Blog by: Diego Navarrete – Cristian Gonzalez – Anibal Aguilera D2
Course: Applied Phonetics.
University Ucinf, Santiago de Chile.
November, 2012.
Translation and Interpretation.
Source(s): English Phonetics and Phonology: A practical course (Second Edition) by Peter Roach.

The structure of the tone-unit.

THE HEAD

Consider the following one-syllable utterance:

We can find the same tonic syllable in a long utterance (still of one tone unit):

The rest of the tone-unit in this example is called the head. Notice that the first syllable has a stress mark; this is important. A head is all that part of a tone-unit  that extends from the first STRESSED syllable up to (not including) the tonic syllable. If there’s no stressed syllable before the tonic syllable, there CANNOT BE A HEAD.

In the above example, the first two syllables (words) are the head of the tone-unit.

THE PRE-HEAD

The pre-head is composed of all the UNSTRESSED syllables in a tone unit PRECEDING the first stressed syllable. Thus pre-heads are found in two main environments:

I) When there’s no head ( no stressed syllable preceding the tonic syllable) for example:

II) When there is a head, as in the following example:

THE TAIL

Some syllables follow the tonic syllable. Any syllables between the tonic syllable and the END  of the tone unit are called the «tail».

When it is necesary to mark a stress in a tail, we will use a special symbol, a raised dot.

****  Prehead : (PH)  – Head: (H) – Tonic syllable: (TS) – Tail: (T)

The tone-unit

Some of the world’s languages are «tone languages», in wich changing one tone for another on a word or morpheme can cause a change in the dictionary.

English is one of the languages that DO NOT use use tone in this way though tones or pitch differences are used for other purposes, such languages are sometimes called «intonation languages».

For the purposes of analysing intonation, a unit generally greater in size than the syllable is needed, and this unit is called the tone-unit. In its smallest form may consist of only one syllable, so it would be wrong to say that it is always composed of more than one syllable.

We will underline syllables that carry a tone.

In the second example the third syllable is the most prominent and carries a rising tone, the other two syllables will normally  be much less prominent, and be said on a level pitch.

A syllable  wich carries a tone will be called a «tonic syllable» and these have a high degree of prominence.

Functions of English tones.

FALL

When someone is asked a question and replies with a fall yes or no, it will be understood that the question is now answered. It also gives an impression of «finality» .

Example: 

A: Do you work here ?

B: No.

RISE

This tone conveys an impression that something more is to follow.

Example:

A: Excuse me (trying to attract B’s attention)

B: Yes (equivalent to «what do you want»)

FALL-RISE

It expresses something that can be described as «limited agreement» and hesitation.

Example:

A: I’ve heard that it´s a good shool

B: yes ( B doesn’t completely agree with A)

RISE-FALL

This is used to transmit: strong feelings of approval, disapproval or surprise.

Example:

A: You wouldn’t do a horrible thing like that, would you ?

B: No (strong feeling of approval).

LEVEL

It conveys a feeling saying something routine, uninteresting or boring.

Complex tones and pitch height.

We have already seen three simple varieties of tone, that can be used in one syllable utterances.  But there are other more complex tones also used and they occur quite frequently.

One that is quite frequently found is the «fall-rise tone«, where the pitch descends and then rises again.

Another one, much less frequently used is the «rise-fall» tone, where the pitch does the exact opposite thing, ascends and the descends.

 

We can also use a new symbol (vertical arrow) to indicate extra pitch height.

 

Tone

We have a choice, to say words like (for example) «yes» or «no» with the pitch remaining at a constant level, or with the pitch changing from one level to another. The word we’ll use for the behaviour of the pitch in this case is «Tone«

For one syllable utterances we can use one of three possobilities: Level, Fall and Rise.

It will be necessary to use symbols to represent tones:

 

How can we describe pitch ?

To describe pitch we describe it in terms of high and low, and this way we should be able to find those which carry some linguistic information.

For pitch differences to be linguistically significant, they must be under the speaker’s control.

We will see intonation in a continuous piece of speech beginning and ending with a clear pause, and we will call this an utterance.

Definition

What is Intonation? According to Peter Roach, no definition is satisfactory, but if we try to provide a definition we must recognize that the pitch of the voice plays the most important role.

When we speak normally the pitch of our voice is constantly changing but rarely  we realise, and one of the most important tasks is to analize the speaker’s pitch and recognize what it is doing.