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 analysisPragmatics information structure; speech acts; attitudes;

interaction managementSyntax 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 attitudeWhat 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-057-72) 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): 1-28

14

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): 1-28

15

Your argument I believe is that it’s died so to speak more in somerealms 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): 1-28

16

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

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-022-1 9)

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