170 A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse
(17) that is why the –MOment // it –LOOKED as if //
N V W+ d N+ N V a c
you could get PROgress in ISrael and \/PAlestine //
N V V' N+ P N c N
it had to ↑BE \STOPped // [T2-Tr-39]
N V V' V' #By contrast in (18) the fi nal high key instantiates the context the president
and no-one else. The local meaning realized by the particularized key appears
in the context to connote the President as a fi rm and decisive leader.
(18) and this exPLAINS i \THINK // the ↑PREsidents \/POlicy //
c N V con d e N #
[T2-Sn-28]To sum up, the evidence from the corpus suggests that high key in incre-
ment medial position may label the content of more than a single tone unit
as contrary to the previously generated expectations. The extent of the
information projected as contrastive depends on the interaction between
the lexicogrammar, the co-text and the intonation. Increment medial high
key may also function as a particularizing key. When an increment medial
high key is preceded within the increment by a further high key it functions
as a particularizing key. A further type of particularizing key was identifi ed
where the step up in pitch occurred on a prominent syllable other than the
onset. Increment fi nal high keys function to either particularize a particu-
lar lexical sense or to project the content of a tone unit as contrary to the
previously generated discourse expectations.
7.2 The Communicative Signifi cance of
High Termination in Increments
Table 7.5 shows that there were a 101 instances of high termination within
the corpus.^12 Section 7.2.1 explores the communicative signifi cance of high
termination in increment fi nal position and section 7.2.2 examines the
communicative signifi cance of non-fi nal high-termination selections. Brazil
(1997) argues that high termination realizes the communicative value of
inviting adjudication of the content of the tone unit. The proposal here is
that high termination, in increment fi nal position, invites adjudication of