100 Patterns 5 and 7 were compared for judgements.

frequency of

(predicted) E

It was established that for the English, there are

significantly more EE responses on 5 (the high rise) than on 7 (the broad f a l l - r i s e ) ; the Germans showed no such difference - there were fairly few EE responses on either pattern from them. The figures are given in table 101.

N

T

P

English: 15

17

.02

German :

8

10.5

> .05

Table 101 Finally, the effect of high and low onset, and high and low rise, respectively, on the incidence of Q (= F or E) responses was examined.

We find that given either nuclear tone, the incidence of Q

d i f f e r s significantly for the English (high onset - more Q ) , but not for the Germans

(table 1O2) .

6 - 8 English: (low rise)

German:

N

T

19

Ο

Ρ

< .01

insuf f icient d i f f erence scores

5 - 4 English:

20

Ο

(high rise) German:

18

77

Table 1O2

< .01 > .05

273

(The McNemar test applied to the same data gives p values of < .001 for the English, and

> .5 for the German, in both cases.)

Given either onset, the incidence of Q d i f f e r s significantly for the Germans according to nuclear tone (high rise - more Q ) ; for the English however, only with high onset: N

T

P

8 - 4 English: insuf f ic;.ent differenc e scores O (low o. ) German: 11 < .01 5 - 6 English: 16 (high o . ) German: 14

14.5 13.5

< .01 .02

Table 103 e) Discussion It is clear from tables 91 and 92 that the only pattern to produce similar response-distributions from the two populations was 8 The incidence of English B and F responses for the FR and F+R patterns might be seen as weak confirmation of the results of X and Xlla (and part of XVIII; it is confirmation insofar as the/"*b v n/ pattern had more F, and the/*"o v n / pattern more B responses than either of the other two patterns respectively; weak, insofar as A responses prevailed in all three. It was observed in X that the "implicatory statement" interpretation was not the preferred one, and the same is obviously true here. It also appears to be true that "question" is not preferred as an interpretation when others are plausible; but no other experiment has examined this matter in quite this form. The German results on these three patterns were in general in line with those of the previous experiments: patterns 1 and 2 did not d i f f e r with respect to the frequency of B answers (which confirms X ) , while patterns 2 and 3 did d i f f e r with respect to the frequency of F responses (which confirms Xlla and X V I I I ) , There was also significantly more F responses on 1 (F+R) than on 2, but no difference in this respect between 1 and 3; this suggests that the glissando body of 2 is what specifically inhibits question-interpretation by Germans (though not as strongly as for the English, if Xlla and XVIII are correct).

274

The results pertaining to Q responses with low and high rises confirm and extend those of Villa, VHIb and XVIII (see sections 7 . 2 . 8 and 7 . 2 . 1 3 . ) . It is clear that the height of the onset is not significant for the Germans (from Table II, it will be seen that patterns 6 and 8 ( / *o ^n/ and /fo f n/ ) have almost identical responses), while it is decisive for the English; this finding supports one of the general hypotheses. It is also the case that the height to which the nucleus rises is more generally important for the Germans than for the English. One suggestion of Villa and VHIb which was not confirmed is that the English see / t ο „ η / as more question-like than /( ο 'η/ ; however, the finding of XVIb that the English distinguish clearly between /"*o ,n/ and / ~*o ''n/ is confirmed. It was to be expected, in view of the results of XVIb, that the Germans would not interpret /*o v n/as E; it was not to be expected, however that the English would differentiate between this and/**o ' n/ as they clearly have here; the most obvious explanation lies in the difference in syntax, but more investigation is needed. The C response, which was associated with/*o ,n/ in jussives (see XVIa and XVIb) was not an important English response to the same pattern here; again, the syntax probably plays a role - where F is plausible, it is preferred. The very high English D score for pattern 4 ( / , o 'n / ) indicates that this pattern and meaning deserve a higher priority in EFL teaching than they appear to have; 4 is not even in O'Connor & Arnold's inventory of tunes. The very high A score for F+R (pattern 1) suggests that it is a very characteristic tune, to which more attention should be paid (including research into the conditions of its u s e ) .

275

8.

CONCLUSION

8.1.

Range and Adequacy of the Experiments

8.1.1.Range The experiments involved a total of around two hundred and f i f t y man-hours of participant time, and constitute one of the largestscale experimental studies of intonation hitherto reported. also cover a considerable range of phenomena.

They

Much of the body of

data is capable of further analysis; in particular, the reasons for anomalous responses to individual items have not yet been adequately investigated. However, numerous findings have been established, as reported in chapter 7, which will be briefly summarized below. First I shall deal with certain matters concerning the adequacy of the experiment.

8 . 1 . 2 . Adequacy Apart from the effects of uncontrolled phonetic variables resulting from the human-voice design, effects which may become clearer from a more thorough analysis of anomalous responses, three matters can and should be examined.

The first is the effect of wording on

interpretation, the second the effect of sampling, the third the effect of different response procedures. The effect of wording may be operative throughout the series, but is most easily quantifiable where the number of differently worded sentences is small in relation to the number of intonations. This is the case in XIV, XVla, XVlb, XVII and XIX, and for these experiments I have prepared tables relevant to this question (tables 51, 61, 7O, 89 and 9 5 ) . They are crude indicators, as they do not distinguish between the effects on the totals of individual serious-

276 ly anomalous items and the cumulative effects of small but constant differences provoked by the wording itself. Examples of both can be seen. Thus in XVIa (table 6 1 ) , the high P and low C score on (d) are the result of a single item Do come ,in, which, because of its shortness, may be phonetically not very distinct from ~Do come ,in (although it is audibly d i f f e r e n t on the tape). The high N and low P score on (b) however are more likely to be due to the words Do turn the radio down, which may be easier to contextualize as nagging than polite. Similar examples can be found elsewhere, while others are less easily explicable. On occasion the effects are quite marked, and a possible source of distortion (if one's sentences are not in some way, which I could not define, "representative"). Ex eventu explanations are bad science if left at that; all that an analysis of these results can usefully achieve is to suggest nerw hypotheses for further experimental investigation, leading to the gradual identification of variables. There is sufficient material here, but apart from the establishment of the fact of such variation, there is no space to extend the scope of the current report to cover it. The samples are relatively small, especially of English-speakers, and, as pointed out in chapter 6, could not be hand-picked. The validity of the experiment depends on their representativeness. In the case of certain experiments (e.g. I, V I ) , where I was confident about the "correct" response, and my f i r s t English participants confirmed this overwhelmingly, I decided that very small samples were adequate. The representative nature of the other samples were adequate. The representative nature of the other samples can be tested by dividing the populations into random halves, and establishing the significance of any difference between them. This was done, as a spot-check, on experiments Xc and XHIb (where most of the participants were d i f f e r e n t ) . In neither case was there any significant difference (see Siegel, Table K; the scores used were the CD scores):

277 n

Xc

Ib

i

n

2

U

P

English

8

8

German

12

13

64

> .1 > ·1

English

11

11

45.5

> -1

German

10

11

47.5

> .1

23.5

Table 104 There is no reason to consider these results atypical. In most cases each experiment was administered twice.

This was

done partly to examine the e f f e c t s of d i f f e r e n t response procedures, and partly to reduce the e f f e c t s of random answering. It will be seen from the results of the Wilcoxon test applied to the two Parts of each experiment that the "categorization" method often produced higher scores than the "contextualization" method, and the reverse was never the case. This can have two causes: either categorization is an easier task, or some learning took place ( f o r the reasons given in 6 . 1 . 4 . , categorization was always the second t a s k ) .

Given

this experimental design, there is no way of determining which cause is the major one.

Participants' comments lead me to believe the

former; the results of XHIb (English) , where categorization was performed twice, and significantly better the second time (see 7 . 2 . 1 4 B ( d ) , suggests the latter.

In general, however, there is

little positive evidence of learning; there is some, as noted, in III (German) and on Xlllb (English), not only between the Parts, but also within each part. But that is all. On the other hand, there is no evidence that contextualization as a task was d i f f i c u l t ; even the Germans could deal with it perfectly well when the contrast was not a problem for them ( e . g . in VI, X I ) . This latter observation is an encouraging indication that the problem for the participants was, as intended, the intonation. Correlation coefficients, often used as a measure of reliability, are of little relevance in this experiment, where the interest lies in the general tendencies within each population. It was assumed that a certain amount of randon answering would take place (hence the repetitions), and the scores of individual participants could

278 well vary as a result. But small differences in score can make considerable differences in rank, to which rank-order correlations are extremely sensitive. The correlations which I have calculated are in fact low to moderate (0 - 4 5 % ) , some significant, some not. Fluctuations in an individual's rank between the two Parts of an experiment are not however relevant. The point is worth noting in one respect, however: the design as it stands is not reliable enough to be used as a test of an individual's proficiency. On experiments XVIa and XIX meaningful correlations cannot in any case be carried out. I have calculated totals separately for each Part, however, and while it would take too much space to reproduce them here, it can be said that in fact there would have been no material difference in any point of the discussions of either set of results if they had been based on the responses to one Part or the other, instead of on both, as was the case. This fact allows one to have some confidence in the reliability of the results of XVIb and XVII, where the data were of similar form, but where the experiments were not repeated. The repetition of one pattern (4) in experiment XVIa had in part a similar purpose, and a similar result. To conclude this discussion of the adequacy of the experiments, I will mention some points of detail arising out of my observations and participants' comments. The first is that contextualization is an inappropriate procedure if there are more than two choices: in IXc, where there were three, participants complained that the task was too d i f f i c u l t . Secondly, there is some reason to believe that participants could remember their responses to contrasting items/ especially on contextualization; this can be defeated by having similar wording in all the items and contexts. Thirdly, asymmetries should be incorporated wherever feasible, in those cases where the meaning of the response is clear (i.e. in categorization tasks), as some participants evidently try to balance their results. In general, the design I chose has proved satisfactory. The availability of 'consistent' responses has provided data which are at the same time more clear-cut and probably more reliable. In future experiments I would adopt the model of VI and IXa, where the number of patterns and responses respectively was not the same as the number of contexts, thus combining a two-way choice of contexts

279 (the maximum) with a categorization task which was not j u s t a oneto-one matching of two variables (with the attendant danger of automatic labelling).

The categorization-only experiments also gave

interpretable results; here again, asymmetry is u s e f u l , though if the number of possible responses is f a i r l y large, it may be less important. Repetition is also u s e f u l ; it will be seen from the results of XVIa and XIX that reference to consistent responses only sharpens differences, and moreover, the relative incidence of consistency across d i f f e r e n t patterns also gives an insight into the confidence with which they were answered, and frequent confusions can be identified.

8 . 2 . The Results and their Interpretation On the English side, predictions were generally f u l f i l l e d and hypotheses supported, although a number of detailed findings reported in chapter 7 deviated in some degree from the predictions ( e . g . the relative reluctance of participants to prefer "implicatory-statement" responses on fall-rise items X, X I X , the d i f f e r e n t i a t i o n of /*o x n / a n d /"*o v n / ( X I X ) , the distribution of C and S responses in XVII among others). Among the more interesting findings are the differentiation of high and low onset with rising nuclei, the confirmation of fall-rise as a question tone, the differentiation of body patterns with fall.rise nuclei, the identification of the "nagging" pattern in jussives (which I think also exists in interrogatives) , the confirmation, in part, of Brazil's theory of 'dominance' and the quite general finding that the meaning of a melodeme depends both on the way it is associated with the elements of a sentence, and on the syntactic structure. The German results on the mainly 'attitudinal' experiments showed considerable deviation from the English, in particular as regards the differentiation of the C and P categoreis, and the N and S categories. The general prediction regarding the German performance has been partially f u l f i l l e d . Their indifference to prenuclear contours in some instances has been strikingly demonstrated (see X I X ) , their reduced sensitivity to it in others is clear (see XIX, XVIII, X V I I a ) . It cannot however be said that they are only

280

sensitive to the direction of the final tone. The interpretation of the German results is not always easy. The experiments fall into three groups in this respect: those in which they were not significantly different from the English, those in which they were not significantly different from random, and those in which they were better than random but significantly worse than the English. The first two patterns are not difficult to explain: they are aware of the contrast, or they are not. The last is more difficult. One explanation is that there are some participants who are aware, and others who are not. This is not borne out by an analysis of the data, at least not in any predictable fashion. First, two participants (whose knowledge of spoken English is slight) had results well within the range of those of university students of English; secondly, when the U test is applied to sections of the German population divided according to their presumed knowledge, no significant differences emerge. The following figures are typical: n

^

n

2

U

P

XHIb (Students of English Xc

vs others) (Students of English with practical experience vs those without)

8

13

41 .5

.1

12

13

76

.1

Table 1O5 There appear to be no independently definable groupings with better or worse performances. This would suggest that the contrast between the patterns in these cases is recognizable to German hearers, but is not congruent to native contrasts and is therefore recognized with less confidence and less consistency. It would also suggest that intonation is neither taught nor learnt even at a high level of education in English, and, more surprisingly, that even lengthy visits to England do not appear to have a significant effect on the comprehension of intonation patterns.

281 Another explanation of the third pattern of responses is that the Germans gave generally correct answers to one of the contrasting patterns and random answers to the other; this is noticeable in a number of experiments where it explains to a certain extent the excess of one response over another. The reasons for such behaviour in individual experiments were discussed in chapter 7. The other finding of interest from the German results (see especially XVII) is that the precise relation between melody and prominence is not the same in English and German; there is also evidence that the segmental phonetic structure can influence the German perception of tones d i f f e r e n t l y from the English (see Villa, VHIb) . In view of our ignorance of the precise variables involved, I consider the decision not to use synthesized speech in these experiments to have been wise.

8.3.

Further Research

Further research along these lines is wide open. Much of the data of the present experiment, in fact, still requires analysis. There are areas of English which need further investigation, which could usefully be pursued using the methods employed here: for example, tag-questions, and retorts and rejoinders of various kinds. Further attitudinal variations in structures of all syntactic types are obviously present. Gradually increasing control of different variables would lead to an identification of what is significant and what is incidental. Such control is also needed in order to gain insights into how German-speakers perceive tones and prominence. Finally, the procedure can be applied to contrastive analyses of the behaviour of speakers of other sets of languages. This is an important area of practical research: comprehension errors in intonation rarely manifest themselves in conversational interaction, and remain uncorrected. Where contrasts have been noticed as potential sources of such error, discussion has hitherto been on the anecdotal level.

282

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abe, Isamu, 1957. On Japanese Intonation: An Experiment.

Lingua

7. 183.94.

1973. The Intonation of the Expression Beg Your Pardon". Study of Sounds 16. 315-28. Abercrombie, David, 1 9 5 4 . The Recording of Dialect Material. Orbis 3. 231-35. Reprinted in D. Abercrombie, 1 9 6 5 , 108-13. 1963. Conversation and Spoken Prose. ELT 18. Reprinted in D. Abercrombie, 1 9 6 5 , 1-9. 1 9 6 4 . Syllable Quantity and Enclitics in English. In Honour of Daniel Jones, ed. D. Abercrombie et a l . , 216-22. London, Longman. Reprinted in D. Abercrombie, 1965, 26-34. 1965. Studies in Phonetics and Linguistics. (Language and Language Learning 10.) London, O . U . P . 1967. Elements of General Phonetics. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press. 1968. Paralanguage. British Journal of Disorders of Communication 3. 55-59. Reprinted in Communication in Face to Face Interaction,ed. by James Laver and Sandy Hutcheson, 6 4 - 6 9 . Harmondsworth, Penguin. 1972 , D . B . Fry, P . A . D . MacCarthy, N . C . Scott and J . L . M . Trim ( e d s . ) , 1 9 6 4 . In Honour of Daniel Jones: Papers contributed on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday 12 September 1961. London, Longman. Adams, Corinne M . , 1 9 C 9 . A Survey of Australian English Intonation. Phonetica 20. 81-130. Allen, W. Stannard, 1 9 5 4 . Living English Speech: Stress and Intonation for the Foreign Student. London, Longman. Allwood, Jens, L . G . Andersson and 0. Dahl, 1 9 7 7 . Logic in Linguistics. (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics.) Cambridge, C.U.P. Anderson, John . , 1973. Universal Quantifiers. Lingua 31. 125-76 Anderson, Keith 0 . , 1 9 7 9 . On the Contrastive Phonetics of English and German Intonation. Festschrift für Otto von Essen anläßlich seines 80. Geburtstags, ed. H.-H. Wängler. (Hamburger Phonetische Beiträge 2 5 . ) 25-35. Hamburg. Antonsen, E . H . , 1966. Suprasegmentale in German. Lg. 42. 587601 . Armstrong, Lilias E. and Ida C. Ward, 1926. A Handbook of English Intonation. Cambridge, H e f f e r . 2 1931. Arnold, G . F . , 1 9 6 1 . Review of An English Intonation Reader, by W . R . Lee. M.Phon. 115. 13-16. Bald, Wolf-Dietrich, 1 9 7 6 . Contrastive Studies in English and German Intonation. (Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics 4) 37-47. Poznan. Barker, Maria L . , 1925. A Handbook of German Intonation for Uni-

283 versity Students, Cambridge, H e f f e r , Bierwisch, Manfred, 1 9 6 6 . Regeln für die Intonation deutscher Sätze. Untersuchungen über Akzent und Intonation im Deutschen, ed. M. Bierwisch. (Studia Grammatica 7 ) . 99-201. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag. Birdwhistell, R . L . , 1 9 6 1 . Paralanguage Twenty-Five Years after Sapir. Lectures in Experimental Psychiatry, ed. H . G . Brosin. 43-63. Pittsburgh P a , , Pittsburgh University Press. Reprinted in Communication in Face to Face Interaction, eds. John Laver and Sandy Hutcheson (Penguin Modern Linguistics Readings). 82-1OO. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1 9 7 2 . Bloomfield, Leonard, 1933. Language. New York, Holt. 1935. London, Allen & Unwin. Bodelsen, C . A . , 1 9 4 3 . The Two English Intonation Tunes. Eng. Stud. 25. 129-38. Bolinger, Dwight L . , 1 9 4 9 . Intonation and Analysis. Word 5. 248-55. 1951. Intonation: Levels versus Configurations. Word 7. 199-210. Reprinted in D . L . Bolinger 1 9 6 5 . 3-16. 1955. Intersections of Stress and Intonation. Word 11. 195203. 1958a. Intonation and Grammar. Language Learning 8. 31-37. Reprinted in D . L . Bolinger 1965. 95-1OO. 1958b. On Intensity as a Qualitative Improvement of Pitch Accent. Lingua 7. 175-82. 1958c. A Theory of Pitch Accent in English. Word 14. 1O949. Reprinted in D . L . Bolinger 1 9 6 5 . 17-56. 1959. The Intonation of Received Pronunciation. Review of English Intonation: its Form and Function, by Maria Schubiger Am. Sp. 34. 197-201. 1 9 6 l a . Generality, Gradience and the All-or-None. (Janua Linguarum 1 4 ) . The Hague, Mouton. 1961b. Contrastive Accent and Contrastive Stress. Lg. 37. 83-96. Reprinted in D . L . Bolinger 1 9 6 5 , 1O1-18. 1 9 6 4 . Around the Edge of Language: Intonation. Harvard Educational Review 34. 282-93. Reprinted in D . L . Bolinger 1972. 19-29. 1965. Forms of English: Accent, Morpheme, Order. Ed. by I. Abe and T. Kanekiyo. Tokyo, Hoknon. (ed.) 1972a. Intonation: Selected Readings. (Penguin Modern Linguistics Readings). Harmondsworth, Penguin. 1 9 7 2 b . Accent is Predictable (if y o u ' r e a Mind-Reader). Lg 48. 633-44. 1 9 7 4 . Do Imperatives. J. Eng. Ling. 8. 1-5. 1978. Intonation across Languages. Universals of Human Language, eds. J.P. Greenberg, C.A. Ferguson and E.A. Moravcsik. Vol. II Phonology. Stanford. Brazil, David. 1 9 7 5 . Discourse Intonation. (Discourse Analysis Monographs 1 ) . Birmingham, English Language Research. 1978. Discourse Intonation II (Discourse Analysis Monographs 2 ) . Birmingham, English Language Research. Brown, Gillian. 1974. Phonological Theory and Language Teaching. Papers in Applied Linguistics, eds. J. Patrick B. Allen and S. Pit Corder. (The Edinburgh Course in Applied Linguistics 2 ) . London. , Karen Currie and J. Kenworthy. 1977. The Intonation of

284 Scottish English. Final Report to the Social Science Research Council. Edinburgh University. Bublitz, Wolfram. 1978. Ausdrucksweisen der Sprechereinstellung im Deutschen und Englischen: Untersuchungen zur Syntax, Semantik und Pragmatik der deutschen Modalpartikeln und Vergewisserungsfragen und ihrer englischen Entsprechungen. (Linguistische Arbeiten 5 7 ) . Tübingen, Niemeyer. Chatman f s. 1 9 6 6 . Some Intonation Cross-Currents: English and Danish. Linguistics 21. 2 4 - 4 4 . Chomsky, A. Noam. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass., M . I . T . Press. 1970. Deep Structure, Surface Structure and Semantic Interpretation. Studies in General and Oriental Linguistics Presented to Shiro Hattori on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, eds. Roman Jakobson and S. Kawamoto. Tokyo. Reprinted in A . N . Chomsky 1 9 7 2 , Studies on Semantics in Generative Grammar (Janua Linguarum, series Minor 107}, 62119. The Hague, Mouton. and Morris Halle. 1968. The Sound Pattern of English. New York, Harper & Row. Cohen, A. and J. 't Hart. 1967. On the Anatomy of Intonation. Lingua 19. 177-92. Coleman, H . O . 1 9 1 4 . Intonation and Emphasis. Miscellanea Phonetica 1. 6 - 2 6 . Corder, S. Pit. 1 9 6 7 . The Significance of Learners' Errors. IRAL 5. 161-70. 1 9 7 2 . Zur Beschreibung der Sprache des Sprachlerners. (Trans. M. Wesemann). Reader zur kontrastiven Linguistik, ed. G. Nickel. 175-84. Frankfurt-am-Main, Fischer Athenäum. Coulthard, R.M. 1 9 7 7 . An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. London, Longman. and David Brazil. 1979. Exchange Structure. (Discourse Analysis Monographs 5 ) , Birmingham, English Language Research. Crompton, Andrew S. 1978. A Generative Phonology of French Intonation. Unpublished P h . D . dissertation, University of Cambridge. Cruttenden, Alan. 1970. On the So-called Grammatical Functions of Intonation. Phonetica 21. 182-92. 1974. An Experiment involving Comprehension of Intonation in Children from 7 to 10. J. Child Lang. 1. 221-31. 1979. The Meanings of Intonation. Paper delivered to Bielefeld Colloquium on Intonation, November 1 9 7 9 . Reprinted as Falls and Rises: Meanings and Universals, J. Ling. Crystal, David. 1 9 6 9 . Prosodic Systems and Intonation in English. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 1). Cambridge, C . U . P . 1975. The English Tone of Voice: Essays in Intonation, Prosody and Para-language. London, Arnold. Danes, Frantisek. * 1960. Sentence Intonation from a Functional Point of View. Word 16. 34-54. Davy, D. 1968. A Study of Intonation and Analogous Features as Exponents of Stylistic Variation, with Special Reference to a Comparison of Conversation with Written English. Unpublished M.A. thesis, University of London. Delattre, Pierre. 1965. Comparing the Phonetic Features of English, French, German and Spanish: an Interim Report. Heidelberg, Julius Groos; and London, Harrap. E. Poenack and C. Olsen. 1965. Some Characteristics of German

285 Intonation for the Expression of Continuation and Finality. Phonetica 13. 134-61. Denes, P. 1 9 5 9 . A Preliminary Investigation of Certain Aspects of Intonation. Lg & Sp. 2. 106-22. and J. Milton-Williams. 1 9 6 2 . Further Studies in Intonation. Lg. & Sp. 5. 1-14. Engler, L.F. and R.G. Hilyer. 1970. Once Again: American and British Intonation Systems. Acta Ling. H a f n . 13. 99-1O9. Essen, Otto von. 1956. Grundzüge der hochdeutschen Satzintonation. Ratingen, Kenn. 1962. Esser, Jürgen. 1 9 7 5 . Intonationszeichen im Englischen. (Linguistische Arbeiten 2 9 ) . Tübingen, Niemeyer. 1978. Contrastive Intonation of German and English. Phonetica 35. 41-55. Fonagy, Istvan and Klara Magdics. 1 9 6 3 . Emotional Patterns in Intonation and Music. Z. Phon. 16. 293-313. Reprinted in D.L. Bolinger 1972a. 286-312. Fox, Anthony. 1 9 7 3 . Tone-Sequences in English. Arch. Ling. 4, new series. 17-26. 1978. A Comparative Study of English and German Intonation. Unpublished P h . D . dissertation, University of Edinburgh. 1981. Falling-Rising Intonations in English and German. Contrastive Aspects of English and German, ed. C. Russ. Heidelberg. Groos. Fries, Charles C. 1 9 6 4 . On the Intonation of Yes-No Questions in English. In Honour of Daniel Jones, eds. D. Abercrombie et. ak. 2 4 2 - 5 4 . London, Longman. Fry, D . B . 1958. Experiments in the Perception of Stress. Lg & Sp. 1. 126-52. Fuchs, . 1935. Zur Intonation des englischen Fragesatzes. Unpublished Dr. phil. dissertation, University of Bonn. Gibbon, Dafydd. 1976. Perspectives of Intonation Analysis. (Forum Linguisticum 9 ) . Frankfurt-am-Main, Lang. 1978. Metalocutions, Structural Types and Functional Variation in English and German. Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics 13. Poznan. 1979. Syntax and Semantics for Intonation. Paper read at Bielefeld Colloquium on Intonation, November 1979. Gimson , A . C . , 1 9 6 2 . An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English. London, Arnold. Greenberg, S . R . 1969. An Experimental Study of Certain Intonation Contrasts in American English. UCLA microfiche. Gumperz, H.P. 1977. Sociocultural Knowledge in Conversational Inference. 28th Annual Round Table Monograph Series on Language and Linguistics, Georgetown. 191-211. Hadding, Kerstin and Michael Studdert-Kennedy. 1 9 6 4 . An Experimental Study of some Intonation Contours. Phonetica 11. 175-85. Reprinted in D . L . Bolinger 1972a. 348-58. 1974. Are you asking me, telling me or talking to yourself? J. Phon. 2. 7-14. Halliday, Michael A . K . 1 9 6 7 . Intonation and Grammar in British English. (Janua Linguarum, Series Practica 4 8 ) . The Hague, Mouton. 197Oa. Language Structure and Language Function. New Horizons in Linguistics, ed. John Lyons. 140-66. Harmondsworth, Penguin.

286 1970b. A Course in Spoken English: Intonation. Oxford, O . U . P. and R. Hasan. 1 9 7 6 . Cohesion in English. (English Language Series 9 ) . London, Longman. Hart, J. 1569. An Orthographie, Conteyning the Due Order and Reason, how to Write or Paint Thimage of Mannes Voice, Most Like to the Life of Nature. London. Reprinted as English Linguistics 1500-1800 Facsimile Reprint 209. Menston, Scolar Press. 1 9 6 9 . Hirst, David. 1 9 7 7 . Intonative Features: a Syntactic Approach to English Intonation. (Janua Linguarum, Series Minor 1 3 9 ) . The Hague, Mouton. Hirvonen, Pekka. 197O. Finnish and English Contrastive Intonation. Publications of the Phonetics Dept., University of Turku, 8. Hockett, C.F. 1958. A Course in Modern Linguistics. New York, Macmillan. Hudson, R.A. 1 9 7 5 . The Meaning of Questions. Lg. 51. 1-31. Hultzen, L.S. 1959. Information Points in Intonation. Phonetica 4. 107-20. Isacenko, Alexander and H.-J. Schädlich. 1966. Untersuchungen über die deutsche Satzintonation. Untersuchungen über Akzent und Intonation im Deutschen, ed. M. Bierwisch. (Studia Grammatica 7 ) . Berlin, Akademie-Verlag. Trans, into English by J. Pheby as A Model of Standard German Intonation. (Janua Linguarum, Series Practica 1 1 3 ) . The Hague, Mouton. 197O. Jackendoff, Ray S. 1972. Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar. (Studies in Linguistics 2 ) . Cambridge, Mass., M . I . T . Press. Jarman, E. and A. Cruttenden. 1 9 7 6 . Belfast Intonation and the Myth of the Fall. JIPA 6. 4-12. Jassem, Wiktor. 1952. The Intonation of Conversational English (Educated Southern British). (Travaux de la Societe des Sciences et des Lettres de Wroctaw, Seria A. 4 5 ) . Wroctaw. 1972. The Question-Phrase Fall-Rise in British English. Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics to the Memory of Pierre Delattre. (Janua Linguarum, Series Maior 54) ed. A. Valdman. 241-52. The Hague, Mouton. 9 Jones, Daniel. 1918. An Outline of English Phonetics. 1 9 6 2 . Cambridge, Heffer. 1957. The History and Meaning of the Term 'Phoneme'. Supplement to M. Phon. Reprinted in Phonology, ed. E. Fudge. (Penguin Modern Linguistics Readings). 17-34. Harmondsworth, Penguin. 1973. Katz, Jerrold J. and Jerry Fodor. 1963. The Structure of a Semantic Theory. Lg. 39. 170-210. Katz, Jerrold J. and Terence Langendoen. 1976. Pragmatics and Presupposition. Lg. 52. 1-17. Katz, Jerrold J and Paul M. Postal. 1 9 6 4 . An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions. ( M . I . T . Research Monographs 2 6 ) . Cambridge, Mass., M . I . T . Press. Kempson, Ruth M. 1975. Presupposition and the Delimitation of Semantics. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 1 5 ) . Cambridge, C.U.P. Kingdon, Roger. 1958. The Groundwork of the English Intonation. London, Longman. Kiparsky, Paul. 1 9 6 6 . über den deutschen Akzent. Untersuchungen

287 über Akzent und Intonation im Deutschen, ed. M. Bierwisch. (Studia Grammatica 7 ) . Berlin, Akademie-Verlag. Klinghardt, Helmut. 1 9 2 3 . Sprachmelodie und Sprechtakt. Marburg, Elwert. and Gertrude Klemm. 1920. Übungen im englischen Tonfall für Lehrer und Studierende. Cöthen, Otto Schulze Verlag. Knowles, Gerald. 1 9 7 5 . Scouse: the Spoken Dialect O f Liverpool. Unpublished P h . D . dissertation, University of Leeds. Kohler, Klaus. 1977. Einführung in die Phonetik des Deutschen. W. Berlin, Schmidt. Konopczynski, G. 1 9 7 5 . Perception (par des Franfais et des etrangers) des structures intonatives d ' e n f a n t s francais: analyse d ' u n test perceptuel. Bulletin de l'Universite de Besan9on, Linguistique Generale et Appliquee3. 1O1-27. Krzeszowski, Tomas P. 1967. Fundamental Principles of Structural Contrastive Studies. Glottodidactica 2. 33-4O. 1972. Kontrastive Generative Grammatik. Reader zur kontrastiven Linguistik, ed. Gerhard Nickel. 75-84. Frankfurt-amMain, Fischer Athenäum. Kuhlmann, W. 1931. Die Tonhöhenbewegung des Aussagesatzes. Diss. Freiburg im Breisgau. 1951. Tonhöhenbewegung im Englischen. Z . Phon. 5. 1-15. 203-24. 1952. Vergleich deutscher und englischer Tonhöhenbewegung. Z. Phon. 6. 195-207. Kurath, Hans. 1 9 6 4 . A Phonology and Prosody of Modern English. Heidelberg, Winter. Ladd, D . R . jr. 1 9 7 7 . The Function of the -Rise Accent in English. Bloomington, Indiana, University of Indiana Linguistics Club. Ladefoged, Peter. 1 9 6 7 . Three Areas of Experimental Phonetics. (Language and Language Learning 1 5 ) , London. Lakoff, George. 1970. Linguistics and Natural Logic. Synthese 2 2 . 151-271. Leben, W.R. 1976. The Tones In English Intonation. Linguistic Analysis 2. 69-1O7. Lee, W . R . 1959a. English Intonation, A New Approach. Lingua 5. 345-71. 1956b. Fall-Rise Intonations in English. Eng. Stud. 37. 6272. Lehiste, Ilse and G . E . Peterson. 1 9 6 1 . Some Basic Considerations in the Analysis of Intonation. JASA 33. 3 1 9 . 2 5 . Reprinted in D . L . Bolinger 1972a, 367-84. Liberman, Mark Y. 1978. The Intonational System of English. Bloomington, Indiana, University of Indiana Linguistics Club. and I. Sag. 1 9 7 4 . Prosodic Form and Discourse Function. Papers from the 1Oth Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 416-27. Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 1980. Accents as Syntactic Functions. Paper read at the Bielefeld Colloquium on Intonation, November 1980. Mimeo. Lieberman, Philip. 1960. Some Acoustic Correlates of Word Stress in American English. JASA 32. 451-57. 1967. Intonation, Perception and Language. ( M . I . T . Research Monographs 3 8 ) . Cambridge, Mass., M . I . T . Press. and S.B. Michaels. 1962. Some Aspects of Fundamental Frequency, and Envelope Amplitude as Related to Emotional

288

Context of Speech. JASA 34. 9 2 2 - 2 7 . Reprinted in D . L . Bolinger 1972a. 235-49, K.S. Harris and M. Sawasime. 1970. On the Physical Correlates of some Prosodic Features. Prosodic Features Analysis, eds. P. Leon et al. Montreal. Lyons, John. 1 9 7 7 . Semantics. Cambridge C . U . P . Meyer-Eppler, W. 1 9 5 7 . Realization of Prosodic Features in Whispered Speech. JASA 29. 104-6. Reprinted in D . L . Bolinger 1972a, 385-90. Morton, John and Wiktor Jassem. 1 9 6 5 . Acoustic Correlates of Stress Lg & Sp. 8. 159-81. Moulton, W . G . 1 9 6 2 . The Sounds of English andGerman. (Contrastive Structure Series). Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Newmark, L. and D.A. Reibel. 1 9 6 8 . Necessity and Sufficiency in Language Learning. IRAL 6. 145-64. O'Connor, J.D. 1955. The Intonation of Tag-Questions in English. Engl. Stud. 36. 97-105. and G . F . Arnold. 1961. Intonation of Colloquial English: A Practical Handbook. London, Longman. ^1973. Ohala, J.J. 1 9 6 9 . Aspects of the Control and Production of Speech. Unpublished P h . D . dissertation. UCLA. 0'Shaughnessy, D. 1979. Linguistic Features in Fundamental Frequency Patterns. J. Phon. 7. 119-45. Palmer, Harold E. 1 9 2 2 . English Intonation with systematic exercises. Cambridge, H e f f e r . 1933. A New Classification of English Tones. Tokyo. Institute for Research in English teaching. Pellowe, John. 198O. Establishing Variant Intonational Systems. Newcastle working Papers in Language and Linguistics, and Val Jones. 1978. On Intonational Variability in Tyneside Speech. Sociolinguistic Patterns in British English, ed. P. Trudgill. London. Pheby, John. 1970. The Role of Intonation in Colloquial German. Unpublished P h . D . dissertation, University of Cambridge. 1975. Intonation und Grammatik im Deutschen. E. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag. Pierce, J.E. 1966. The Supra-Segmental Phonemes in English. Linguistics 21. 54-70. Pike, Kenneth L. 1 9 4 5 . The Intonation of American English. (University of Michigan Publications in Linguistics 1 ) . Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press. Pope, Emily N. 1976. Questions and Answers in English. (Janua Linguarum, Series Practica 2 2 6 ) . The Hague, Mouton. Pürschel, H. 1975. Pause und Kadenz: Interferenzerscheinungen bei der englischen Intonation deutscher Sprecher. (Linguistische Arbeiten 2 7 ) . Tübingen, Niemeyer. Quirk, Randolph and David Crystal. 1 9 6 6 . On Scales of Contrast in English Connected Speech. In Memory of J.R. Firth, eds. C . E . Bazell et. al. 359-69. London, Longman. ;Rohrer, Fritz. 1952. Untersuchungen zur Intonation der Dialekte von Dorset, Gloucester, Westmorland, Northumberland, Yorkshire, Lincoln and Norfolk. Lachen, Kessler. Schubiger, Maria. 1935. The Role of Intonation in Spoken English. Cambridge, H e f f e r . 1956. Again: Fall-Rise Intonations in English. Eng. Stud. 37. 157-60.

289

1958. English Intonation: its Form and Function. Tübingen, Niemeyer. 1 9 6 4 . The Interplay and Co-operation of Word-Order and Intonation in English. In Honour of Daniel Jones, eds. D. Abercrombie et al. 255-65. London, Longman. 1965a. A Note on the Rise-Fall Nuclear Glide in English Intonation. Proceedings of the Fifth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. 517-22. Basel and New York, Karger. 1965b. English Intonation and German Modal Particles: a Comparative Study. Phonetica 12. 65-84. Reprinted in D . L . Bolinger 1972a, 175-93. Sharp, Alan E. 1958. Falling-Rising Intonation Patterns in English. Phonetica 2. 1 2 7 . 5 2 . Siegel, Sidney. 1956. Non-Parametric Statistics for the Behavioural Sciences. International Student Edition. Tokyo, McGrawHill, Kogakusha. Sinclair, John McH. and R . M . Coulthard. 1975. Towards an Analysis of Discourse. London, O . U . P . Sledd, J. 1960. Review of the Groundwork of English Intonation, by Roger Kingdon . Lg 36. 173-79. Stalnaker, R . C . 1 9 7 2 . Pragmatics. Semantics of Natural Language, eds. G. Harman and D. Davidson. 380-97. Dordrecht, North Holland. Steele Joshua. 1775. An Essay towards Establishing the Melody and Measure of Speech, to be Expressed and Perpetuated by Peculiar Symbols. London. Reprinted as English Linguistics 15OO180O Facsimilie Reprints 1 7 2 . Menston, Scolar Press. 1969. Stock, Eberhard and Christina Zacharias. 1973. Deutsche Satzintonation. Leipzig, Enzyklopädie-Verlag. Stockwell, Robert. 1960. The Place of Intonation in a Generative Grammar of English. Lg 36. 360-67. Sweet, Henry. 1890. Primer of Spoken English. Oxford, O . U . P . Originally Elementarbuch des gesprochenen Englisch. Oxford, O . U . P . 1886. 't Hart, J. 1972. Intonational Rhyme. Acta Univ. Carol. Phil. I. Phon. Prag. 3. 1O5-9. and A. Cohen. 1973. Intonation by Rule: a Perceptual Quest. J.Phon. 1. 309-27. and R. Collier. 1 9 7 5 . Integrating Different Levels of Intonation Analysis. J. Phon. 3. 235-56. Trager, G.L. 1 9 6 4 . The Intonation System of American English. In Honour of Daniel Jones, eds. D. Abercrombie et al. 266-70. London, Longman. and H . L . Smith jr. 1951. An Outline of English Structure. (Studies in Linguistics, Occasional Papers 1 ) . Washington, American Council of Learned Societies; Norman, Okla., Battenberg. Trim, John L . M . 1959. Major and Minor Tone-Groups in English. M. Phon. 1 1 2 . 26-29. 1 9 6 4 . Tonetic Stress Marks for German. In Honour of Daniel Jones, eds. D. Abercrombie et a. London. Lonaman. 1970. Cues to the Recognition of some Linguistic Features of Whispered Speech in English. Proceedings of the 6th International Conaress of Phonetic Sciences. 919-23. Pr^ou«. 1971. Some Continuously Variable Features in British English Intonation. Actes du X e Congres International des Linguistes.

290

267-72. The Hague, Mouton. n.d. English Intonation. Unpublished lecture notes, University of Cambridge. Mimeo. Trubetzkoy, Nikolai S. 1969. Principles of Phonology, trans. C . A . M . Baltaxe, Berkeley, C a l i f . , University of California Press. Originally Grundzüge der Phonologie, Prague. 1939. Uldall, Elizabeth. 1960. Attitudinal Meanings Conveyed by Intonation Contours. Lg. & Sp. 3. 223-34. 1962. Ambiguity: Question or Statement: "Are you Asking me or Telling me?". Proceedings of the 4th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. 779-83. The Hague, Mouton. 1964. Dimensions of Meaning in Intonation. In Honour of Daniel Jones, eds. D. Abercrombie et al. 271-79. London, Longman. Reprinted in D.L. Solinger, 1972a 25O-59. Urbain, M. 1969. The Investigation of some Extra-Seir.antic Features of English Intonation. Rev. Phon. App. 10. 4 5 - 6 4 . Vanderslice R. and P. Ladefoged. 1 9 7 1 . Binary Supra-Segmental Features and Transformational Word-Accentuation Rules. Lg 48. 819-38. Van Langker D. and V.A. Fromkin. 1973. Hemispheric Specialization for Pitch and 'Tone': Evidence from Thai. J. Phon. 1. 101-10. Vendler, Zeno. 1968. Linguistics in Philosophy. Ithaca, Cornell University Press. Wells, Rulon S. 1 9 4 5 . The Pitch-Phonemes of English. Lg 21. 27-39. Wittig, K. 1956. Phonetik des amerikanischen Englisch. Heidelberg, Winter. Wodarz, H.-W. 1978. Grundfrequenzverlauf und sprachliche Hervorhebung: einige Notizen zu ihren Beziehungen. Frankfurter phonetische Beiträge II, ed. H.-W. Wodarz, (Forum Phoneticum 1 6 ) . 121-36. Wodarz-Magdics, Klara. 1978. Einige Ergebnisse von Untersuchungen zur Satzintonation des Deutschen. Frankfurter phonetische Beiträge II, ed. H.-Wodarz. (Forum Phoneticum 1 6 ) . 137-69. Young, S. 1978. Speech Synthesis from Concept with Applications to Speech Output from Systems. Unpublished P h . D . dissertation, University of Cambridge.