Week 7 Topic 5

Suprasegmental
Aspects
Week 7
Topic 5
•Pitch
•Tone
•Intonation
Pitch
o The primary pieces of suprasegmental information are
the pitch of sounds, the loudness, and the length.
o The pitch of a sound is how high or low it is.
o We produce high pitched sounds when our vocal folds have a
high-frequency vibration, and when our vocal folds vibrate
more slowly, the resulting sound is lower in pitch.
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cont.
o Some languages use pitch information to signal changes in word
meaning.
o If a language uses pitch this way, the pitch information is called tone.
o These example words are from Yoruba, a language spoken in Nigeria.
o If you look just at the segmental level, these words all seem to be
transcribed the same.
o But speakers of Yoruba vary their pitch when they speak these words so
that the meaning of the word changes depending on whether the second
syllable has a high tone, a mid-tone, or a low tone.
o Probably the best-known tone language is Mandarin, which has five
different tones.
o Looking at these five words, you can see that they contain the same
segments, but it’s the tones that distinguish their meaning.
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video
ohttps://youtu.be/BLHWxqdh5Uw
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cont.
o All of these sentences contain the same words (and the same
segments) but if we vary the intonation, we convey something
different about the speaker’s attitude towards the sentence’s meaning.
o Notice that we sometimes use punctuation in our writing to give some
clues about a sentence’s prosody.
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Tones in Mandarin
ohttps://youtu.be/TnwOEBISYqU
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Intonation
oLanguages also use pitch in another way, not to change
word meaning, but to signal information at the level of the
discourse, or to signal a speaker’s emotion or attitude.
oWhen pitch is used this way, it’s called intonation rather
than tone. English uses pitch for intonation — let’s look at
some examples.
oSam got an A in Calculus.
Sam got an A in Calculus!
Sam got an A in Calculus?
Sam? got an A? in Calculus?
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Tonic Syllable
o In English intonation, the tonic syllable is the most important part
of any sentence (or unit of speech).
o The intonation pattern for the unit begins on the tonic syllable, and it
is the place with the strongest stress.
o In the following examples, the tonic syllable is underlined:
o Have you ever been to Cuba?
It’s wonderful!
Why are you so happy about it?
They told me!
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cont.
o This will always be dictated by the meaning of the sentence,
however, so a more general rule is to place the tonic syllable
in the last important word in a unit, and this is dictated by the
meaning in context, compare:
o Why are you going?

o
Why are you going?
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cont.
o The tonic syllable is unlikely to appear on a function word
(auxiliary verb, preposition, conjunction etc) except to produce a
specific meaning like in the example above (I know where he is
going, now I need to know where you are going) with a focus on
the pronoun you.
o A unit of speech has one tonic syllable and one intonation pattern.
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Tone Unit
o A tone unit can be defined as follows:
o [A tone unit] is a stretch of speech uttered under a single

coherent intonation contour.
o It tends to be marked by cues such as a pause and a shift
upward in overall pitch level at its beginning, and a
lengthening of its final syllable.
DuBois et al (1992:17)
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Structure of the Tone Unit
o The structure of the tone unit is as follows.
o The tonic syllable is obligatory but all other parts are optional.
o (PH) (H) TS (T)

o (pre-head) (head) tonic syllable (tail)
• tonic syllable: ‘carries’ the tone. Is obligatory

• head: all stressed syllable up to (but not including) tonic syllable
• pre-head: any unstressed syllables before the head
• tail: any unstressed syllables that follow the tonic
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Examples of Tone Units
o Some examples of tone units are given below.
o In the first example, the tone unit is a single syllable ‘those’.
o This is the tonic syllable and in this cases has been given a falling
intonation denoted by ‘\’
o 1.| \those |
o 2.| 'give me \those |
o 3.| in a 'little 'less than an \hour |
o 4.| and then 'I said my \father was here |
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cont.
o In the second example, the tonic syllable is preceded by a head
‘give me’.
o ‘Give’ is stressed so is the start of the head.
o In the third example, the tonic is ‘hour’, the head is ‘little less
than an’ and the pre-head is ‘in a’.
o Note the pre-head does not contain any stressed syllables.
o In example 4, the tonic ‘father’ is followed by a tail ‘was
here’.
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Tone boundaries
o The term boundary tone refers to a rise or fall in pitch that
occurs in speech at the end of a sentence or other utterance, or,
if a sentence is divided into two or more intonational phrases,
at the end of each intonational phrase.
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thank you

Week 7 Topic 5

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Week 7 Topic 5

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Suprasegmental

o Why are you going?

o [A tone unit] is a stretch of speech uttered under a single

o (PH) (H) TS (T)

• tonic syllable: ‘carries’ the tone. Is obligatory

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