German Lecture 7: Stress and Intonation

1. Lx I The sounds of German Lecture 7 – Week 9 Stress and intonation in German - suprasegmental phonology

2. suprasegmental phonology • This is just a posh way of saying that we are not looking at features of individual phonemes, but at phonological regularities that affect several phonemes at a time (syllable structure is also an aspect of suprasegmental phonology)

3. What is stress? • Listen to the following: • Sie schrieben ihre Hausaufgaben abends vor dem Fernseher • Can you hear that the underlined words carry stress or emphasis (and that -gab- carries a lesser stress)? • What we hear as stress is a combination of: • greater duration • greater volume; • change in pitch • compared to surrounding speech sounds

4. Word-stress • Basic rule for native German words: stress on first syllable: 'Mutter, 'Bahnhof, 'Apfel, 'arbeiten, 'sauer ….* • *NB we use a raised ' (a straight, vertical dash) before the syllable to indicate that it gets the primary stress • By the way … this Anfangsbetonung is one of the features that, back ca. 500BC (?), helped make the Germanic languages a separate language family within the Indo-European language family

5. [Germanic within Indo-European] Another feature distinguishing this group was the Germanic sound shift (or Grimm‘s Law) that only affected the Germanic languages (but not others, like Latin ...) ca. 500 BC b > p labial / lip d > t dental / tooth g > k genu / knee p > f paternal / father t > th fraternal / brother k > [x], then h cordial / heart

6. [Germanic within Indo-European] Another feature distinguishing this group was the Germanic sound shift (or Grimm‘s Law) that only affected the Germanic languages (but not others, like Latin ...) b > p labial / lip d > t dental / tooth g > k genu / knee p > f paternal / father t > th fraternal / brother k > [x], then h cordial / heart i.e. all voiced stops become voiceless; all voiceless stops became voiceless fricatives

7. Word-stress • This Anfangsbetonung also explains … • 1. why there are so many weak forms in German, where the ends of words get reduced or lost • 2. why the inflectional endings are so similar (all e, es, er etc…) – they used to be different, but because they were unstressed, they all became reduced, most often with the vowel sound ə • (in Dutch even more got lost, and in English more still!)

8. [endings in older forms of German] • compare Middle High German (1050-1350), where diu and die nom. and acc. fem. were still distinct!) • or Old High German (750-1050), where verb endings still had full vowels, e.g. horta, hortost, horta = ich hörte, du hörtest, er hörte

9. Exceptions to Anfangsbetonung • 1. inseparable prefixes are unstressed: ver-, er-, zer-, be-, ent-, ge- • ver'stehen, er'arbeiten, zer'stören, be'einflussen, ent'halten, ge'winnen • Also for the nouns: Er'holung, Be'deutung, Ver'stand • but contrast 'Urlaub, 'antworten (where ur- and ant- are cognate with er-, ent- but still take stress)

10. Prefixes …. NB … hinter- is an inseparable verb prefix that is unstressed: hinter'gehen ('to deceive') Also in adverbs like hinter'her, hinterein'ander But in nouns, it is stressed: der 'Hintergrund

11. Prefixes …. Some prefixes may or may not be stressed – when separable, they are stressed; when insep., they are not stressed 'übersetzen – er setzte sie über an das andere Ufer; vs. über'setzen – sie übersetzte den Text 'umgehen – sie gehen um in dem Saal vs. um'gehen – wir um'gehen das Problem unter'schreiben vs. 'untergehen 'durchsetzen – wir setzten den Plan durch vs. durch'setzen – mit Juwelen durch'setzt

12. Prefixes …. Miss- Miss- when added to a simple verb is unstressed: miss'lingen, miss'brauchen But added to a verb, noun or adjective that already has a prefix, it IS stressed: 'Missverstehen, 'Misserfolg, Also: 'missmutig ('sullen')

13. Prefixes …. un- Un- is usually stressed : das Unglück, ungenau But not when the un- word has become lexicalized – i.e. it no longer simply means the opposite of the word without un-, but has another, somewhat different meaning of its own, which you can't guess by adding together un- and the base word e.g. uner'hört ('outrageous'), un'sagbar ('unspeakable')

14. Prefixes …. un- Unstressed or secondary stress only before an insep. prefix: [,]unver'weigerlich, [,]unver'ständlich NB , (a low straight vertical dash for which I am substituting the comma on these slides) before a syllable indicates a secondary stress.

15. Exceptions to Anfangsbetonung • Some native German words are just irregular: • For'elle, Hol'under ('elderberry') • le'bendig, be'hände ('nimble') • So are some native compounds: • Kar'freitag, Grün'donnerstag, zwischen'durch • Including those where the first element is a numeral: • Elf'meterschuss, Drei'zimmerwohnung

16. Exceptions to Anfangsbetonung 3. Borrowed words Words obviously from French typically take the stress on the final syllable: Restau'rant, Bal'kon, Chau'ffeur (just as in French!) But so do many others: Pak'et, kon'kret, Kon'takt, Kon'flikt, Pro'test, Pro'dukt, Phon'em And some place names: Berlin, Schwerin, Sonthofen, Lahausen … Some take penultimate (second-last) stress: Analyse, Maschine, Genese

17. Exceptions to Anfangsbetonung 4. Words with the following suffixes, which take the stress (on their first syllable, if there is more than one) Certain suffixes for describing people -ant, -ent, -and: Militant, Assistent, alsoTransparent ('banner'), Doktorand(-in) -ist: Pianist, Linguist(-in), Germanist(-in) -oge: Biologe

18. Exceptions to Anfangsbetonung 4. Words with the following suffixes, which take the stress (on their first syllable, if there is more than one) Certain suffixes for describing people -ant, -ent, -and: Militant, Assistant, also Transparent ('banner'), Ak'zent, Doktorand(-in) -ist: Pianist, Linguist(-in), Germanist(-in) -oge: Biologe NB the case of –or: 'Doktor, but Dok'toren in pl.

19. Exceptions to Anfangsbetonung 4. … Certain suffixes for forming adjectives and some nouns -ell: formell, Naturell, aktuell -al: real, banal, Skandal -ar, är sekundär; sekundar (= 'secondary' with respect to schools …) -abel, -ibel: penibel, rentabel ('profitable') -iv: aggressiv (but 'positiv and 'negativ)

20. Exceptions to Anfangsbetonung 4. … Certain suffixes for nouns, often abstract nouns -anz, -enz: Domin'anz, Resi'denz -tät: Universi'tät, Reali'tät -ik: Mu'sik, Katho'lik, Poli'tik [but Gramm'atik, Phon'etik] -ose: Hypnose -ismus: Realismus, Naturalismus, Expressionismus

21. Exceptions to Anfangsbetonung 4. … Certain suffixes for nouns, often abstract nouns … -tion: Information, Spedition -ur: Literatur, Architektur -itis: Bronchitis -ie: Biolog'ie, Soziologie, Zeremonie, but NB 'Studie -ade: Parade, the all-important Schokolade -age: Blamage, Reportage (cf. also in English) -elle: Frikadelle, Tabelle

22. Exceptions to Anfangsbetonung 4. … The verb suffix –ieren and all the forms of the verb stud'ieren, ich stud'iere resig'nieren, resig'niert

23. Stress in compounds Basic principle: 'Primary stress on first element ,secondary stress on other elements, but not in syllable adjacent to primary stress 'Haushalt (not usually 'Haus,halt) 'Sehens,würdigkeiten, 'Wortak'zent This also applies to verb compounds: 'teilnehmen, 'teilhaben, 'nachvoll,ziehen,

24. Co-ordinating compounds In co-ordinating compounds, where the meaning is "both X and Y", both halves of the compound take a primary stress: e.g. schwarz-weiß, rot-grün, Nordrhein-Westfalen

25. first elements or prefixoids with intensifying meaning These also result in two primary stresses: 'stein'reich, 'heil'froh 'stink'sauer 'super'cool 'mords'hungrig (sometimes elements like super- are called prefixoids because, like "real" prefixes, they are very productive, i.e. can be added to a lot of words, not just the occasional compound)

26. II. Sentence stress • So far we have talked about stress for individual words, pronounced singly. • Usually, we talk in longer utterances, and do not give equal stress to every word. • Recall our example sentence • Sie 'schrieben ihre 'Hausauf,gaben 'abends vor dem 'Fernseher • Stress is normally on lexical content words, rather than on grammatical / function words (like pronouns, articles, prepositions …)

27. Stress-timed languages • Japanese is a syllable timed language. When he say a word like "katakana", in Japanese each syllable gets equal duration • German, like English and all (?) European languages, is stress-timed – the stresses in a sentences are roughly equidistant, but there may be none, one or several syllables crammed in between 2 stresses • Each main stress begins a metrical "foot" (der Takt)

28. Stress-timed languages and reduction of syllables Take the sentence which has 3 feet (between | |) 'Heute ,habe ich einen Ter'min um 'elf |X 1 2 3 4 5 6 |X 1 |X | You can see that the number of syllables between main stresses varies – those that are unstressed are prone to reduction, as we have seen: 'hɔɪtə hap ɪç n tɛɐ'mi:n ʊm 'ɛlf (note loss of –e, reduction of einen to syllabic n, some glottal stops missing)

29. Intonation • Intonation refers to changes in pitch that we use to help interpret sentence meaning • (contrast this use of pitch to that in tone languages like Chinese, where a change in pitch on a syllable changes the whole meaning of the word to something else – German does not have tones like this ….)

30. Intonation • The phonology of intonation is trickier to pin down than most other rules about the production of language sounds. • There are certain intonation patterns that are common, but there is a lot of optionality, depending on the type of nuance the speaker wants. • Still, there are some basic patterns that we can identify …

31. Intonation • Just as a phoneme is not realized exactly the same way very time it is pronounced, so the intonation contours we use vary with each utterance … • We can hear this action by "humming" a sentence: • Was willst du denn hier? • (rise-fall in an exclamation)

32. Intonation • We represent different intonation patterns schematically, identifying their most salient features. • In German we have: • fall \ • rise / • level -- • rise-fall ^ • fall rise V

33. The parts of the tone-group An intonation pattern applies to one tone group at a time. The tone group may be one word, a phrase, or a whole sentence.

34. The parts of the tone-group • We can divide a tone group into • 1. a nucleus (der Nukleus, die Tonsilbe) the stressed syllable on which, or immediately following which, the most noticeable change in pitch occurs. • The nucleus is usually the first stressed syllable of the last lexical word in the tone group: • Am 'Donnerstag gehe ich 'ein kaufen • |nucleus|

35. The parts of the tone-group … 2. A head (or pre-nucleus; der Pränukleus), from the first stressed syllable to the syllables before the nucleus 3. a pre-head = any unstressed syllables before the head 4. a tail = syllables following the nucleus

36. An example • Am 'Donnerstag gehe ich 'ein kaufen • |pre-head| head |nucleus| tail | • Can you hear the fall \ on the nucleus ein? • Here the head is relatively high – this is typical of German heads

37. An example • Am 'Donnerstag gehe ich 'ein kaufen • |pre-head| head |nucleus| tail | • Can you hear the fall \ on the nucleus ein? • Here the head is relatively high – this is typical of German heads • Note that the head (beginning with "Donn...") has a slight upward drift; contrast with English, which typically has a slight downward drift. • Syllables in the pre-head are usually low or mid-pitch

38. The fall \ • Am 'Donnerstag gehe ich 'ein kaufen • |pre-head| head |nucleus| tail | • This example illustrates a fall. • As with all these intonation patterns, a fall can also occur within a single syllable (i.e if there is no following tail): • \Gut • (note that we place the symbol for the intonation pattern before the nucleus – normally it would be in superscript, but this is tricky in Powerpoint, sorry!)

39. Use of the fall \ • Typically for statements, assertions – the "neutral" intonation • Used in English in a similar way, but the fall is more abrupt /sharper in German, and this is most noticeable where we have just one syllable: • Contrast: \Gut and \Good • Also used in commands: Komm \her! • And in W-questions*: Was \machst du? Wo \bist du? • (*i.e. Wo, was, wie, wer, wann )

40. The rise / • Typically used for questions: • Peter kommt /mit ins Theater? • (Contrast fall as statement: • Peter kommt \mit ins Theater. • (shows that intonation does carry meaning in some way!) • NB Like the fall, the rise tends to be sharper in German than in English.

41. The rise / … • Also used for w-questions, to sound a bit more friendly, polite: • More polite: Was /machst du? Wo /bist du? • Contrast the more Neutral w-question: • Was \machst du? Wo \bist du? • Expressing surprise, seeking clarification in a question: /Was willst du? • In non-final tone groups: • Wenn wir /Zeit haben, …. (eg. As if talking to a child) (more usual would be level, cf. below)

42. Level intonation -- • A kind of "holding" intonation – tells the listener to expect more … • Wenn wir --Zeit haben, gehen wir \mit. • Möchten Sie --Rot- oder \Weißwein? • --Achtung, --Fertig, \los! • --Morgen (non-committal!) • (In English used for non-committal greetings, otherwise not v. common)

43. Rise-fall ^ • Typically expresses enthusiasm, personal involvement: • Fan^tastisch! • Ich habe ge^wonnen! • Wie hast du das bloß ge^schafft? • [harder to hear on one syllable like this! Try humming to hear it] • Again, the rise-fall is similar to English but tends to be a bit sharper

44. Fall-rise v • Typically used to express a contrast, or to give special emphasis • vPeter war in Italien? (und nicht Dieter) • Also in friendly warnings (eg. As to a child) • vVorsicht!

45. Avoid … English rise-fall-rise • /v Sarah? (slightly anxious) • /v I hope not • /v she sings well, (but her acting is terrible) • (NB German would instead use lexical means, e.g. modal particles : sie singt zwar \gut, aber …