A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse - The Intonation of Increments

The Corpus and its Coding 131

elements coded as PHR occurred at the beginning, middle or end of
increments, e.g.

(22) you can see it in Kashmir

N V V' N P N

INT1 INT2 INT3 INT4 INT5

for example

PHR (#)

TS

I think we’ ve got to go back and ask what

phr N V V' V' A c V' W

INT1 INT2 INT3

changed policy

V N Ø (#)

INT4 TS

and I ’ll simply try and tell you the information

c N V a V' c V' N+ d N

INT1 INT2 INT3

as best I can at the moment

phr P d N (#)

TS

Example (22) illustrates that the elements coded as PHR can be easily inte-
grated into the chaining rules. Figure 2.1 diagrammed the simple chaining
rules and as can be seen the PHR elements operate within the chaining rules
in a manner identical to A elements. In the fi rst increment the PHR element
for example functions like a fi nal A element as the realization of target state.
The initial elements I think in the second increment do not formally alter
the initial state and create an intermediate state. In the fi nal increment the
elements as best as I can suspend and do not discharge the speaker’s obliga-
tion to produce the following PN elements which realize target state.

5.4.4 Additional categories

Three further minor categories of lexical element were coded within the
corpus as exclamations, conventions and numerals. In all cases, the codings