Suprasegmental phonology

Prosody

Phonetic features of a syllable or higher unit

• Stress

• Length

• Intonation

• Tone

• rhythm

Intonation

In sentences. Codes pragmatic differences

Pitch

Phonetic term, present in all languages, measurable in Hz

Tone

Phonological term, systematic contrastive use of pitch

Stress

In nontonal languages, emphasizing one syllable per word

Strong & weak terms

Used to describe stress

High & low terms

Used to describe tone & pitch

Tone language

Language that contrasts words based on pitch

Atonal languages

Languages that are not based on tone

Tonogenesis

Process where languages have developed into tonal or atonal languages

Stressed syllable characteristics

greater length, loudness, & pitch

Foot

Structural position of stress

Head of the foot

Strong syllable that attracts intonational tone or extra duration

Metrical stress theory

Studies stress patterns in spoken language

• Provides descriptive units necessary to account for stress patterns in the world’s languages

• Location of stressed syllables

Heavy syllable

Long vowel OR closed

Light syllable

Short vowel AND open

Dactylic hexamter

Verse line w/ 6 dactylic feet

HLL, HH

Dactylic foot

Group of syllables, consists of one heavy syllable followed by 2 light syllables

• HH, HLL

Iambic pentameter

Alternating stressed & unstressed syllables

Each verse consists of 5 iambic feet

WS/WS/WS/WS/WS

Iambic feet

Group of 2 syllables which can cross word-boundaries

• WS

• First foot may be SW at start of a verse

Trochaic pentameter

Opposite of iambic, first is strong & second is week

SW/SW/SW/SW/SW

Penultimate

2nd from last

Antepenultimate

3rd from last

Pitch accent

Emphasizing certain syllables w/ higher or lower pitch

Heavy vs light syllables on spectrogram

Heavy syllables are normally darker on spectrogram compared to light syllables

Tone unit/contour

Made up of multiple tones

Simple tone language

Has 2 register tones

Complex tone languages

2+ level tones

Mixtec tone language

Has three levels - H, M, L

Mazatec tone language

Has 4 levels - H, HM, LM, Ll

Tone spreading

High tone spreads partly over following tone-bearing unit

• Copying high tone onto multiple syllables

Tone shifting

Change in pitch/intonation of word/phrase within sentence

Tone polarity rules

Drop from pitch from H to L is greater than increase in pitch from L to H

Downdrift & downstep

Lowering of pitch in tone language

Downdrift

Gradual, automatic lowering of pitch

• Occurs when high tone follows low tone

Downstep

More discrete lowering of pitch on high tone

• Often occurs in sequence of high tones where 2nd is lower than first

Tonal sandhi

Process of changing tones

• One tone may affect the shape of adjacent tone

Right dominant stress

Right node in binary branching tree is dominant

WS

Left dominant stress

Left node in binary branching tree is dominant

SW

English!

Bounded stress

Main stress is located at fixed distance from word boundary

Secondary stress is located at fixed intervals from other stresses

• Primary stress does not drift too far from word’s edge

Unbounded stress

Primary stress is pulled towards heavy syllables regardless of its distance from the boundary

• No fixed/predictable pattern of stress on syllables

Tone languages

Lexically determined tone on every syllable or word

Pitch accent languages

Location of accent in particular word is lexically marked

H* & F0

Peak in F0

L* & F0

Valley/trough in F0

Statement utterances PA

H* followed by falling pitch pattern

Questions PA

L* followed by rising pitch pattern

Pitch accents

Associated w/ stressed syllable

Marked w/ (*)

L-L%

Low phrase accent, low boundary tone

• Often at end of spoken declaratives

L-H%

Low PA, high BT

H-H%

High PA, high BT

H-L%

High PA, low BT

Boundary tones

At end of phrase, not associated w/ particular syllable

Marked w/ (%)

Break index 1

Break between prosodic words

Break index 3

Gives impression of a boundary

Break index 4

Break between intonational phrases

Break index 0

When words are pronounced to final & initial segments are allophonically conditioned

• didya

Intermediate phase (ip)

Lower level constituent

Intonational phrases (IP)

Largest phrases in utterance

Point tier

Lets you mark specific point in sound file, specific point in time

Prominence of syllable

Strength of syllable compared to others. Related to stress

Nuclear pitch accent (NPA)

Final PA in intonational phrase

Prenuclear pitch accent (PNPA)

PA before final PA

Bitonal pitch accents

Prominence of words & syllables conveyed using both L & H tones in same prominence-marking event

Marked w/ (+) between tones, (*) on tone carrying greater prominence

!H*

Downstepped H star

Tone of prominent syllable is realized perceptually lower than F0 of preceding PA

Occupies middle ground

(<)

A late event

• Elongation of pronunciation