A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse - The Intonation of Increments

A Linear Grammar of Speech 97

The difference in coding between (19) and (20) seems to neatly capture
the communicative ambiguity authored by Adams.
Brazil himself, while arguing that word-like elements fi lled the slots in his
grammatical chains, also claimed that speakers could simultaneously select
more than one word-like element, i.e. an entire tonic segment. He provides
the example (1997: 37):

(21) // the QUEEN of HEARTS //

d N P N

and argues that the entire tonic segment Queen of Hearts realizes an existential
value of not the Ace of Spades, the King of Clubs, etc. Thus, Brazil recognizes
that speakers’ intonational selections indicate that at times they are assem-
bling speech according to a principle similar to the idiom principle and at
other times according to a principle similar to the open-choice principle.^11
Before returning to a discussion of how best to code unitary elements
larger in extent that orthographic words, the remainder of this section
examines evidence which offers some empirical support for the view that
the unit of selection tends to be larger in extent than the orthographic
word. The fi rst piece of evidence to be reviewed is that of phase. Hunston
and Francis (2000: 169) state that two verbs are in phase if the verbs taken
together represent a single meaningful choice. As evidence for this argu-
ment they produce the following example:

(22) He seems to be an intelligent person

and argue that (22) appears to be a possible response to the questions What
does he seem to be? or What is he, in your opinion? but not the question What does
he seem?. The motivation for considering two verbs, such as seems to be, to be
in phase is that they appear to represent a single choice with the fi rst verb
altering an aspect of the second verb which is the main carrier of informa-
tion (Downing and Locke 1992). If a phase analysis is adopted the verbs
managed to close down and wanted to start in (23) and (24), from Hunston and
Francis (2000), represent single meaningful choices.

(23) The police managed to close down the party

(24) I wanted to start a magazine

As Hunston and Francis argue, the analysis that managed to close down is in
phase appears reasonable. The main information in the sentence is the police