Mdt. sprogproduktion

Mdt. sprogproduktion

English Prosody

Agenda

• Brief survey of the ground you’ve already covered

• English prosody

• Assignment Four– Hand in print copy April 26, 9 am.– Feedback April 29, 9-11 pm.

What you’ve already done

• The sound segments of English (consonants and vowels)

• Vowels in unaccented syllables

• The articulation of simple words

So far

aId laIk tə baI ə hæmbɜ:gə

What you’re going to do today

• Suprasegmentals: the sound effects that exist over and across the individual sound segments.

• Tonetic or interlinear transsciption

What you’re going to do next time

• The rhetorical structures of meaning in presentations

Suprasegmentals: the sound effects that exist over and

across the individual sound segments. Phonetic and tonetic (interlinear) transscription:

. . . . .. . .

/aId laIk tə baI ə hæmbɜ:gə/

Suprasegmentals: Prosody

• Accent (the prominence of a syllable relative to other syllables in an utterance):– Stress– Tone movement and

pitch level– Vowel length– Vowel quality

• Intonation:– Pitch level– Pitch range

Accent

• Produced by four factors:– Stress: articulatory energy and auditory

loudness– Tone movement and pitch level– Vowel length– Vowel quality

Accent

• Word accent • Sentence accent and rhythm

Accent

• Word accent• Accent has a

distinctive function:• Conduct• Dictate• Object• Protest• Suspect

• .

• .• /prətest/

•.• .• /prəʊtest/

Four kinds of sentence accent

• Primary accent: dynamic tonal prominence, strong stress

• Secondary accent: static tonal prominence and stress

• Tertiary accent: stress, distinct vowel quality or length

• No accent: absence of stress and blurred or lacking vowel quality.

Four kinds of sentence accent

. . . . .. . .

aId laIk tə baI ə hæmbɜ:gə

The tone group

• ”[…] a section of speech containing one peak of prominence in the form of a syllable pronounced with tone glide and strong stress (i.e. with primary accent)” (113)

• ”The nucleus is the part of the tone group which is most important in content. Its function is to express what the teacher chooses to make the main point of his meaasage.” (115)

Four kinds of sentence accent (pp. 108-109)

• You ought to be more co-operative, mister

• But he was spry and cheerful

• He ran through the forest frenziedly

• The food was elegant and expensive

• It’s fun to jump in the sun

• What would you like for lunch?

Intonation and meaning

• Three functions:– Attitudinal: expresses

attitude– Grammatical:

expresses meanings signalled syntactically

– Segmental: accoustic units of meaning

• Three functions:– A dog, a dog?, a dog!

– You have a cold(?)

– Example p. 112

Intonation and meaning: basic patterns

1. Declarative sentences

2. Yes-no questions

3. Wh-questions

4. Imperatives

5. Exclamations

Intonation and meaning: basic patterns and norms

Patterns:• Declarative

sentences• Yes-no questions• Wh-questions• Imperatives• Exclamations

Norms:• Falling

• Rising, falling-rising• Falling• Falling• Falling

Intonation and meaning

• Certainty / uncertainty as to yes or no

• Kindness / unkindness

• Completeness / incompleteness

• Falling• Rising• Falling-rising

Examples

• So you’re a writer?• I’ve never heard of you.• Have you had anything published?• Oh really?• What kind of things do you write?• Stuff you make up?• To avoid discovery I stay on the run.• To discover things for myself I stay on the run

Assignment Four

• Hand in print copy April 26, 9 am.

• Feedback April 29, 9-11 pm.