Part Six

Part Six

TONE & INTONATION--

CONTRASTIVE PHONOLOGY

(a) Pronounce the following monosyllabic words separately:earth, sky, sea, sand

How would you describe the tone of each word -- e.g. as ‘falling’, ‘rising’, ‘level’, or a combination thereof? (b) Now pronounce the following polysyllabic words. Do you see any basic similarity between the tones in the two sets of words?

‘trumpet, 'symphony, 'opera, 'orchestra (c) What similarities and differences do you see between the following tones and the ones above?

pi'ano, con'ductor, ac'company, clari'net

 ‘The stressed syllable in an English word is assigned a high tone, and the unstressed syllables a low tone.’ Question: Is the tone part of the lexical meaning of the word?

TONE LANGUAGES – e.g. Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, etc.Tones (different pitch levels) are used to distinguish different words – i.e. tone has a phonemic function

Tone sandhi in Mandarin:

CHANGE NO CHANGE1) hao jiu --> hao jiu hao ren xin jiu

3 3 --> 2 3 3 2 1 3 好酒 好　人　　　新　酒

 2) mai ma --> mai ma mai shu qi ma3 3 --> 2 3 3 1 2 3买　马 买　书　　　骑　马

 3) xiao gou --> xiao gou xiao shu da gou3 3 --> 2 3 3 4 4 3小 狗 小 树 大 狗

Phonological processes:Tone sandhi – the change undergone by a tone when adjacent to another tone

Do the other tones undergo change?

4) xin shu xin nian xin fu1 1 1 2 1 4新　书 新　年 新　妇

 5) ti ming ti gao ti huo

2 2 2 1 2 4提 名 　　　提 高 提 货

 6) da di da feng da xue

4 4 4 1 4 2大 地 大 风 大 学

Tone sandhi in Mandarin:

‘A _____ Tone changes to a _____ Tone when ______________ (preceded/followed?) by a _____ Tone.’

Writing a rule for tone sandhi:

(a) which tones undergo change?(b) what tones do they change into?(c) in what environment do these changes take place?

A classic case of syntax-phonology interaction:Does tone sandhi apply ‘blindly’, or is it ‘sensitive to’ syntactic and morphological structure?

[lao li] mai [hao jiu] 老 李 买 好 酒

UR 3 3 3 3 3a) 2 3 3 2 3b) *2 3 2 3 3c) *3 2 3 2 3

Taking morpho-syntactic structure into account:a) [2 3] 3 [2 3]b) *[2 3] [2 3] 3c) *3 [2 3] [2 3]

INTONATION: patterns of pitch variation over a stretch of speech  intonational phrase (IP)a) /Our 'students 'love pho'nology/b) /Our 'students/ 'love pho'nology/c) /Our 'students/ 'love/ pho'nology/

tonic or tonic syllable: the most prominent syllable within an IP, which carries a pitch movementa) /Our 'students 'love pho'nology/b) /Our 'students/ 'love pho'nology/c) /Our 'students/ 'love/ pho'nology/

Restrictive vs. non-restrictive clause:

a) /The city which hosts the 2008 Olympics/ will need to raise billions of dollars/ (restrictive)b) /The city/ which hosts the 2008 Olympics/ will need to raise billions of dollars/ (non-restrictive)

Those who left immediately regretted it.a) /Those who left immediately/ regretted it/b) /Those who left/ immediately regretted it/

1) He remembered the incident on the train.2) The young woman who is a paediatrician adores

children.3) She saw the man with a pair of binoculars.4) People who sold their apartments quickly made a

profit.5) The eggs are stamped with the date they were laid

by the farmer

Structurally ambiguous sentences:

3. Marking information structure

•Information unit

Intonational phrase information unitNucleus focus

•Focus of information

1. /As long as land remains scarce/ property prices will always be high/

2. /She finally decided to marry Gabriel/ not because he was rich/ but because he was devoted to her/

3. /Although over-eating is bad for one’s health/ many people do not seem to care/

new information vs. old (or ‘given’) information

‘The lecture yesterday evening was on standard and non-standard language./ It touched on a lot of misconceptions and prejudices in people’s minds,/ and made us look at the issues in a totally new light.’

Question: Where does the ‘old’ information normally come in a sentence – in the first or the last part? What about the ‘new’ information?

CONTRASTIVE FOCUS

(i) /Half the students have gone shopping today/ (explaining why attendance at the lecture is so poor)(ii) /Half the students have gone shopping today/ (emphasising the extent of the truancy)(iii) /Half the students have gone shopping today/ (as opposed to the teaching staff)(iv) /Half the students have gone shopping today/ (on other days it’s not like this)(v) /Half the students have gone shopping today/ (the speaker is certain of this, in response to a challenge)

ACCENTS OF ENGLISH

Rise of English as a global language in the second halfof the 20th century

Spread of ‘New Varieties’ of English – Singaporean, Malaysian, Indian, Philippino, Hong Kong, etc. English

Regional varieties of English – British (RP, southern,Cockney, northern, Scottish, etc), American (GA, southern,New York, etc.), Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, etc

CONTRASTIVE PHONOLOGY: Comparing the phonological systems of different languages or different varieties of the same language

Comparing the phonology of different varieties of English – four main aspects:

ANALYSING THE PHONOLOGY OF ‘NEW’ VARIETIES OF ENGLISH:The case of Hong Kong English

Spectrograms for heat and hit in HKE:

VOWEL SYSTEM OF HKE

2. DIPHTHONGS

Question: Does this mean HKE has an identical system of diphthongs to native varieties like British RP?

Phonetic realisations (allophones) of diphthongs in HKE:

3. CONSONANTS

Question: Is there any evidence for a /s/ vs. /z/ contrasts in HKE?

Is there any evidence of a voiced vs. voiceless contrast among fricatives in HK English?

HONG KONG MANDARIN

1. Palatal obstruents – is there any evidence for them in the following HKM data?

The diphthong ou