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Prosodic analysis: theoretical value and practical difficulties

Prosodic analysis: theoretical value and practical difficulties. Anne Wichmann Nicole Dehé. Prosodic features. Phonological (categorical) Prominence placement Contour type Unit boundaries Phonetic (gradient) Pitch range Speech rate Voice quality Pause placement.

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Prosodic analysis: theoretical value and practical difficulties

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  1. Prosodic analysis:theoretical value and practical difficulties Anne Wichmann Nicole Dehé

  2. Prosodic features • Phonological (categorical) • Prominence placement • Contour type • Unit boundaries • Phonetic (gradient) • Pitch range • Speech rate • Voice quality • Pause placement

  3. Introduction: role of prosodic analysis Pragmatics • information structure; speech acts; attitudes; interaction management Syntax • Mapping between syntactic and prosodic ‘units’ • Disambiguation • Comment clauses vs. main clauses (e.g. I think) • Scope of adverbials • Coordination vs. subordination Language change (grammaticalisation) Applications – clinical tests (Peppe et al)

  4. Overview of talk • Prosodic analysis • Identifying tonal contours • Identifying boundaries • Implications for practice – authors, reviewers, editors

  5. Identifying tonal contours fall rise fall-rise rise-fall (British) H* L L* H H* LH L*HL (Autosegmental)

  6. Requests and demands • Please-requests (Wichmann 2004) • And our first \questionplease H*L • Can I have some nomi\nation forms /please H*LH • ‘public’ vs. ‘private use

  7. Halliday & Greaves (2008): Accounting for attitudeWhat happens when you take penicillin?

  8. Identifying units and boundaries • Internal definition • presence of a ‘nuclear tone’ • External definition • Pauses – convenient identifier (auditorily & automatically) but not reliable • Change in tempo (speeding up on initial unstressed syllables; final lengthening • Change in pitch direction on unstressed syllables • Absence of CSPs (assimilation, elision) • Anomalies e.g. reporting clauses (yes, she said) ‘any comprehensive definition of the tone-unit must .. Have recourse to a complementarity of cues’ Crystal (1969: 205)

  9. Yes, she said Yes [.] she said ● ● H* L L%

  10. Scope of CC – phrase or clause But my friend got it I think about twelve years ago(ICE-GB: s1a-071 #90)From Dehé 2009

  11. Scope of CC – phrase or clause This matter may be defeated on the Queen’s Speech specifically tomorrow and again on uh Monday I think. Kaltenböck (2010)

  12. Scope of CC – phrase or clause .. one of the things that begins to happen I think in the seventeen seventies .. (s2a-057-72) Kaltenböck 2010

  13. Grammaticalisation and prosody • Process of semantic change • Assumed to be result of habituation • Consequences (prosodic and segmental) Loss of stress >> segmental attrition Loss of stress >> prosodic integration

  14. Relating prosody and discourse Speaker B: The voters I think just have an opportunity to stick two fingers up to whoever seems to be on top at the moment (ICE-GB: s1b-029#92) 14 from: Dehé & Wichmann (2010); in Functions of Language 17(1): 1-28

  15. Relating prosody and discourse Your argument I believe is that it’s died so to speak more in some realms than in others and crucially that there is something there left which is the basis for renovation <,> (ICE-GB: s1b-028#19) 15 from: Dehé & Wichmann (2010); in Functions of Language 17(1): 1-28

  16. Relating prosody and discourse and she uhm <,> uh was quite high up I think cos she had a degree (ICE-GB: s1a-019#248) 16 Dehé & Wichmann (2010); in Functions of Language 17(1): 1-28

  17. Initial I think: main clause or comment clause/adverbial? • Prosodic evidence for • Main clause • Adverbial • Discourse marker • Kaltenböck 2009 • Dehe & Wichmann 2010

  18. Initial CCs

  19. Initial CCs Integrated as Head I think it’s all jolly good fun

  20. Units and boundaries: cricket as far as my experience in cricket’s concerned Wilfred I think that any woman who wanted to join the MCC would honestly and genuinely be doing it for the sake of cricket and their love of the gameKaltenbock 2009 (ex 9)

  21. Units and boundaries: sling mud around • Kaltenböck (2009:52):(4) I think it would be silly just to sling mud around (s1b-022-1 9) • What’s gone wrong I think it would be silly just to sling mud around what’s gone wrong is a ge- a general breakdown of centr[al investment]

  22. I think | it would.. • 'What’s gone -wrong | I -think | it would be \silly  | just to 'sling \mud around | what’s gone /wrong..…

  23. Summary and discussion • Unreliable Identification of • Contours • Boundaries • Implications for theory • Implications for practice • Status and validity of prosodic evidence • Methodologies and review practices

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