Key and Termination – Increments 197
implications of fi nality and the putative low-termination value appears
in the context of the utterance to be redundant. To conclude, low key/
termination in increment non-fi nal position does not appear to realize
a low-termination value. In increment fi nal position, on the contrary, it real-
izes a low-termination value and may realize a low-key value. The presence
of the low key depends on the type of lexical item present in the fi nal tone
unit and on the previously created discourse expectations.
7.4 Conclusion
There is support in the data for the proposal that increment initial high key
labels an increment with the communicative value of being contrary to the
previously generated expectations. It was also shown that increment fi nal
high terminations label increments with communicative value. However,
the value of inviting adjudication was shown to be inappropriately precise
and hence, it was suggested that the communicative value realized by high
termination in the corpus was more satisfactorily glossed as seeking active
hearer intervention. Low terminations tend to occur at points in the
discourse where Brazil’s two necessary but not suffi cient criteria have been
satisfi ed. The discussion especially of the communicative value of high
key/termination and low key/termination has illustrated that potential
intonational meaning may be over-ridden by the lexicogrammar, the
co-text and the prior discourse expectations.
By showing that key and termination choices label increments with added
communicative signifi cance the analysis has contributed to the outward
exploration of the grammar and has demonstrated the insights that Brazil’s
grammar adds to the description of speech as a purposeful, contextualized,
and cooperative happening.