X_X So many lectures left...
Jan. 23rd, 2009 03:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
major_kerinaHere's one more to go over for now...then I need to get groceries...
This one is called - Suprasegmentals (not a new superhero group)
We are beyond the segment level - phonemes and allophones and their segments.
We're beyond that...see title!
What are they?
Those aspects of speech that involve more than single consonants or vowels. Larger bits of language!
The features used to describe supra-segmentals are different from those used to describe segments: point of articulation, manner of articulation, and state of the glottis. Not looking at that right now! Vowels needed horizontal and vertical dimensions to your tongue and tense.
Suprasegmentals are contrastive because they can produce changes in meaning. One phoneme changes meaning - remember rust and dust. It's just like that. Different stress patterns change the same words!
There are 3 major suprasegmentals.
Stress
Intonation
Tone
All exist in English...except Tone! But we're learning it anyways! Because we need to learn!
The characteristics of stress (see - a student of this course).
* The use of extra respiratory energy during the production of a syllable - Stress applies to entire syllables - heard of a stress vowel? - Use stressed vowels instead for term.
* This extra respiratory energy moves more air out of the lungs meaning that stressed syllables are longer, louder, and higher in pitch. - Only true in English - Also in Spanish (shorter in Spanish though)
* Stress in contrastive. Get it? ^^ Also...English is a stressed timed language. Example - Elephant (again) - middle one is shorter unstressed. Elephante (Spanish) - approx the same length - Spanish is a syllable timed language. So it causes issues in stress usage between the two.
Two strings of segments can be identical in their segmental compo-sition, yet differ in meaning because they have different stress patterns.
verb noun (IPA written but here they they are in my terms)
SubJECT SUBject
PerMIT PERmit
PerVERT PERvert (baka!)
ConFLICT CONflict
You change the meaning with stress pattern!
Two sequences may have the same words in them yet be different in meaning.
Adjective and noun stress pattern.
In this pattern the noun receives primary stress.
[ « flaeÏt fUt] - a flat foot
[ « blu kot] - a blue coat
[ « blaek bord ] - a black board
The compound stress pattern.
Compounds are two free morphemes (bringing together two free words previously) that have been bound together to form a new word.
Compounds receive stress on the first element.
[ « flaeÏt fUt] - a flatfoot
[ « blu kot] - a bluecoat
[ « blaek bord ] - a blackboard
Contrasts between the two patterns.
George bought a [blu bã!d] (blue bird).
George bought a [blu! bãd] (bluebird).
John found a [rEd ko!t] (red coat) under Mary’s bed.
John found a [rE!d kot] (redcoat - Must've been small...) under Mary’s bed.
Idiots usually live in the [wajt ha!ws] (white house).
Idiots usually live in the [wa!jt haws] (White House - still a compound).
Grammatical stress is contrastive.
The meanings of adjective noun combinations are transparent if the speaker knows the meaning of both words:
a hungry dog is any dog that is hungry
an interesting book is any book that is interesting
a remarkable story is any story that is remarkable
The meaning of a compound is not transparent.
a blackboard - new thing (for all)
a busybody
a house dog
a house cat
a dog house
a cat house
Put the stress in the appropriate place.
Confederate soldiers were called [gre kots]. (1st)
Don’t write on the [blÏk bord]. (1st)
Sally bought a [gre kot]. (2nd)
The Smiths bought the [grin haws] on the corner. (2nd)
They grow tomatoes in their [grin haws]. (1st)
Intonation
Listen to the following sentence. I will read it three times.
Does the meaning change?
Bakersfield is a nice town
(the changes to question intone, declarative, statement but with the suggestion of a qualifier to add.)
Intonation is the pitch contour over a phrase or sentence.
Pitch is the rate of vibration of the vocal cords.
Sounds with a higher pitch are produced with a greater frequency of vibration than are sounds with a lower pitch (see - American Idol).
Pitch is relative to the individual speaker.
Pitch level is denoted with a number:
2 is the speaker’s normal pitch (find with a normal ahhh)
1 is a level below normal or one that falls from the normal pitch.
3 is a level above normal or one that rises from the normal pitch.
We can talk about intonation over phrases and sentences this way.
As was demonstrated previously, pitch contours are contrastive.
The same sequence of words take on different meanings if the pitch contour is changed.
Steve is a good student
231 Steve is a good student - declarative
233 Steve is a good student - question
232 Steve is a good student - but something is to follow
The major pitch contours are the 231, the 233, and the 232.
The 231
The speaker starts the utterance with normal pitch. The pitch then rises to 3 over that word in the utterance which receives primary stress and then falls to 1.
In normal speech, the 231 occurs with content questions (W/H questions), declarative statements (Today is Monday.) and commands (Take out the trash).
Examples
Declarative statements
A university education is expensive.
“All my lust has turned to dust.”
Commands
Shut the door.
Take out your books.
Content Questions
What is your name?
Who are you?
The 231 is just natural in speech.
the 233
The speaker starts the utterance with normal pitch. The pitch then rises to 3 over that word in the utterance which receives primary stress and holds steady or actually rises a little more - rising intonation pattern.
In normal speech the 233 occurs with yes/no questions.
Are you a student?
Is it raining?
the 232
To understand the 232 pattern, it is necessary to understand the concept of tone group: that part of a sentence over which a particular pitch contour extends. A short sentence may consist of a single tone group, but a longer sentence may have more than one.
The 232 pattern extends over initial phrases or clauses to indicate that more is to come.
(adverb clause) (main clause)
If I were you, I would study more.
2 32 2 3 1
(prepositional phase) (declarative)
By the way, the exam is quite easy.
2 32 2 31
Joe is smart (but)
2 32 (or declarative with a 231)
Though the 231, 232, and 233 pitch contours are normally associated with certain sentence types, remember that intonation can be used to create different meanings on the same sequence of words.
The exam was long.
231 (declaring it was long) 233 (asking if it was long) 232 (it was long....but) versions
Identify the ‘normal’ pitch contour of the utterances below:
Beethoven composed the ‘Emperor Concerto.’ (231)
How many students were absent? (231 - simple answer)
Did you like the movie? (233)
Please open the window. (231)
If you do well,... (232)
Tone - English speakers - it doesn't matter.
Most languages in the world are tone languages. There are over 1000 tone languages in Africa. Many Amerindian languages have tone as do Thai, Chinese, and Burmese.
Tone refers to the pitch contour over strings of segments.
How do tone and intonation differ? Intonation (over strings of words not segments).
Tone is contrastive.
The same string of segments will have different meanings if stated with different tones.
Examples from Thai:
naa [ _ ] low tone “a nickname”
naa [ - ] mid tone “rice paddy”
naa [ ] high tone “maternal uncle”
naa [ ^ ] falling tone “face”
naa [ v ] rising tone “thick”
And that's it for this...
This one is called - Suprasegmentals (not a new superhero group)
We are beyond the segment level - phonemes and allophones and their segments.
We're beyond that...see title!
What are they?
Those aspects of speech that involve more than single consonants or vowels. Larger bits of language!
The features used to describe supra-segmentals are different from those used to describe segments: point of articulation, manner of articulation, and state of the glottis. Not looking at that right now! Vowels needed horizontal and vertical dimensions to your tongue and tense.
Suprasegmentals are contrastive because they can produce changes in meaning. One phoneme changes meaning - remember rust and dust. It's just like that. Different stress patterns change the same words!
There are 3 major suprasegmentals.
Stress
Intonation
Tone
All exist in English...except Tone! But we're learning it anyways! Because we need to learn!
The characteristics of stress (see - a student of this course).
* The use of extra respiratory energy during the production of a syllable - Stress applies to entire syllables - heard of a stress vowel? - Use stressed vowels instead for term.
* This extra respiratory energy moves more air out of the lungs meaning that stressed syllables are longer, louder, and higher in pitch. - Only true in English - Also in Spanish (shorter in Spanish though)
* Stress in contrastive. Get it? ^^ Also...English is a stressed timed language. Example - Elephant (again) - middle one is shorter unstressed. Elephante (Spanish) - approx the same length - Spanish is a syllable timed language. So it causes issues in stress usage between the two.
Two strings of segments can be identical in their segmental compo-sition, yet differ in meaning because they have different stress patterns.
verb noun (IPA written but here they they are in my terms)
SubJECT SUBject
PerMIT PERmit
PerVERT PERvert (baka!)
ConFLICT CONflict
You change the meaning with stress pattern!
Two sequences may have the same words in them yet be different in meaning.
Adjective and noun stress pattern.
In this pattern the noun receives primary stress.
[ « flaeÏt fUt] - a flat foot
[ « blu kot] - a blue coat
[ « blaek bord ] - a black board
The compound stress pattern.
Compounds are two free morphemes (bringing together two free words previously) that have been bound together to form a new word.
Compounds receive stress on the first element.
[ « flaeÏt fUt] - a flatfoot
[ « blu kot] - a bluecoat
[ « blaek bord ] - a blackboard
Contrasts between the two patterns.
George bought a [blu bã!d] (blue bird).
George bought a [blu! bãd] (bluebird).
John found a [rEd ko!t] (red coat) under Mary’s bed.
John found a [rE!d kot] (redcoat - Must've been small...) under Mary’s bed.
Idiots usually live in the [wajt ha!ws] (white house).
Idiots usually live in the [wa!jt haws] (White House - still a compound).
Grammatical stress is contrastive.
The meanings of adjective noun combinations are transparent if the speaker knows the meaning of both words:
a hungry dog is any dog that is hungry
an interesting book is any book that is interesting
a remarkable story is any story that is remarkable
The meaning of a compound is not transparent.
a blackboard - new thing (for all)
a busybody
a house dog
a house cat
a dog house
a cat house
Put the stress in the appropriate place.
Confederate soldiers were called [gre kots]. (1st)
Don’t write on the [blÏk bord]. (1st)
Sally bought a [gre kot]. (2nd)
The Smiths bought the [grin haws] on the corner. (2nd)
They grow tomatoes in their [grin haws]. (1st)
Intonation
Listen to the following sentence. I will read it three times.
Does the meaning change?
Bakersfield is a nice town
(the changes to question intone, declarative, statement but with the suggestion of a qualifier to add.)
Intonation is the pitch contour over a phrase or sentence.
Pitch is the rate of vibration of the vocal cords.
Sounds with a higher pitch are produced with a greater frequency of vibration than are sounds with a lower pitch (see - American Idol).
Pitch is relative to the individual speaker.
Pitch level is denoted with a number:
2 is the speaker’s normal pitch (find with a normal ahhh)
1 is a level below normal or one that falls from the normal pitch.
3 is a level above normal or one that rises from the normal pitch.
We can talk about intonation over phrases and sentences this way.
As was demonstrated previously, pitch contours are contrastive.
The same sequence of words take on different meanings if the pitch contour is changed.
Steve is a good student
231 Steve is a good student - declarative
233 Steve is a good student - question
232 Steve is a good student - but something is to follow
The major pitch contours are the 231, the 233, and the 232.
The 231
The speaker starts the utterance with normal pitch. The pitch then rises to 3 over that word in the utterance which receives primary stress and then falls to 1.
In normal speech, the 231 occurs with content questions (W/H questions), declarative statements (Today is Monday.) and commands (Take out the trash).
Examples
Declarative statements
A university education is expensive.
“All my lust has turned to dust.”
Commands
Shut the door.
Take out your books.
Content Questions
What is your name?
Who are you?
The 231 is just natural in speech.
the 233
The speaker starts the utterance with normal pitch. The pitch then rises to 3 over that word in the utterance which receives primary stress and holds steady or actually rises a little more - rising intonation pattern.
In normal speech the 233 occurs with yes/no questions.
Are you a student?
Is it raining?
the 232
To understand the 232 pattern, it is necessary to understand the concept of tone group: that part of a sentence over which a particular pitch contour extends. A short sentence may consist of a single tone group, but a longer sentence may have more than one.
The 232 pattern extends over initial phrases or clauses to indicate that more is to come.
(adverb clause) (main clause)
If I were you, I would study more.
2 32 2 3 1
(prepositional phase) (declarative)
By the way, the exam is quite easy.
2 32 2 31
Joe is smart (but)
2 32 (or declarative with a 231)
Though the 231, 232, and 233 pitch contours are normally associated with certain sentence types, remember that intonation can be used to create different meanings on the same sequence of words.
The exam was long.
231 (declaring it was long) 233 (asking if it was long) 232 (it was long....but) versions
Identify the ‘normal’ pitch contour of the utterances below:
Beethoven composed the ‘Emperor Concerto.’ (231)
How many students were absent? (231 - simple answer)
Did you like the movie? (233)
Please open the window. (231)
If you do well,... (232)
Tone - English speakers - it doesn't matter.
Most languages in the world are tone languages. There are over 1000 tone languages in Africa. Many Amerindian languages have tone as do Thai, Chinese, and Burmese.
Tone refers to the pitch contour over strings of segments.
How do tone and intonation differ? Intonation (over strings of words not segments).
Tone is contrastive.
The same string of segments will have different meanings if stated with different tones.
Examples from Thai:
naa [ _ ] low tone “a nickname”
naa [ - ] mid tone “rice paddy”
naa [ ] high tone “maternal uncle”
naa [ ^ ] falling tone “face”
naa [ v ] rising tone “thick”
And that's it for this...
