Prosodic analysis: theoretical value and practical difficulties Anne Wichmann Nicole Dehé
Prosodic features Phonological (categorical) Prominence placement Contour type Unit boundaries Phonetic (gradient) Pitch range Speech rate Voice quality Pause placement
Introduction: role of prosodic analysis Pragmatics information structure; speech acts; attitudes; interaction management Syntax Mapping between syntactic and prosodic ‘units’ Disambiguation Comment clauses vs. main clauses (e.g. I think) Scope of adverbials Coordination vs. subordination Language change (grammaticalisation) Applications – clinical tests (Peppe et al)
Overview of talk Prosodic analysis Identifying tonal contours Identifying boundaries Implications for practice – authors, reviewers, editors
Identifying tonal contours fall rise fall-rise rise-fall (British) H* L L* H H* LH L*HL (Autosegmental)
Requests and demands Please-requests (Wichmann 2004) And our first \question please H*L Can I have some nomi\nation forms /please H*LH ‘public’ vs. ‘private use
Halliday & Greaves (2008): Accounting for attitude What happens when you take penicillin?
Identifying units and boundaries Internal definition presence of a ‘nuclear tone’ External definition Pauses – convenient identifier (auditorily & automatically) but not reliable Change in tempo (speeding up on initial unstressed syllables; final lengthening Change in pitch direction on unstressed syllables Absence of CSPs (assimilation, elision) Anomalies e.g. reporting clauses (yes, she said) ‘any comprehensive definition of the tone-unit must.. Have recourse to a complementarity of cues’ Crystal (1969: 205)
Yes, she said Yes [.] she said ● ● H* L L%
Scope of CC – phrase or clause But my friend got it I think about twelve years ago ( ICE-GB: s1a-071 #90) From Dehé 2009
Scope of CC – phrase or clause This matter may be defeated on the Queen’s Speech specifically tomorrow and again on uh Monday I think. Kaltenböck (2010)
Scope of CC – phrase or clause.. one of the things that begins to happen I think in the seventeen seventies.. (s2a ) Kaltenböck 2010
Grammaticalisation and prosody Process of semantic change Assumed to be result of habituation Consequences (prosodic and segmental) Loss of stress >> segmental attrition Loss of stress >> prosodic integration
Relating prosody and discourse from: Dehé & Wichmann (2010); in Functions of Language 17(1): Speaker B: The voters I think just have an opportunity to stick two fingers up to whoever seems to be on top at the moment (ICE-GB: s1b-029#92)
Relating prosody and discourse from: Dehé & Wichmann (2010); in Functions of Language 17(1): Your argument I believe is that it’s died so to speak more in some realms than in others and crucially that there is something there left which is the basis for renovation (ICE-GB: s1b-028#19)
Relating prosody and discourse Dehé & Wichmann (2010); in Functions of Language 17(1): and she uhm uh was quite high up I think cos she had a degree(ICE-GB: s1a-019#248)
Initial I think: main clause or comment clause/adverbial? Prosodic evidence for Main clause Adverbial Discourse marker Kaltenböck 2009 Dehe & Wichmann 2010
Initial CCs
Integrated as Head I think it’s all jolly good fun
Units and boundaries: cricket as far as my experience in cricket’s concerned Wilfred I think that any woman who wanted to join the MCC would honestly and genuinely be doing it for the sake of cricket and their love of the game Kaltenbock 2009 (ex 9)
Units and boundaries: sling mud around Kaltenböck (2009:52): (4) I think it would be silly just to sling mud around (s1b ) What’s gone wrong I think it would be silly just to sling mud around what’s gone wrong is a ge- a general breakdown of centr[al investment]
I think | it would.. 'What’s gone -wrong | I -think | it would be \silly | just to 'sling \mud around | what’s gone /wrong..…
Summary and discussion Unreliable Identification of Contours Boundaries Implications for theory Implications for practice Status and validity of prosodic evidence Methodologies and review practices