A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse - The Intonation of Increments

36 A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse

with it. Examples (61) and (62) present the extract in Tench’s and Discourse
Intonation notation respectively. Tench identifi es three paratones but
according to the criteria of Brazil et al. (ibid. 61) there are four pitch
sequences. Pitch sequence boundaries are identifi ed solely by the presence
of low termination; the height of the following onset is irrelevant for
identifi cation purposes.

(61) 1 H 'Put your pens

M 'down | 'Pencils

L 'down ||^15

2 H 'Now | be'fore I came to
M 'school |
L 'this 'morning |
H
M
L I 'had my 'breakfast ||

3 H I had some 'cereal |
M and I had some 'toast | and I had an 'egg |
L
H
M and I had a cup of 'tea | and I had a 'biscuit |
L
H
M and then I came to
L school ||

(62) ( 1 ) // o ↑PUT your pens DOWN // o PENcils ↓DOWN //... 7
intervening tone units ( 2 ) // p ↑NOW // r+ be↑FORE i came
to SCHOOL // r+ ↓THIS ↓MORNing // ( 3 ) p i ↓HAD my
↓BREAKfast // ( 4 ) // r+ i had some ↑CEreal // r+ and i had an
EGG // r+ and i had a cup of TEA // r+ and i had a BIScuit //
p and then i came to SCHOOL // p and ↑YOU.... //.... 35
intervening tone units... // you go to ↓SLEEP //

Brazil et al. (1980) classify the tone unit // p i ↓HAD my ↓BREAKfast // as
a pitch sequence whereas Tench (1996), because of the absence of a high
pitch on the immediately following onset syllable had, does not classify the