Intonation and Its Parts: Melody in Spoken English

444 Pages·1985·173.98 MB·English

by  Dwight Bolinger

INTONATION
AND ITS PARTS
MELODY IN SPOKEN ENGLISH
Dwight Bolinger
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Stanford,California
ry86
Stanford University Press, Stanford, California
@ 1986 by the Board of Trustees of the
Leland Stanford Junior University
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Bolinger, Dwight Le Merton, r9o7-
Intonation and its parts.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
r. English language-Intonation. z. English language
English. I. Title.
-vSr;pt3o9k.e5n.a 65 1986 4zr'.6 83-4o698
rsr.N o-8o47-tz4r-7
To Fred W. Householder, Jr.
This dedication acknowledges the debt,
but does not discharge it.

Preface
This book is by a linguist who believes that intonation is too impor-
tant a subject to be left just to linguists. It concerns psychologists,
since intonation, the least self-conscious and least commented-on
side of vocal communication, allows observers to catch communi-
cators off guard and watch certain of their inner workings. It concerns
musicians who are interested in the genesis of song, or merely in
practical ways of fitting song to lyric. It concerns jurists who, with
their background in written law, may be inclined to take too seriously
the words of a message when its tune is contradictory. It concerns
anthropologists who must look at all communicative behavior as a
whole and will find in intonation the spoken counterpart of facial ex-
pression and physical gesture. It concerns writers who, for lack of
tone marks more subtle than period, quotation marks, and comma,
must translate the nuances of intonation into descriptive words. And
it concerns all those in the language arts, for whom the coloring of a
phrase is as important as the phrase itself, and the mastery of a lilt is a
key to sounding like a native.
To make the going easier for so large a family of readers, the first
three chapters of the book discuss the field in a broad, leisurely, and
informal way. And later chapters are as nontechnical as they could be
made, partly for the readers'convenience and partly on principle: the
description of intonation has not reached such a state of analytical
precision that the language of its description needs to deviate far from
ordinary language. This is to some degree because of the nature of the
material. On the one hand, a speaker who organizes the words of a
sentence faces a truly exacting task: first there is the choice of the words
themselves, from more or less arbitrary sets of words; then there are
the fairly exact rules of grammar that govern the combinations; and
finally everything has to be coded using a precise and limited set of
sounds that combine not freely but in ways differently determined for
vlll Preface
each language. It is largely a computational skill. On the other hand, a
speaker who composes an intonation is more artist than computer.
He faces a canvas on which he must draw freehand. There are rules,
but they respond to feeling more directly than does any other well-
systematized part of spoken language. Emotion is always present,
and "ideas" are communicated metaphorically through the feelings
that express them: the idea of uttering an aside (such as a paren-
thetical remark), for example, is that it is not part of the main business
and can therefore be pronounced in a relatively low and hushed
voice.
That intonation is different from most of the other channels of com-
munication studied by linguists is indicated by the wide divergence of
views on how to go about the study of it. The tradition of grammar
and phonology is both an aid and a handicap: an aid because it de-
mands rigor and consistency, a handicap in that it tempts one to see
outlines that are sharper than life. In phonology we take our divi-
sions, largely, where we find them: the language itself defines con-
trasts of voicing that distinguish fip from dip and pan from ban-a
high level of agreement on the distinctions is attainable. Nothing so
ready to hand is found in intonation. More than elsewhere, structure
has to be imposed. We try our best to follow natural fault lines, but
they are fluid and the way is easily lost. Fortunately a certain consen-
sus seems to be emerging among linguists that one can look at such
simple values as high and low or up and down, and that melodic
shapes can be grouped around certain forms associated with the
prominent syllables of an utterance, rather generally termed pitch ac-
cents. That is the approach followed here, and it differs from others
mainly in its insistence on the independence of intonation from gram-
mar. Intonation has more in common with gesture than with gram-
mar (see Chapter 9), though both gesture and intonation are tremen-
dously important fo grammar, as their lines intersect.
A more trivial point of difference, one of form rather than sub-
stance, is the heavily ostensive nature of this book, its richness of ex-
emplification. The reason is the same as the one offered for the com-
paratively nontechnical approach: it is more convenient for the reader
to be given examples at every point. In part the reason stems from the
extremely complex nature of language. If I want to illustrate the pro-
nunciation of the diphthong in the word ride I can give you just that
one word, ride. But the spelling is a distraction: it contains a "silent"
vowel letter e and a couple of consonants that clutter the picture. Can I
be sure that you will pick on the sound represented by the letter i-can
I even be sure that you have understood what is meant by diphthong
Preface 1X
and that you will not be confused by having to associate the notion
with just one letter? By offering more examPles, ply, aisle, guy, nigh,I
may be able to ensure that a pattern will emerge from what they all
have in common. Such "samenesses" are especially difficult to illus-
trate in intonation, and may require even more material to round out
a pattern.
A second reason for the abundance of examples is the aariable
nature of language. People differ in their modes of expression and in-
terpretation, not enough as a rule to create major problems in com-
munication so long as all use the "same language," but often quite
enough to create obstacles to communicating aboutlanguage, particu-
larly since the points of most interest to communicate about are so
often the very ones where people differ. By giving a variety of ex-
amples it is usually possible to hit at least one that will resonate in the
r"ader'" consciousness. The linguist-reader may be uncomfortable
with the resulting exuberance; but that discomfort is slight by com-
parison with what the average reader is apt to feel about theoretical
discussions that seem to be all cutting and no meat.
lntonation and lts Parts is not a survey of past and present ap-
proaches to intonation. It reckons with others' views but its orienta-
tion is the author's. (In a second volume, specific claims of the "gram-
matical" school of intonology will be examined, but such matters are
incidental here.) The list of references is extensive enough to guide
the reader to the major works in the field. For a thorough bibliogra-
p- hy of earlier materials, Crystal Gg6g) is a valuable source'
on two issues this book will strike some as controversial. The first
is one that has been more ignored than challenged, though it is con-
trary to much received wisdom: how the English vowel system should
be analyzed, as a prelude to understanding how syllables are timed.
It mainly concerns Chapters 4 and 5, and the principal discussions of
speech melody will be little affected if it is rejected. Appendix A gives
supporting arguments.
the second issue is more formidable and involves the emotional
and metaphorical approach described above. How far can such an
explanatory principle be carried, and does it not signify an over-
simplification, a form of "reductionism"? Pleading guilty to such a
charge does not preclude a strong defense. If intonation springs from
innate dispositions and capacities, shaped by societies into varying
forms that may conceal their native source but do not contravene it,
then we are obliged to see how well the forms can be explained by
forcing them to confront the source at every step. Emotion and atti-
Preface
tude do not account for everything, but they must be tested first. As
Derek Bickerton writes (r98r: 3rz), "until we know where the innate
component stops, we cannot know where any other devices start.,,
Bickerton goes on to speak of general innate capacities, but his words
ring truer of intonation than of language in any other of its aspects:
"biological language remained right where it was, while culturil lan-
guage rode off in all directions. However, it was always there, under
the surface, waiting to emerge whenever cultural language hit a bad
patch, so to speak . . . cultural language could not expand away from
the biological base indefinitely" (p.z96).With intonation (and with
gesture as a whole) it has traveled the least distance of all.
The reductionism in this book, if the charge is fair, is a matter of
first things first.
To recognize by name all those who have promoted my enlighten-
ment would mean an impossible search of forty years of recollections.
I thank them all, and hope that if some encounter their ideas without
receiving explicit credit, they will treat my oversight as the sincerest
flattery.
But two people must be mentioned. The first is D. Robert Ladd,
whose meticulous reading of the manuscript exposed many confu-
sions and weak arguments. I have done my best to rectify them, on
the theory that if Bob Ladd couldn't understand what I was driving at,
nobody could. The second is Karen Brown Davison of Stanford Uni-
versity Press, who guided the manuscript through the various pro-
duction stages with exquisite care and patience.
D.B.
Contents
PART I. INTRODUCTION
t. Pitch j
Tuning the Ear, 4. Accent and Intonation, 9. Tone Languages, 12.
Accent
z. 14
Stress Versus Accent, r4. Accent as Figure and Ground, 15. Vowel Quality,
18. Other Cues of Accent, r9. Accent as Pitch Jumps, zo. Importance of
zr.
Pitch, Correspondence of Accents and Syllables, zz.
j. Intonation
24
High and Low Pitch, 24. Intonation and Grammar, 25. Intonation and
Music, 28. Levels and Glides, 29. Intervals, 3o. Relational Differences,
3r. Thesis of This Book, 32.
PART II. ACCENTUAL PROSODY
4. Vowels and Syllables 37
Full and Reduced Vowels, 37. Syllable Sequences and Timing, 39. Other
Manifestations of Length, 43.
5. The Shape of Utterances: Ttoo Kinds of Rhythm 46
The Hat Pattern, 45. Other Shapes of Utterances: Interior Accents, 5o.
How Loose Syllables Are Provided, 53. The Hat Pattern Within Words:
"Secondary" Accents, 55. Relative Prominence of Primary and Secondary,
58. Choosing Which Syllable to Accent, 6o. Syllabic Rhythm, 63.
Accentual Rhythm and Isochrony, 65. Pressures from Right and Left, 68.
Forces Opposing Isochrony, 7o.
xll Contents
6. Accents of Power
7+
Informing Versus Impressing, 74. Climax, 75. Permanent Effects of Cli-
max, 77. Climax and Style, 8o. Anticlimax, 8r. Exclamatory Early Ac-
cent, 83. Cumulative Accents, 84. Ascending Rhythm, 86.
7. Accents of Interest 89
Interest, Information, Contrast, 89. Wh Words and Focus, 95. Deaccent-
ing and the "Neutral" Sentence, 99. What Is Accented, ror. What Is De-
accented, rro. Playing Down at the End, rz6. Affirmation and Default,
rz8.
PART III. MELODIC PROSODY
8. Profiles 139
Profiles as Accent Configurations, 139. Profile A, 42. Profile C, 49.
Profile B, r5z. Profile CA, r55. Profile CB, r5o. Profiles AC and CAC,
r5t. Unaccented Syllables, 16z. Uses of Profile A, r54. Uses of Profile
B, 166. Uses of Profile C, r78. Uses of Profile CA, r8r. Uses of Profile
AC, r8r. Uses of Profile CB, r83. Ambiguity, r83. How Much a Profile
Covers, r9r.
g. Intonation and Gesture 494
The Symptomology of Up and Down, r94. Intonation and Emotion, r95.
Cultural Adaptations, r97. The Coupling of Intonation and Gesture,
a9g. The Metaphor of Up and Down, zoz. Reading Gesture into Intona-
tion, zo4. Blends of Intonation and Gesture: Syntactic Effects, zo5. Gradi-
ence: "Amounts" of Up and Down, zrz. Relative Advantages of Intonation
and Gesture, zr3.
ro. Parts and Their Meanings 245
The Fundamental Pitch and Its Variations, zr5. Register, z16. Binarity of
Up and Down, with Qualifications, zzr. Glides and fumps, zz4. Mono-
tone Versus Rise or Fall: "Stylization," zz6. Ambiguities of Monotone,
234. Relative Height, 47. Key, z4r. Sequence, 244. A Sample Analy-
sis: The "Contradiction Contour," 245. Summary of Terms Used to De-
scribe Intonational Shapes, z5z.
tr. Contours in General 254
Determinacy, 256. The Linking of Profiles: Sandhi, z6r. Overlap and
Ambiguity,267.