Notes on Intonation I Just for fun How many intonation patterns can you use when producing the following phrases 1 hello 2 hmm 3 yeah How many phrases can you produce with the same intonation pattern 1 what s up 2 Didya do your homework 3 I ll have an apple and an orange Produce the following phrase with various emphasized words I enjoy speaking with you Let s think about how to describe pitch movements Consider again how to describe the various ways of saying hello movement between H high and L low tonal targets targets Consider again the different phrases that you can say on the same tune what s up didya do your homework I ll have an apple and an orange Some tones H or L are associated with stressed syllables Some are associated with phrases association Consider the following sentences They can be produced in different ways depending on the speaker s meaning what s in the road ahead woman without her man is nothing What changes in these utterances that changes the meaning phrasing II A systematic description of American English intonation needs to include the following a description of the pitch changes associated with stressed syllables a description of the pitch changes associaated with phrase endings Pitch Accents in English Pitch accents are F0 tonal targets realized on stressed syllables Not every content word or multisyllabic word has a pitch accent simple accents H L bitonal accents L H L H H L H L An example of a bi tonal accent A British food is spicier than Thai food H H H B Thai food is spicier L H Chunking information into phrases Say this as a phone number 1234567 Say this as a SS 123456789 Contrast how you say these 12 3X2 2 12 3 2 8 Describing phrases Intermediate phrases I went to the store to buy some food L HH LIntonation phrases I went to the store to buy some food L HH L L Did you walk to the store L H H Key functions of intonation across languages word level information prosodic structure of words stress or accent class discourse prominence chunking A note on stress in English the prosodic hierarchy One syllable in English multisyllabic words seems to be more prominent than the others diplomat photograph monotone diplomatic photographic monotonic diplomacy photography monotony Degrees of stress In some longer words we seem to have more than one stressed syllable but still one primary stress multiplication m lt pl k e n The stressed syllable in English Consider stress shift Not an Arabic expert but a Chinese expert Not a German appliance but a Chinese appliance Which syllable is more prominent in Chinese in these sentences Chinese expert vs Chinese appliance Consider now stress in these utterances I ve already met a Chinese expert I don t really need a Chinese appliance Which syllable of Chinese is stressed in these stress in English is all tied up with intonational tunes When the word has a H tonal target on it we can tell where the stress is No tonal target no stress The stressed syllable is thus the syllable that tonal targets associate with Chinese expert Chinese appliance Consider primary and secondary stress It is much easier to hear secondary stress when both the priamary and secondary syllables have tonal targets multiplication H H vs multiplication H A prominence hierarchy for English 1 syllabic segments are more prominent than nonsyllabic segments A prominence hierarchy for English 2 full vowels are more prominent than reduced vowels tense vowels and diphthongs are more prominent than others reduced vita breakfast banana full veto steadfast bandana Words with two full vowels veto gymnast More common alternating explanation kspl ne n A prominence hierarchy for English 3 Accented vowel aligned with tonal target are more prominent explanation H only one of the two full vowels in explanation is accented A prominence hierarchy for English 4 The last accent of a phrase is more prominent than earlier ones called the nuclear accent or the tonic accent the explanation was ludicrous H H This prosodic hierarchy gives us a grid for explanation tonic accent full syll x x x x x x x x explanation Consider again stress shift on Chinese tonic accent full syll x x x x x x x x x x x Chinese expert x x x x x x x x x x x Chinese appliance but when there is no accent on these words there is no stress clash no accent to move hence no stress shift tonic accent full syll x x x x x x x x Chinese expert x x x x x x x x Chinese appliance