Increments and Tone 141
(9) ↑MUslims in a\MErica // as FAR as i m a\WARE
d ̊ N p n phr n v e
INT1 INT2 INT3 INT4
// are FREE to /↓WORship^5 [T2-Emi-46]
V E V' Ø #
INT5 INT6 TSBrazil’s claim is essentially that the elements contained in the tone unit
with rising tone are free to worship and or secular dictators are informationally
neutral. In (8) there has been no prior mention of any enemy other than a
Muslim terrorist enemy evoked by the previous mentions of September 11th,
and various Muslim countries such as Algeria, Chechnya and Palestine which are
infamous for being the location of violence and terror. Hence the mention of
secular dictators^6 is unexpected and by no means informationally neutral.
In example (9) the elements are free to worship are prefi gured by the
previous co-text which has asserted the existence of propaganda which claims
that America and Britain are engaged in the suppression of Islam. Yet, it is clear
that a speaker could not simply assume that a hearer would be able to infer
the elements in the fi nal tone unit of example (9). However, by presenting
the elements within a tone unit containing a rising tone Emi projects a
context in which the elements are inferable.
Prince (1981: 236–7) develops a tripartite taxonomy of Given-New
information: new, inferable and evoked (her word for given) and identifi es
inferable entities as entities the speaker assumes the hearer can infer via
logical reasoning or as knowledge the hearer can infer from the hearer’s
general knowledge. She does not describe how speakers signal to their
hearers that their propositions are inferable but increment fi nal rises
appear to have the potential to signal that speakers are projecting the
content of their increments as inferable.
There were sixteen other increment fi nal rises^7 and each one was
examined in order to see whether or not the elements it coincided with
were inferable. The results are summarized in Table 6.4.
Caution is required when interpreting Table 6.4 (see endnote 6) as an
analyst may read more into a situation than a reader engaged in the com-
municative act of reading-aloud would. But it seems that that while speakers
may signal that a series of elements are inferable they also project elements
which do not appear to be inferable as if they were. The effect of this
rhetorical device serves not only to soften the telling but also to focus on