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.