188 A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse
A sequence of tone units if bounded between two low terminations is a
pitch sequence. The key following the low termination is likely to be high
projecting maximal disjunction between the pitch sequences. However, the
same sequence or part of the same sequence of one or more tone units,
if coupled with an instance of falling tone, has the potential to form an
increment.^17 A sequence of one or more increments if bounded by two low
terminations is a pitch sequence. The initial key following the previous
increment fi nal low termination is likely to be high signalling maximal
disjunction between the pitch sequences. However, as example (36) above
illustrates there are occasions where pitch sequences endings do not
coincide with increment endings.
In order to understand why some low terminations occurred in positions
within the increment other than in fi nal position each occurrence of
non-fi nal low termination was examined. This revealed that in Text 1, 16 of
the 19 low terminations and 14 of the 24 low terminations in Text 2 which
did not coincide with increment boundaries occurred at sites of possible
increment closure – or in Sinclair and Mauranen’s (2007) terms at sites of
completion but not of fi nishing – e.g. (38) which is reprinted as (38).
(38) it s ↑MY intention to LEAVE the g\EIGHT // withIN the NEXT
N V d N+ V' d N P+ d e
COUple of \HOURS // and go DOWN to \LONdon //
e P dº N # c Ø V' PHR P N #
and get a /REport // FACE to \FACE // with the po\LICE //
c Ø V’ p N phr P d N
and the eMERgency \SERvices // and the MINisters that have
c d N c d N W+ V
been \↓DEAling with this // and /THEN //
V’ V’ P N c a
to reTURN LAter this \/EVEning // [T1-JT-8–10]
Ø V’ A+ d N #After the pitch sequence closure Jt produces an extensive subchain
which achieves target state. The presence of the extension after the low
termination is diffi cult to account for. It may be that Jt when reading the
unpunctuated text initially projected a context where the low termination
coincided with the increment ending. Then, realizing that target state
could only be achieved by tacking on the extensive subchain, he read the