Lecture VII

Lecture VII

Prosody

November 20th, 2008

Structure of the talk

Structure of the talk



The syllable; syllable structure



Key terms: prosody, stress, rhythm, tone,

intonation



Stress constituents: pitch, loudness, length



Stress assignment in English: light and

heavy syllables



Tone and tone languages



Intonation: functions of intonation and

basic intonation patterns of English

Prosody

Prosody

(suprasegmentals)

(suprasegmentals)



Prosodic features may extend over
longer chunks of utterance than a
single segment



Prosodic properties: pitch, loudness
and length



There may be phonemic
oppositions based solely on pitch
and length, e.g. in Igbo, Chinese

The syllable

The syllable



The syllable – a unit of pronunciation
typically consisting of a vowel and/or
flanked by consonants



Arguments for the existence of the
syllable:

1.

The existence of so-called syllabic
writing systems

2.

Identifiability of the unit

Structure of the syllable

Structure of the syllable

The syllable as an element of a

The syllable as an element of a

prosodic hierarchy

prosodic hierarchy

Stress

Stress



Stress – the perceived prominence of one

syllable over others in a word



The auditory impression is produced by three

factors: pitch, loudness and length (also

quality)



Pitch – the frequency of vocal fold vibration

controlled by tensing or relaxing the folds.



The demarcative function of stress – in many

languages (e.g. French, Czech) stress marks

boundaries between words

Stress assignment in

Stress assignment in

English

English



The accentual pattern of English is
fixed in the sense that the main
accent always falls on a particular
syllable, but free in the sense it is
not tied to any particular syllable.



In Polish – the penultimate (or
antepenultimate), French – the last
syllable, Czech – the first

Influence of syllable structure on

Influence of syllable structure on

stress

stress



Heavy syllables //, //, /-/



Light syllables – all other types are
light



Heavy syllables tend to attract
stress, e.g. //, //,

//

Word accentual patterns

Word accentual patterns



Roots – verbs and adjectives:

-

the stress falls on the penultimate when the last

syllable is light, e.g. //, //

-

The stress falls on the last syllable when the final

syllable is heavy, e.g. //, //

-

Roots – nouns:

-

The penultimate is accented when the last syllable

contains a short vowel, e.g. //, //

-

The last syllable is accented when the last syllable

contains a long vowel, e.g. //, //

-

Nouns of three or more syllables are stressed on the

antepenultimate despite the structure of the last

syllable, e.g. //, //, //

Complex words

Complex words



Prefixes – stress neutral except for
no



Suffixes:

-

stress-attracting, e.g. –ese, -ette,
-eer, esque

-

stress-fixing, e.g. –ic, -ion, -ity

-

stress-neutral, e.g. –s, -ed, -ly, -y, -ary

Compounds

Compounds



Compounds functioning as nouns:

- a) N + N 'bank account, 'blood money but apple 'pie,

brick 'wall

- b) A+N, N+V, V+N, N+Ving, Ving+N
'boardsailing, 'building society, 'bull’s eye, 'ear-splitting,

'shoplifting, 'statesperson

- c) phrasal verbs used as nouns
'set up, 'buyout, 'write-of



Compounds functioning as adjectives:

- a) with initial accent: 'bloodthirsty, 'ladylike,

'waterproof

- b) with final accent: deep-'rooted, tight-'fisted, tax-'free

Rhythm - definition

Rhythm - definition



Rhythm - the pattern of intervals between

movements, or between their beginnings or

peaks, or the pattern of durations of movements



Most human activities, such as walking,

breathing, running or heart beat, are rhythmical



Since speech production is inseparably linked

with respiration, it is justified to expect that at

least certain characteristics of speech should

occur with some regularity.



The foot, the syllable, the mora – the traditional

units of rhythm

Rhythm in linguistics

Rhythm in linguistics



The regularity with which beats appear in speech



Types of rhythm: stress-timing, syllable-timing,

mora-timing



Stress-timed languages: complex syllable structure,

reduction of unaccented vowels to schwa (English,

Russian, German, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese)



Syllable-timed languages: relatively simple syllable

structure, no vowel reduction (Spanish, Polish,

Czech, Italian, Greek)



Mora – a rhythmic beat – light sullables have one

such beat, or one mora, whereas heavy syllables

have two morae (Japanese)

The foot

The foot



The foot – a unit of metrical structure consisting of a

stressed syllable and an associated unstressed

syllable(s).



The feet of an utterance are believed to be of

equal duration



Unbounded feet – a stressed syllable preceded or

followed by any number of unstressed syllables

(. . . . X), (X . . . . )



Bounded feet are made up of a stressed syllable preceded

or followed by no more than one unstressed syllable.



Trochaic foot (bounded, left-headed) (X .) e.g. promise



Iambic foot (bounded, right-headed) (. X) e.g. collect

Foot duration in English

Foot duration in English

Syllable-timing

Syllable-timing



In syllable-timed languages the
constituent syllables (stressed or
unstressed) are thought to be
equally long.



Syllable structure exerts
considerable influence on its
duration.



Compare // vs //

Interstress intervals (ISIs)

Interstress intervals (ISIs)



The amount of time taken from the
onset of one stressed vowel to the onset
of the next stressed vowel



This approach disregards the
traditional stress-timed/syllable-timed
dychotomy



There is no more tendency for
interstress intervals to clump together
in English than in the other languages

ISIs in Spanish

ISIs in Spanish



Este maestro constantemente está
metido en algún tipo de lío
innecesario



/     

    /



The teacher is always involved in
some kind of trouble

ISIs in Spanish

ISIs in Spanish

Tone

Tone



Tone – the overall behaviour of the pitch



Pitch is described in terms of high and low

frequency



Words can be said with either a level tone or

a moving tone



Simple tones: level, rise and fall



Complex tones: fall-rise, rise-fall



Tone languages: Chinese, Igbo, Hausa, Kono



 (uncle) vs  (greedy)



 (mother)  (scold)  (hemp)

Intonation

Intonation



Intonation – pitch movement in spoken utterances

that is not related to differences in word meaning.



Functions of intonation:



Accentual – the placement of the tonic syllable

indicates the focus of information



Attitudinal – enables the speaker to express their

emotions or attitudes



Grammatical – allows the listener to recognise the

grammar and syntactic structure, e.g. making

questions



Those who sold quickly



made a profit.



Those who sold



quickly made a profit.



Discourse – indicates what is new, can convey to

the listener what kind of response is expected, etc.

Basic intonation patterns of English

Basic intonation patterns of English



Level – expresses boredom



Rise – expresses interest, the speaker
expects something else to follow



Fall – makes the impression of finality



Fall-rise – limited agreement



Rise-fall – conveys strong feelings of
approval, disapproval or surprise

The structure of the tone unit

The structure of the tone unit



speech – utterances – tone units – feet – syllables

– phonemes – features



PH – H – TS – T



TS is the only obligatory element, e.g. Yes, No



The head extends from the first stressed syllable

to the tonic syllable, e.g. 'Peter made a mistake



The pre-head includes all unaccented syllables

found either before the head or the tonic

syllable, e.g. in the 'middle of the room



The tail includes all the syllables of an utterance

that are found after the tonic

Bibliography

Bibliography



Roach , Peter. 2000. English phonetics
and phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.



Cruttenden, Allan. 1994. Gimson’s
pronunciation of English. London: Arnold



O’Grady, William – Dobrovolsky, Michael –
Katamba, Francis. (1996). Contemporary
linguistics. London: Pearson Education
Limited.