Lecture 6

Intonation: stress, accent, nucleus, prehead, head, tail

Using weak & strong forms (3): phonological context

Regular –(e)s and –(e)d suffixes

Stress

·  Word stress

o  secondary vs. primary <,into’nation>

·  Sentence stress (rhythmical)

Where’s the nearest railway station?

Accent (=primary stress)

Where’s the nearest railway station?

Sentence stress without accent (=secondary / non-primary stress)

Where’s the nearest railway station?

Nuclear syllable and nucleus

·  one nuclear syllable per tone unit

·  usually at/near the end of a tone unit. (The nuclear syllable = the nucleus of the tone unit)

·  The nucleus involves pitch prominence


Prehead

·  = unaccented syllables at the beginning of a tone unit – before any accented syllables

·  The prehead tends to be low in pitch (‘low prehead’)

·  The prehead may contain stressed syllables, but not accented ones

Tail

·  = unaccented syllables that occur after the nucleus (at the end of a tone unit)

·  The pitch of the tail depends on the type of nuclear tone.

Stress-placing (polysyllabic words and lexical words)

a) The bottle’s under the table over by the window (word stress in polysyllabic words)

b) She likes the old house on the hill.

BUT: c) Who are these for?

Accent placing (neutral vs. emphatic)

Neutral: Lexical words are most likely to receive accent. In phrases, the main accent tends to be on the last lexical word

an old house a beautiful, old house (cf. a publishing house)

a house of cards, The House of Commons

Nuclear accent is likely to fall on the last lexical item in the tone unit.

She likes the old house on the HILL

The bottle’s under the table over by the WINDOW

Where’s the nearest RAILWAY station?

A neutral accent pattern – one that is used if there is no particular reason to do otherwise.

An emphatic pattern: Main accent in places where you would not expect them – on words that the speaker particularly wants to emphasize.

She likes the OLD house on the hill

She likes the old HOUSE on the hill


Head

= the stretch from the first accented syllable up to the nucleus

Note: the last (or only) accented syllable is the nucleus

The head, like the nucleus, is marked by pitch prominence.

High head

One type of head involves high (level) pitch. No glide up or down, so different from the High Fall.

The high head can be used in front of both High Fall and Low Rise nuclear tones.

There may be a low prehead in front of the high head.

Emphatic High head

Involves two or more accented syllables (in front of the nucleus).

For each accented syllable, there is a step down in pitch – but no glide.


Regular <(e)s> and <(e)d> suffixes

<(e)s> suffix = the plural of nouns (book – books)

·  3rd person singular present tense (I read – she reads)

·  the genitive –s (John’s hat, the boys’ hats)

·  the weak (short) forms of is and has

Pronunciation of the <(e)s> suffix:

·  after the sibilants /, , , , , / à  (RP),  (GA + RP weak form of has)

·  after fortis, non-sibilant consonants (, , , , ) à s

·  in all other cases (i.e. after sonorants, lenis obstruents, and vowels) à z

teach – teaches //, //

book – books /s/

read – reads /z/

pen – pens /z/

study – studies /z/


Pronunciation of the <(e)d> suffix (= past tense / past participle of regular verbs):

·  after the alveolar plosives /t, d/ à d (RP), d (GA + RP weak form of had)

·  after fortis consonants minus /t/ (, , , , , , ) à t

·  in all other cases (i.e. after sonorants, lenis obstruents minus d, and vowels) à d

print – printed -d (RP), -d (GA)

tend – tended -d (RP), -d (GA)

step – stepped /t/

pass – passed /t/

clean – cleaned /d/

study – studied /d/


Weak forms that vary according to phonological context:

the, do, to

Pronunciation depends on the following sound:

before vowel / before consonant
the / RP:  GA:  / 
do /  /  (d)
to /  / 

the apple, the pear

RP: ,

GA: ,

So do I RP: / / GA: / /

Do you mind / ()

to England //

to Canada //

to York / ()/

The two weak forms of you ( / ) don’t vary according to phonological context.  tends to be preferred in RP,  in GA.

Weak forms of is and has vary according to phonological context, just like the <(e)s> suffixes.

She’s (=has) left. //

He’s (=is) nice. //

Luke’s (= has) arrived. //

George’s (=is) mad. RP: // GA: //

The match has been cancelled. / /

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