A Review of A Grammar of Speech 29
Brazil’s grammar is based upon on the premise that a well-formed incre-
ment satisfi es an individual communicative need. It encodes how speakers
assemble their message, word-like element by word-like element; describes
how speakers signal their apprehension of the state of speaker/hearer con-
vergence and signals whether their primary purpose is to tell or ask. An
example from Brazil (p. 245) illustrates:
(43a) // R and my friend just PUT her FOOT down // P and ↑SPED OFF //
(43b) // R and my friend just PUT her FOOT down // P and SPED OFF //
(43c) // R and my friend just PUT her FOOT down // P and ↓SPED OFF //
The proclaiming tone in (43a–c) labels the speaker’s utterances as poten-
tial telling increments. However, the high and low-key selections in (43a
and 43c) respectively represent a more delicate selection. In the former,
the telling realized in the second tone unit is labelled as being contrary to
the previously generated expectations; the hearers were surprised that the
friend sped off rather than performing some other less surprising action. In
the latter, the low key labels the telling realized by the second tone unit as
being equivalent to the previously generated expectations; the act of speed-
ing off equals the act of putting her foot down.
Non-mid termination also represents a more delicate selection, e.g.
(44a) // R and my friend just PUT her FOOT down // P and SPED ↑OFF //
(44b) // R and my friend just PUT her FOOT down // P and SPED ↓OFF //
The high termination in (44a) invites hearer adjudication: the speaker
anticipates a high-key response which signals the speaker’s projected
belief that the friend’s speeding off was not what the hearer expected. Brazil
(1997) argues that low termination signals the closure of a unit of speech
larger than the tone unit known as the pitch sequence which represents ‘a
discrete part of the utterance’ (p. 246). It seems likely that pitch sequence
boundaries will tend to coincide with increment boundaries (but see (45)
where the fi rst pitch sequence boundary occurs mid-increment, though at
the end of a syntactically complete chain or in Sinclair and Mauranen’s
terminology at a point of completion). The relationship between pitch
sequence endings and increments boundaries will be examined in
Chapter 7.