A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse - The Intonation of Increments

28 A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse

6. All N, V, E and A elements larger than a word are decomposed into
   strings of word-like elements.


7. Any N element in a subchain following the subject N has a zero realiza-
   tion if its realization would amount to the second mention of the fi rst N
   of a reduplicating pair.

2.3 Intonation Systems Explicitly Mentioned as

being Worthy of Exploration

Brazil concedes that his grammar is by no means complete and that a fuller
description must include intonational features other than the presence or
absence of P tone. He states that:

The intonation features that are manifested as changes in pitch level (as

opposed to pitch movement) at prominent syllables are not signifi cant

for our present description as far as it has gone. Further development of

the same kind of analysis would require that we take note of the way they

affect the communicative value... (p. 245) Emphasis added

Neither key, which is selected on the onset syllable, nor termination, which
is selected on the tonic syllable, have as yet been incorporated into
the grammar. Each key and termination selection represents a choice of
high, mid, or low. Speaker selection of key and termination realizes the
communicative values mapped out in Table 2.1.

Table 2.1 The communicative value of key and termination from Brazil (1997)

Key Termination

High Tone unit is contrastive with expectations
created by previous discourse

Speakers anticipate hearer
adjudication
Mid Tone unit adds to the expectations created
by previous discourse: it is neither
contrastive with nor equivalent to the
expectations created by the previous
discourse

Speakers expect hearer concurrence

Low Tone unit is equivalent to the expectations
created by previous discourse

Speakers project no expectation,

i.e. they neither anticipate

hearer adjudication nor expect

concurrence