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Phonology III

Phonology III. Prosody, Tone, Intonation and Stress. Recap . Phonemes: the smallest unit of meaning-carrying sound in a language Allophones: sounds that can be replaced in a word without changing the meaning We saw that certain allophones will only appear in certain environments:

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Phonology III

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  1. Phonology III Prosody, Tone, Intonation and Stress

  2. Recap ... • Phonemes: the smallest unit of meaning-carrying sound in a language • Allophones: sounds that can be replaced in a word without changing the meaning • We saw that certain allophones will only appear in certain environments: • That is: they are predictable and thus are in complementary distribution

  3. Prosody • Pitch, tone, intonation • All languages have prosodic properties • Suprasegmental: exist extraneously to the segment (phonemes) • All phones have certain inherent suprasegmental features.

  4. Tone Languages • Tone languages • feature of the lexicon: pitch indicates (and changes) lexical meaning • phonemic combination + pitch = encode semantic information • (non-tone) languages: pitch is functional (mood, emotion, warning, stress) but not directly influencing lexical meaning

  5. Register (Level) Tones • miɬ • H M L • miɬmiɬmiɬ • moth snare sleep • (Sarcee - Athapaskan language of Canada) • Tones are level: High / Mid / Low • 2 or 3 distinctive pitch levels ... probably never more than four. • Levels are relative to each other.

  6. ‘Downdrift’ in Igbo (Nigeria) • O naaŋwainjaigwe • H L H L H L H L O aŋ na in waig ja we

  7. Contour (gliding) tones • Mandarin (four tones + neutral) • Ma - ㄇ丫 • 媽(媽) – ma55 / mā • 麻– ma35 / má • 馬 – ma213 / mǎ • 罵– ma41 / mà • Contours found in many Asian languages (Vietnamese, Thai, Cantonese etc.)

  8. Semantic / Syntactic Differences Signalled by Tone • Bini(Nigeria): indicates differences in verb tense. • ima - LL (I show) - Timeless • ima - HL (I am showing) - Continuous • Ima - LH (I showed) - Past • So, tone here is perhaps more indicative of syntactic than lexical difference?

  9. Tone Sandhi • Tones can be conditioned by the tones around them: • So in Mandarin, two second (high-rising) tones? • Second high-rising tone becomes third tone. • In Mende (Sierra Leone) there are 3 register tones, but 5 patterns. (H/L/HL/LH/LHL) • Mbu (rice)(monosyllabic, rising pitch) • Fande (cotton) (low, high) • Ndavula (sling) (low, rest high) • Can give the impression of contour tones (but actually register)

  10. Register vs. Contour Tones • Somewhat easier to judge contour tones • Register (level) tones often difficult to figure out without additional points of reference.

  11. Intonation • Intonation: • Many languages have intonation, which conveys semantic content (but isn’t lexically dfferentiated) • Did you see that? / I’m so sorry / What did you do last night? • Terminal intonation contour (falling): • John parked the car. •  signals completeness in American English • Non-terminal intonation contour (rising, or level) • But that’s not ... •  signals incompleteness in AE • But: high rising terminal is part of Australian English, and some parts of UK

  12. ‘Downdrift’ in Igbo (Nigeria) • O naaŋwainjaigwe • H L H L H L H L O aŋ na in waig ja we

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