03 Intonation and Stress

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Intonation in Mandarin and its interaction with tone

To avoid potential conflict between tone and intonation, Mandarin, like manyother tone languages (especially Asian tone languages), makes use of sentence-final PARTICLES to indicate certain groups of syntactic and contextual meanings

expressed by intonation in a non-tone language. Mandarin still has intonation, but with the use of particles the change of pitch

contour for intonation purposes is minimized to some extent. According to Lin(2007), which is based on Shen (1989), Mandarin has three basic types ofintonation pitch movements, as in (5).

[Shen, Xiao-nan. 1989.The prosody of Mandarin Chinese . Berkeley, CA:University of California Press.]

(5) Basic types of intonation pitch movements

a. Type I for statements (e.g.t

mngti

n li . he will come tomorrow)Starting mid, moving higher to mid-high, and falling to low at the end.b. Type II for questions with high utterance-final pitch (e.g.t mngti n li? he

will come tomorrow?)Starting mid-high, moving to high, dropping very slightly before ending in highor mid high.

c. Type III for questions with low utterance-final pitch (e.g.shi mngti n li? who will come tomorrow?)Starting mid-high, moving to high, sloping down to low at the end

d. II

II&IIII I & III

Although there is some degree of pitch movement for intonation purposes, Shen(1989) maintains that in Mandarin the basic contour of a tone (i.e. level, falling,rising) remains recognizable and easily perceived even though intonationinevitably causes some minor modifications or distortion of the tone.

For example, the high level tone (T1) tends to be slightly falling in a statementand slightly rising in a question, but the tone is not altered beyond recognitionsince it is still perceived as T1. In addition, when more than one tone appear in a

sequence,TONAL COARTICULATION changes each tone somewhat for a smoothtransition from one tone to another.

(6) Zh sh n-de sh?this be you-MODIFIER.MARKER bookThis is your book?


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If the pitch contour of each tone remains pretty much intact (after taking intoconsideration tonal coarticulation effects), how can intonation be expressed andrecognized? Two strategies:

o The first strategy is to manipulate the pitch level: (i) the pitch level of the

whole utterance may be raised higher or be depressed lower; and/or (ii) thehigh pitch of a tone gets higher and the low pitch of a tone gets even lower.

o The second strategy is to add a H or L pitch after the tone features of thesentence final syllable, as shown in (7). This typically happens in an emotiveand expressive utterance.

(7) Phrase final tone addition:a. m ng! (really) busy!

tone MH (35)+ affirmative intonation L MHL = 351b. m ng? (did you say) busy?

tone MH (35)+ question intonation H MH+ = 36c. m n? (did you say) slow?tone HL (51) + question intonation H HLM = 513

2.3 Meanings and functions of intonation: With particular reference to English

A case study: yes, no

(i) Fall yes no: This is the intonation which is usually regarded as more or lessneutral. It expresses confirmation and gives an impression of finality.

(ii) Rise yes no: This intonation conveys an impression that something more is tofollow.

(8) A (wishing to attract Bs attention): Excuse me.B: yes [what do you want?]

(9) A: Do you know John Smith?B: yes [an invitation to continue]

(iii) Fall-rise yes no: limited agreement or response with reservations

(10) A: Ive heard that its a good school.B: yes


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(iv) Rise-fallyes no: To convey rather strong feelings of approval, disapproval, orsurprise.

(11) A: You wouldnt do an awful thing like that, would you?B: no

(12) A: Isnt the view lovely!B: yes

(v) Level yes no: It almost always conveys (on single-syllable utterances) a feelingof saying something routine, uninteresting or boring. If one is being asked a seriesof routine questions for some purpose such as applying for an insurance policy one might reply to each question of a series (like Have you ever been in jail?,Do you suffer from any serious illness?, Is your eyesight defective?, etc.) withno.

Some basic meanings of intonation (those in italics can be extended to Mandarin)(i) Fall

Finality, definiteness : That is the end of thenewsIm absolutelycertainStop talking

(ii) RiseGeneral questions : Can youhelp me

Is it overListing: Red brown yellow or blue

(fall is normal on the last item)More to follow: I phoned them right away

(and they agreed to come)You must write it again(and this time, get it right)

Encouraging: It wonthurt

(iii) Fall-riseUncertainty, doubt : You may be right

Its possible Requesting : Can I buy it

Will you lend it to me

(iv) Rise-fallSurprise, being impressed : You were first

All of them


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Functions of intonation

Attitudinal function: Intonation enables us to express emotions and attitudes as wespeak, and this adds a special kind of meaning to spoken language.

Say I want to buy a new car in the following ways: pleading, angry, sad, happy,proud

Accentual function: Intonation helps to produce the effect of prominence onsyllables that need to be perceived as stressed, and in particular the placing ofintonation stress on a particular syllable marks out the word to which it belongs asthe most important in the intonation-unit. [An intonation unit/group is analogousto a clause in syntactic analysis. By definition, an intonation unit must contain anucleus, which is a marked pitch change.]

o One particular aspect of stresscould be regarded as part of intonation: this is

the placement of the intonation stress within the intonation-unit.o In English, the most common position for the stressed syllable is on the last

lexical word (e.g. noun, adjective, verb, adverb as distinct from functionwords like prepositions) of the intonation-unit. For contrastive purposes,however, any word may become the bearer of the stressed syllable. It isfrequently said that the placement of the stressed syllable indicates thefocus of the information.

(13) a. I want to know where hes travelling to (The word to, being a preposition and not a lexical word, is not stressed.)

b. (I don't want toknow where hestravelling from) I want toknowwhere hestravelling to

o Similarly, for the purpose of emphasis we may place the intonation stress inother positions.

(14) a. It was very boring [non-emphatic]b. It was veryboring [emphatic]

o Therefore, in English the stressed syllable willtend to occur on the last lexicalword in an intonation-unit, but may be placed earlier in the intonation-unit if

there is a word there with greater importance to what is being said. This canquite often happen as a result of the last part of the intonation-unit beingalready given (i.e. something which has already been mentioned or iscompletely predictable).

(15) Heres thatbook youasked me tobring


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Grammatical function: The listener is better able to recognize the grammar andsyntactic structure of what is being said by using the information contained in theintonation; for example, such things as the placement of boundaries betweenphrases, clauses or sentences, the difference between questions and statementsand the use of grammatical subordination may be indicated.

o Intonation-unit boundary and grammatical structure

(16) Those who sold quickly made a profit [ambiguous]a. Those whosold quickly made a profitb. Those whosold quicklymade a profit

(17) a. The Conservatives wholike the proposal are pleased [restrictive; someConservatives]

b. The Conservatives who like the proposal are pleased [non-restrictive]

o Another component of intonation that can be said to have grammaticalsignificance is the choice of intonation on the stressed syllable. For example,the use of a rising intonation with questions.

(18) (Why do you want to buy it now?) The price is going up [indicating a question]

For another example, question-tags (e.g. isnt it, are they, will he): When thequestion-tag has a falling intonation, as in (19a), the implication is said to bethat the speaker is comparatively certain that the information is correct, andsimply expects the listener to provide confirmation, while the rising intonationin (19b) is said to indicate a lesser degree of certainty, so that the question-tag

functions more like a request for information.(19) a They are coming onTuesday arent they

b. They are coming onTuesday arent they

Discourse function: Looking at the act of speaking in a broader way, we can seethat intonation can signal to the listener what is to be taken as new informationand what is already given, can suggest when the speaker is indicating some sortof contrast or link with material in another intonation-unit and, in conversation,can convey to the listener what kind of response is expected. Such functions areexamples of intonations discourse function.

o Two main areas in how intonation may be studied in relation to discourse: oneof them is the use of intonation to focus the listeners attention on aspects ofthe message that are most important (e.g. the placing of intonation stress onthe appropriate syllable of one particular word in the intonation-unit), and theother is concerned with the regulation of conversational behavior.


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o The intonation chosen can indicate whether the intonation-unit in which itoccurs is being used to present new information or to refer to informationwhich is felt to be already possessed by speaker and hearer.

(20) Since the last time wemet when we had thathuge dinner Ivebeen on adiet

o Another use of intonation connected with the focusing of attention isintonational subordination; we can signal that a particular intonation-unit is ofcomparatively low importance and as a result give correspondingly greaterimportance to adjacent intonation-units.

(21) a. As I expect youveheard theyreonly admitting emergencycases b. The Japanese for some reason or other drive on theleft like us

o The regulation of conversational behavior: Intonation is also important in theconversational interaction of two or more speakers. In a more general way, it

can be said that speakers use various prosodic components to indicate toothers that they have finished speaking, that another person is expected tospeak, that a particular type of response is required and so on.

It is difficult to treat the different functions separately. For example, the placement ofintonation stress is closely linked to the presentation of new information, while thequestion/statement distinction and the indication of contrast seem to be equallyimportant in grammar and discourse.


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Stress

1. Stress

Mandarin is a tone language, and English is a stress language.

Definition of stress : Like tone, stress is also aSUPRASEGMENTAL PROPERTY of thesyllable. A STRESSED SYLLABLE is made more prominent or salient than anUNSTRESSED SYLLABLE in a word, a phrase, or in the flow of speech by being higherin pitch, longer in duration, and/or louder. E.g.horizon

In terms of articulation, a stressed syllable is produced with more respiratory energyand laryngeal activity, and in terms of perception, a stressed syllable stands out asmore prominent or salient than its surrounding unstressed syllables.

Stress, rhythm, and levels of stress : The pattern of stress creates a pattern of rhythm

in a stress language. Stress patterns tend to alternate between stressed and unstressedsyllables in an utterance. For example, in a four-syllable word likeintonation , thefirst and third syllables are stressed but the second and the fourth syllables are not.Between the first and third stressed syllables, the third one has more prominence thanthe first one, so this English word has aPRIMARY STRESS on the third syllable and aSECONDARY STRESS (i.e. a lesser degree of stress) on the first syllable.

More examples: photographicf

Stress and emphasis : Stress can also be used to emphasize a particular word orsyllable contrasting with another one in a phrase/sentence.Mandarin, like Englishand all other languages, also has this kind of sentence level emphatic stress.

Stress in SC and its interaction with tone

Stress in Mandarin is phonetically manifested mainly by the expansion of pitchrange and time duration, and sometimes by an increase of loudness. Expansion ofpitch range means that a high-pitched tone becomes even higher and a low-pitched tone becomes even lower in a stressed syllable; that is, the range of pitchspace is enlarged when producing a stressed syllable.

The most obvious and uncontroversial exhibition ofword stress in Mandarin is

demonstrated by those disyllabic words with aNEUTRAL TONE. When the firstsyllable has a full tone (non-neutral tone) and the second one has the neutral tone,it is always the case that the first syllable is stressed and the second oneunstressed.

However, when each syllable in a word has a full tone, as in most words inMandarin, it is not clear which syllable is stressed (cf. Chao 1968: 38). Oneexplanation for the difficulty in detecting stress in Mandarin is that the most


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important phonetic cue for stress isF0 (FUNDAMENTAL FREQUENCY), but F0 isalready used by Mandarin for tone to contrast word meanings and hence cannotbe used freely for stress.

(1) a. Zh nggu China; t iy ng sun; ti nq weather; h shu river water; di och to

investigate; shngm

ng life; ti

nk

ng skyb. Li nh gu United Nations; Ji n d Canada; X nx l n New Zealand;

Y nd n x y Indonesia; od l y Australia; gu du r Ecuador

The most common interaction between tone and stress in SC is the occurrence ofthe neutral tone. When a syllable becomes unstressed either in a particular wordfor a particular meaning or in fast casual speech, its original tone is lost and itbecomes a neutral-toned or toneless syllable. The reason for this tone loss is thatan unstressed syllable is short and weak, making it difficult to fully manifest thepitch change of a tone.

Word stress in English : Predictable? At least some rules can be formulated. Only strong syllables can be stressed. Weak syllables are always unstressed.

A strong syllable has a rime whicheither has a syllable peak which is a longvowel or diphthong,or a vowel followed by a coda (that is, one or moreconsonants). Weak syllables have a syllable peak which is a short vowel, and nocoda unless the syllable peak is the schwa vowel or (in some circumstances).

Stress in two-syllable simple words

o Verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions: If the second syllable is a strongsyllable, then that second syllable is stressed. If the final syllable is weak orcontains then the first syllable is stressed.

(2) applypla attracttrkt enterent followf l borrowbr

o Nouns: If the second syllable contains a short vowel, then the stress willusually come on the first syllable. Otherwise it will be on the second syllable.

(3) moneymni estateste t Stress in complex words

o Two major types of complex words: (i) words made from a basic word form(which we will call thestem ), with the addition of anaffix ; and (ii)compound words , which are made of two (or occasionally more) independentwords (e.g. ice-cream, armchair).


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o Affixes have one of three possible effects on word stress: (i) The affix itselfreceives the primary stress (e.g. semi- + circles:kl semicirclesems:kl; -ality + personp:sn personalityp:snlti ); (ii) the word isstressed just as if the affix were not there (e.g. pleasantplezn t , unpleasant

n plezn t; marketm:k t, marketingm:k t); (iii) the stress remains onthe stem, not the affix, but is shifted to a different syllable (e.g. magnetmgnet , magneticmg net k).

o As for compounds, perhaps the most familiar type is the one which combinestwo nouns and which normally has the stress on the first element. E.g.typewriter, suitcase, tea-cup, sunrise.

Some cases of compounds where the stress falls on the second element:

(i) Compounds with an adjectival first element and the-ed morpheme at the

end receive stress on the second element. E.g. bad-tempered, half-timbered, heavy-handed.

(ii) Compounds in which the first element is a number in some form also tendto have final stress. E.g. three-wheeler, second-class, five-finger.

(iii) Compounds functioning as adverbs are usually final-stressed. E.g. head-first, North-East, downstream

(iv) Compounds which function as verbs and have an adverbial first elementtake final stress. E.g. down-grade, back-pedal, ill-treat

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