Increments and Tone 155
(23) because POlicy has \/CHANGED in the past few years // and
w d ̊ N V V' P d e+ e N c
what CHANGED –POlicy // was sepTEMber the e\↓LEVenth //
w V N V N #
[T2-Bc-3]Bc in the previous increment has told that we’ve got to go back and ask what
changed policy: the proposition that something changed policy is part of the pre-
existing co-text which forms the initial state of Bc’s increment presented in
(23). Yet his selection of level tone signals that he does not presume that his
hearer has added this information to the state of shared speaker/hearer
convergence. While it is impossible to know exactly why he chose not to
label the information and what changed policy as part of the speaker/hearer
common ground, selection of level tone is the neutral choice. It neither
presumes that the hearer needs telling nor presumes convergence. It is
clear that the idea that something changed policy is vital to the ultimate telling
as the elements policy and changed are repeated four times within a stretch
of speech comprising 18 words which in Bc’s reading is segmented into
three increments.
The remaining 13 instances of level tone were not classifi able under
either of the categories described above. However, in all instances
the tonal composition of the increments suggests that the speakers were sens-
itive to their hearers’ communicative needs e.g.
(24) and /↓YES // it –↓REAlly is // ↓\TOUGH // as a \/REsult
c con N A V E P+ d N
of it // [T2-Emi-24]
P N #The tonal composition indicates that Emi was engaged in a communic-
ative act. The presence of the low key/termination – see Chapter 7 –
provides further support for the view that while articulating (24) she was
fully engaged in the communicative situation. However, it is not possible
to know^14 why she chose to select a level tone rather than an end-falling
or end-rising one.
To conclude, this section has shown that while choice of level tone is a
neutral option in the sense that it opposes the communicative values real-
ized by the selection of end-falling or end-rising tone, it does not always