Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa

Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)

Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana

UNIT 6. FOCUS AND INTONATION: A THEORETICAL

APPROACH

1. Introduction

This document includes a brief introduction to some basic theoretical concepts for the
study of intonation. It also presents and compares the proposals of two of the most
influential intonation frameworks: the British School and the American School
(including the latest works within the Autosegmental-Metrical framework and the ToBI
system).

• Intonation, pitch, tone, accent and focus

• Tone languages and intonational languages
• Parameters to describe intonation
o Tonality
o Tonicity
o Tone
o Pitch range
• Intonational modelling: configurations vs. levels
o The British School
o The American School
• Comparing approaches

2. Intonation, pitch, tone, accent and focus

Intonation deals with the pitch changes associated to utterances. For example, an
utterance such as Melanie can be produced with different pitch trajectories depending
on the meaning the speaker wants to convey. In the two examples presented below, the
first utterance is produced with a falling pitch movement typical of a declarative
intonation. The second pattern, on the other hand, shows a rising pitch trajectory more
common in questions.

*Mel a nie *Mel a nie

The articulatory parameter responsible for intonation changes is the rate of vocal fold
vibration. Differences in the vibration of the vocal folds are perceived as different

1
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana
pitches. The relationship between vocal fold vibration and pitch perception is the
following:

Articulatory perspective Perceptual or auditory perspective

the quicker the vibration of the vocal folds Ö the higher the pitch
the slower the vibration of the vocal folds Ö the lower the pitch

From a phonological perspective the study of intonation is aimed at defining the

inventory of tonal categories that are linguistically relevant in a given language. In other
words, the phonology of intonation investigates which pitch movements trigger
differences in meaning at the sentence level and therefore they should be interpreted as
contrastive phonological entities or tones. For example, the two different pitch
configurations of the word Melanie illustrated before should be categorized as two
distinctive tones or phonological units since these pitch differences are responsible for
the changes in the meaning (declarative vs. interrogative) of the same sequence of
sounds (Melanie). Thus, we have to refer to a “falling” tone which contrasts with a
“rising” tone.

Even though the intonation pattern of an utterance expands throughout the whole
utterance, the pitch movements that are linguistically relevant (the tones) are only
associated to two possible sites, namely, the stressed syllables and the right boundary of
the utterance. For example, in the following utterance we can see that each stressed
syllable (marked with an asterisk) shows a high pitch movement and that at the end of
the utterance the pitch shows a falling trajectory which indicates a declarative
intonation. In sections 6 and 7, we will see the proposals of different intonational
schools to categorize the linguistically relevant entities (inventory of tones) of English
intonation.

I’m *sure she’ll *call you to *mor row.

When a stressed syllable is produced with a pitch movement, it becomes accented.

Thus, whereas a stressed syllable is a syllable with rhythmic prominence, an accented
syllable is a syllable which, apart from rhythmic prominence, also has pitch
prominence. This means that all accented syllables have to be stressed but not all
stressed syllables are accented. The following example shows the same sentence as
before but with a different accentuation pattern. In this case, the only syllable that is
accented is the first one (*sure). The other two stresses (*call and *mor) are not
accented since no pitch movement is associated to them.

I’m *sure she’ll *call you to *mor row.

2
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana
The decision of which syllables are accented and which syllables are not depends on the
meaning the speaker wants to convey and on which part of the utterance (s)he wants to
highlight or focus. Focalization has to do with the association of intonational
prominence to those parts of the utterance that are more informative (carry the new
information). Sentences can be of two kinds depending on their information or focal
structure: 1) broad focus sentences (if the whole sentence is new information) or 2)
narrow focus sentences (if part of the sentence is old information and part of it is new).
If the whole sentence is new information (broad focus) the last lexical word will always
get an accent. The stresses preceding the last accent tend to be accented too. This is
illustrated in Dialogue 1 where the question What happens? prompts a broad focus
answer. When the utterance is produced with narrow focus, the element that carries the
new information must be accented, whereas the items that contain the old information
are not. This is exemplified in Dialogue 2. In this case, the word with new information
(*Mary) is accented and the word with old information (*singing) is deaccented, that is,
it is still stressed but shows no pitch movement. When narrow focus is on the last item
of the utterance, as in Dialogue 3, the intonation pattern is similar to that of a broad
focus structure but with a higher accent on the focalized item.

Dialogue 1 Dialogue 2 Dialogue 3

Broad focus Narrow focus Narrow focus

-What happens? -Who’s singing? -What’s Mary doing?

-*Mary’s *singing. -*MARY’s *singing. -*Mary’s *SINGING.

3. Tone languages and intonational languages

Languages such as English and Spanish are known as intonational languages since they
use pitch to change the meaning of sentences. This means that the same sentence can
vary its meaning if the pitch pattern varies. This is illustrated below for the sentence
Mary’s singing which can be interpreted as a declarative or as a question when
produced with the following pitch patterns.

Same sentence Ö different pitch patterns Ö different meanings

*Mary’s *singing Ö declarative

*Mary’s singing

*Mary’s *singing Ö interrogative

3
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana

There are other languages, such as a Chinese, in which pitch differences are not only
used to trigger different meanings at the sentence level but also at the word level. These
languages are known as tone languages and they use pitch to change the meanings of
words. The following example shows three Chinese words which have the same
segmental structure (ma) but which differ in meaning depending on the tone with which
they are produced. If the tone rises ma means "hemp", if it falls it means "scold" and if
it stays level it means "mother". Thus, in tone languages, apart from using tone at the
sentence level, tone is also incorporated as a feature of the lexicon responsible to change
the meanings of words.

Words Tones Lexical meanings

ma rising "hemp"

ma falling "scold"

ma level "mother"

Intonational languages cannot use tone to trigger differences in meaning at the word
level. Note that if we use different tones for the same word in English, the lexical
meaning is unaltered. Thus, no matter if we produce the word dog with a rising, a
falling or a level intonation that speakers will always interpret the same lexical meaning
("dog"). In this case, changes in intonation only allow us to identify the type of
utterance that it is produced (for example, statement, question, imperative, etc.)

Words Tones Lexical meanings

dog rising "dog"

dog falling "dog"

dog level "dog"

4. Parameters to describe intonation

The description or modelling of pitch contours is not an easy task to do given the
continuous nature of intonation. Contrary to phonemes, which can be easily identified
as discrete, single units, intonation is difficult to decompose into phonological units
since it is not straightforward to decide which parts of the pitch contour are
linguistically relevant and which parts are not. There have been a number of theories
and schools which have proposed different conventions to analyze intonation. Despite
important differences in their proposals, they all agree that intonation has to be
described according to four parameters: 1) the number of intonation units into which a
speech chunk is divided (tonality), 2) the distribution of accents (tonicity), 3) the kinds
of accents (tone inventory) and 4) the differences in pitch range. The terms tonality,
tonicity and tone were first proposed by Halliday in 1967 and have been used ever since.

4
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana
4.1. Tonality
Tonality has to do with the division of a chunk of speech into different intonation units
or phrases (complete intonation patterns). An intonation unit is delimited by some kind
of intonational boundary. Whereas sometimes a major break (pause) is produced
between two intonation units, other times no actual break is observed. In such cases,
speakers still perceive the presence of an intonation boundary which is signaled by
means of a relevant pitch movement at the end of the phrase. Furthermore, other cues,
such as syllable duration, can also help to identify the end of an intonation phrase: the
duration of the last accented syllable and the post-accented syllables (if any) tends to be
longer at the end of an intonation phrase. The decision to divide a given speech chunk
into a number of intonation units is speaker-dependent and it may vary according to the
meaning the speaker wants to convey. Thus, tonality is the choice the speaker has of the
placement of intonation boundaries in an oral production to create intonation units. For
example, the following speech chunk can be produced with a different number of
intonation phrases.

|I didn’t know that Peter left the country. |

|I didn’t know | that Peter left the country. |
|I didn’t know that Peter | left the country. |
|I didn’t know | that Peter | left the country. |

The concept of intonation phrase has received different names in the literature, namely,
intonation pattern, tone unit, tone group, sense group or word group.

Sometimes the presence of intonation boundaries can disambiguate otherwise

ambiguous sentences. This is illustrated below for the sentence she washed and brushed
her hair that can acquire different meanings depending on the number of intonation
phrases with which it is produced.

She washed and brushed her hair. (produced with one intonation unit)
MEANING: “she washed her hair and then brushed it.”

She washed |and brushed her hair. (produced with two intonation units)
MEANING: “she washed herself and brushed her hair.”

Even though the speaker has the final decision on how to divide the text into intonation
units, there are places where the location of an intonation mark is more likely to occur
than others. For example, in the sentence My father reads the newspaper every day, it is
very unlikely that the speaker would choose to produce an intonation break between my
and father or between the and newspaper, as that would split a syntactic phrase. Thus,
the speaker chooses the tonality of an utterance without breaking certain syntactic
constraints.

There are some contexts in which the presence of an intonation boundary is more likely
to occur. Those are named in the following list.

5
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana
1. Long constituents. When one of the constituents of the clause becomes too long, then
it is treated as a separate intonation phrase (IP). This is illustrated in the following
examples.

The man goes to Leeds. (short subject Ö one IP)

The man with black glasses and a brown hat |goes to Leeds. (long subject Ö two IPs)

2. Lists. In lists, each item tends to be included in a separate intonation unit, as

illustrated below

I brought bananas |strawberries|a pound of cherries |and some grapes.

3. Vocatives. Vocatives behave differently depending on whether they are located in

initial or in final sentence position. In initial position, vocatives are produced in a
separate intonation group. In final position, they do not belong to a separate intonation
unit.
How are you Mary? (final vocative Ö1 IP)
Mary |how are you? (initial vocative Ö2 IPs)

4. Reporting phrases. As in vocatives, reporting phrases behave differently depending

on whether they are located in initial or in final sentence position. In initial position,
they are produced in a separate intonation unit and in final position they tend to belong
to the same intonation unit.

"Call me on Wednesday" she said. (final reporting phrase Ö1 IP)

She said | "call me on Wednesday.” (initial reporting phrase Ö2 IPs)

4.2. Tonicity
Once the speaker has decided the number of intonation phrases in which a given speech
chunk is divided, the next step is to decide which syllables will become accented (will
have pitch prominence) for each intonation phrase. Tonicity deals with the distribution
of accents within each intonation unit. Only stressed syllables can get an accent.
However, as reported in section 2, not all stressed syllables must be accented and the
choice of which syllables get a pitch prominence depends on the speaker’s
communicative intentions. The next example contains a sentence with two stresses (My
*friend is a mu*sician) which is produced with two different accentuation patterns: with
two accents (one accent for each stress) and with one accent (only the first stressed
syllable becomes accented).

My *friend is a mu *si cian.

6
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana

My *friend is a mu *si cian.

Note that tonicity (or the distribution of accents within an intonation phrase) is a
parameter which is closely linked to focalization. In a broad focus sentence, the last
lexical item is always accented (as in the first example) and in a narrow focus sentence,
the last accent is displaced to the most informative word and there is no accentuation of
the following items (as in the second example, which can be the answer to a question
such as Who is a musician?).

Normally, function words are not stressed and therefore they are not accented.
Sometimes, however, function words may become informative (that is, they are
focalized or highlighted) and hence they are subsequently stressed and accented. This is
illustrated below where the possessive adjective receives an accent in a context in which
my contrasts with your and therefore is focalized.

*My *friend is a mu *si cian (not your friend).

4.3. Tone
Once the speaker knows which syllables are accented for each intonation phrase, then
(s)he must decide the kind of accent (s)he wants to use in order to convey a given
meaning. The system of accentual choices of a given language is known as the tone
inventory and it includes all the tones (linguistically relevant intonation entities) used in
that particular language. In the following example, the word no is produced with
different pitch trajectories (fall, rise, fall-rise and rise-fall) which can be categorized as
different tones since each pitch movement is responsible for changes in the meaning of
the utterance.

*No *No *No *No

Tones: Fall Rise Fall-rise Rise-fall

Meanings: involved and question statement showing angry and urgent
polite statement reservations statement

7
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana
There have been different theoretical proposals to model intonation, that is, to find out
and categorize the tones of a language. In the preceding example, for instance, we have
described a falling pitch movement as a “fall” tonal category. This convention is
basically used by the British tradition of intonational analysis which describes tones
according to their pitch trajectories. As we will see in more detail in section 5, there are
other frameworks, especially those derived from the American school of intonational
modelling, that describe intonation not according to its trajectory (falling or rising) but
according to pitch targets (high or low). Thus, for example, a falling contour will be
categorized by means of sequence of two tones: H (high) and L (low). The expected
pitch movement between H and L is obviously a falling pitch trajectory. Thus, in a very
simplified way, the categorization of the previous pitch contours according to a model
based on tonal targets would be as follows.

*No *No *No *No

Tones: H L LH HLH LHL

4.4. Pitch range

Pitch range has to do with the key or amount of pitch displacement with which an
intonation phrase is produced. Thus, for example, the following fall (HL) tone is
produced with a broad pitch range (big amount of pitch displacement) in the first
example and a narrow pitch range (small amount of pitch displacement) in the second
example.

Broad pitch range Narrow pitch range

No No

Pitch range differences are speaker-dependent, that is, some speakers have a broader
pitch range than others. However, speakers can also control and modify their pitch
range and they can broaden it or narrow if they wish so. A broad pitch range is usually
used to attract attention and to convey involvement, emotion, urgency or excitement. A
narrow pitch range, on the other hand, can express detachment, sadness or redundant
afterthoughts, among other nuances.

8
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana
5. Intonational modelling: configurations vs. levels

There are two main traditions for the analysis of English intonation: 1) The British
school and 2) the American school. In the next sections, we will briefly discuss the most
important theoretical issues of the two proposals.

5.1. The British School

The intonational model proposed by the British school is also known as the
configurational model since tone units are analyzed according to two configurations:
the nuclear configuration and the pre-nuclear configuration.

Ö The nuclear configuration includes the last accented syllable and all the
subsequent unaccented syllables (if any).
Ö The pre-nuclear configuration includes all the syllables (accented and
unaccented) preceding the last accent.

In order to model intonation, the British school proposes to divide each intonation
phrase into the following parts: pre-head, head, nucleus and tail.

The nucleus is the only obligatory element of an intonation phrase and it consists of the
last (or only) accent. Thus, the nucleus is located on the last accented syllable of an
intonation unit. This means that there might be other stressed or unstressed syllables
after the nuclear one but there will never be other accented syllables.

The tail includes the unaccented syllable(s) (if any) after the nucleus. The presence of a
tail is optional. The following pitch contours illustrate:

1) an utterance containing only a nuclear syllable (*Mel)

2) an utterance containing a nuclear syllable (*Mel-) and a tail with only
unstressed syllables (-anie)
3) an utterance containing a nuclear syllable (*Mel-) and a tail containing both
stressed and unstressed syllables (-anie’s *nice).

Note that in all the cases the nucleus falls on the same syllable (Mel-) which is the only
one that shows a pitch prominence and thus it is accented. The nuclear syllable is
underlined. The nucleus and the tail make up the nuclear configuration.

(1) (2) (3)

*Mel *Mel a nie *Mel a nie’s *nice

nucleus nucleus tail nucleus tail

The head is an optional component of the intonation phrase and it consists of all the
syllables from the first accent up to the syllable before the nucleus. The pre-head is also

9
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana
optional it includes the unaccented syllables before the first accent. Note that it is
possible to have a pre-head without a head. The head and the pre-head make up the pre-
nuclear configuration. The following pitch contours illustrate:

1) a nucleus (*nice) preceded by a head (*Melanie´s)

2) a nucleus (*nice) preceded by a pre-head (My) and a head (*sister´s)
3) a nucleus (*nice) only preceded by a pre-head (It’s).

(1) (2) (3)

*Mel a nie’s *nice My *sis ter’s *nice It’s *nice

head nucleus p-h head nucleus p-h nucleus

Note that the head starts with the first accented syllable (first syllable with a pitch
movement) and it finishes on the last unaccented syllable before the nucleus. It is
possible to have heads with more than one accent, as in the following example, which
exhibits a head with two accents (one on *sure and the other one on *call).

I’m *sure she’ll *call you to *mor row

p-h head n tail

Finally, it is important to remember that the division of a phrase into pre-head, head,
nucleus and tail depends on the intonational pattern of the sentence, that is, on the
accent distribution the speaker uses in a given sentence. Thus, we may have the same
sentence but with different intonational components if the intonational pattern is
different. This is illustrated below for the sentence *Melanie’s *nice which is produced
with two intonational patterns and thus it has different components 1) a head and a
nucleus in the first example, and 2) a nucleus and a tail in the second one.

*Mel a nie’s *nice *Mel a nie’s *nice

head nucleus nucleus tail

To sum up, the description of intonation within the parameters of the British school
involves the division of each intonation phrase into four components, as schematized
below. The elements in brackets are optional.

(pre-head) (head) nucleus (tail)

(Prenuclear configuration) Nuclear configuration

10
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana

According to this framework, the tones, that is, the linguistically relevant entities that
account for a pitch contour are associated to two elements: 1) the nuclear syllable and 2)
the accented syllables in the head (if there is a head). The types of tones differ
depending on their position: nuclear position or pre-nuclear (head) position. In the
following section, we will be looking at the tone inventory in more detail.

Nuclear tones

Nuclear tones are associated to the nuclear syllable. The inventory of nuclear tones
includes five simple tones (with one pitch trajectory) and two complex tones (with two
pitch trajectories), as indicated below. The simple tones indicate the origin of the pitch
(high, low or mid) and direction of the pitch (fall, rise or level). The complex tones
show the combination of two pitch trajectories (fall-rise and rise-fall).

Simple tones Complex tones

High-fall Fall-rise
Low-fall Rise-fall
High-rise
Low-rise
Mid-level

The following table includes: 1) the inventory of tones, 2) the diacritics (symbols) used
to represent each tone, 2) the description of the pitch movement for each tone and 4) a
schematic representation of the tone.

Tone inventory Diacritics Description Schematization

Simple tones
High pitch falling to
low and staying low
High-fall No and level to the end of
the intonation pattern
Mid pitch falling to low
Low-fall and staying low and
 No level to the end of the
intonation pattern
Mid pitch rising to a
High-rise No high pitch to the end of
the intonation pattern

Low pitch rising to a

 No mid pitch to end of the
Low-rise
intonation pattern

Mid pitch sustained to

Mid-level > No the end of the
intonation pattern

11
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana
Complex tones
High pitch falling to
Fall-rise No low and rising again at
the end of the
intonation pattern
Low pitch rising to high
(or mid), then falling to
Rise-fall  No low and finally
levelling out to the end
of the intonation pattern

Note that the realization of each tone may vary depending on whether there is a tail after
the nuclear syllable or not. If there is no tail, the pitch movement will take place within
the limits of the accented syllable. If there is tail, the pitch movement will start on the
nuclear syllable and expand over the syllables in the tail. Examples of the realization of
nuclear tones with and without tail are provided below. The diacritic  located on the
first syllable of the word singing indicates that this syllable is stressed but not
accented.

Nuclear tones Without tail With tail

High-fall

No Mel a nie’s sing ing

Low-fall

No  Mel a nie’s sing ing

High-rise

No  Mel a nie’s sing ing

Low-rise
 No Mel a nie’s sing ing


Mid-level

> No > Mel a nie’s sing ing

12
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana

Fall-rise

No  Mel a nie’s sing ing

Rise-fall

 No  Mel a nie’s sing ing

Pre-nuclear (head) tones

The types of tones found in pre-nuclear position differ from those in nuclear position in
that they do not account for the pitch trajectory at the end of the intonation phrase but
they just describe the pitch movement(s) of the accented syllables before the nucleus.
According to the British School of intonational analysis, there are several types of pre-
nuclear tones. In this course, however, we will only study two types: high and low.

A high tone indicates that the first accented syllable of the head is produced with a high
pitch. The diacritic to show a high head is ['], as illustrated below. A low tone indicates
that the first accented syllable of the head is produced with a low or mid pitch (not
high). The diacritic to represent a low head is []. In complex heads (heads with more
than one accented syllable), each accent repeats the same tone as that of the first accent.
Thus, for example, if the first accent of a complex head is high, the subsequent accents
will also be high. Examples of heads with high and low accents are presented below
(reproduced from page 212 in the book).

High simple head Low simple head

(+ high-fall nucleus) (+ low-fall nucleus)

'Where’s the hosp it al? Where’s the  hosp it al?

The following figure illustrates a complex head with two high accents followed by a
high-fall nuclear accent.

I’m 'sure she’ll 'call you to mor row

13
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana

Self-evaluation activities
Exercise 1

Look at the following sentences with tonal marks according to the tenets of the British
School. For each sentence, describe its components (pre-head, head, nucleus and tail)
and the tonal movements of the nucleus and the head (if any). An example is provided
below.

Example: I ' didn’t know it.

Nucleus: “know”, Tail: “it”, Head: “didn’t”, Pre-head: “I”

Nuclear tone: high-fall, Pre-nuclear (head) tone: high

1. It’s nice!

2. I’ll try to  ring you.

3. Can you  hear me?

4. My sister ° loves the °beach.

5. Peter may be  meeting him.

6. What did she °take?

7. Fortunately | I was wrong.

8. Fine, thanks. |How are you?

5.2. The American School

The British and the American Schools of intonational analysis differ in two important
characteristics:

1. The way of describing tones

2. The interpretation of an intonation phrase

According to the British tradition, tones were described by means of their pitch
trajectories. Thus, the British School tonal inventory included categories such as “high-
fall”, “low-rise” or “fall-rise”. The American School, on the other hand, describes
intonation by means of a series of tone levels (or tonal targets), such as H (high), L
(low) or M (mid). Thus, according to this proposal, a falling pitch movement would be

14
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana
categorized as H L since the pitch trajectory from high (H) to low (L) involves a fall.
Thus, “HL” would be another way of accounting for a “high-fall”.

The second difference between the two traditions is the way intonation phrases are
interpreted. Whereas the British tradition decomposes an intonation phrase into a
nuclear and a pre-nuclear configuration, the American tradition does not differentiate
between nuclear and pre-nuclear accents. According to the American School, each
stressed syllable may become accented, which means that it may me associated to one
of the preceding tones (H, L or M). In order to account for the final movement of an
intonation phrase, the American School introduced the concept of boundary tones, that
is, tones that occur at the final edge of an intonation phrase. These tones are not
associated to stressed syllables but to the limits of intonation units. Thus, the falling
contour of the following example would be modelled as an H tone on the stressed
syllable *Mel and a low boundary tone at the end of the phrase.

*Mel a nie
H L

The American tradition of intonational analysis embraces a rather large variety of

theoretical frameworks with different proposals to model intonation. All these models
have two common features: 1) the analysis of the pitch contours by means of level tones
and 2) the presence of boundary tones. The early works within the American School
proposed a tone inventory based on numbers. Thus, for example tone 4 was a high tone
and tone 1 a low tone. Again the combination 4 1 indicated a high fall. Boundary tones
were indicated by means of the following diacritics: # (fall), ⎪⎪ (rise) and ⎪ (level).
According to this theoretical proposal the following pitch contour would be modelled as
illustrated below where 3 indicates a mid-high pitch, 2 a mid-low pitch and 1 a low
pitch. The symbol # stands for a final fall.

My *sis ter’s *nice

3 21 #

One of the latest and most influential frameworks of intonational analysis within the
American tradition is the Autosegmental-Metrical approach whose tenets have been
used to create a system for intonational annotation known as the ToBI (Tone and Break
Indices) system. According to the Autosegmental-Metrical framework and the ToBI
system, intonation contours can be described by means of two tones, H (high) and L
(low), which can be associated to stressed syllables or to the edges (breaks) of the
intonation phrases. When the tones are associated with stressed syllables, they are
marked with an asterisk. Thus, H* and L* indicate that a high pitch and a low pitch
occur within a stressed (accented) syllable. When the tones are associated with the right

15
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana
edge of an intonation phrase, they are marked with %. Thus, H% and L% stand for a
high pitch and a low pitch respectively at the end of the pitch contour. According to this
model, the following pitch contour would be described as H* L%.

*Mel a nie
H* L%

The possibility of analyzing pitch contours by means of two tones only (H and L)
derives from the fact that this model assumes that H and L can have different
realizations. For example, in a pitch contour produced with a series of H* accents, each
H* accent will be produced at a lower level than the preceding accent. Despite
differences in the realizations of these H* accents, they are still interpreted as H*. The
convention proposed by the Autosegmental-Metrical framework to indicate that an H*
accent is lower than the preceding one is by means of the symbol ! (!H*). Thus, for
example, the two high accents of following pitch contour will be described as H* !H*,
as illustrated below.

My *sis ter’s *nice

H* !H* L%

Apart from H* and L*, the tone inventory proposed by the Autosegmental-Metrical
framework also includes bitonal accents, that is, accents which are made up of two tonal
targets, namely, L*+H, L+H*, H*+L and H+L*. These tones can only be associated to
stressed syllables but not at the edge of a pitch contour. In a bitonal accent, the tone
with the asterisk indicates that this tone is realized within the accented syllable. The
tone preceding the starred one is realized on the preceding (unstressed) syllable. The
tone following the starred one is realized on the following (unstressed) syllable. For
example, L*+H indicates that the stressed syllable has a low pitch and the following
unstressed syllable has a high pitch. An example of an intonation phrase containing a
bitonal accent (L*+H) is provided below for the sequence *Mary’s which exhibits a low
pitch on the stressed syllable (*Ma) followed by a high pitch on the following
unstressed syllable (ry’s).

*Ma ry’s a *broad.

L*+H L%

The insights of both the British School and the American School (including the
Autosegmental-Metrical framework) of intonational analysis are much more complex
than what we have presented here. If you wish to learn more about them, you should

16
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana
refer to the recommended bibliography. As a brief summary, you should remember that
the two schools respond to two traditions of intonational modelling:

1) the configurational approach of the British tradition

2) the level approach of the American tradition.

6. Comparing approaches
As presented so far, the modelling of English intonation has followed two proposals: the
British School whose description of intonation reflects the pitch trajectories of the
contours and the American School which analyzes intonation as a series of level tones
located on the stressed syllables and at the edges to the pitch contours.

The description of intonation proposed in this course is somehow a merging of the two
traditions. As far as the notation conventions are concerned, we are using a system close
to the American school. We model intonation by means of three tones, H (high), M
(mid) and L (low), which are associated to stressed syllables (marked with an asterisk)
and to the right edge of the contour. An example (reproduced from the book, page 212)
is provided below. In this example, we can see that the first stressed syllable (*Where)
is produced with an H tone, the second stressed syllable (*hosp) is produced with an L
tone and that the pitch rises slightly at the end of the contour into a mid (M) pitch.

*Where’s the *hosp it al?

H L M
We think that the association of H, M and L to stressed syllables and to the end of an
intonation phrase is a quite clear way to tell students where they are expected to produce
the relevant intonation movements to convey a given meaning.

However, as far as the possible combinations of tones and their meanings are
concerned, our proposal is closer to the British tradition. In other words, the
combinations of tones we present in this course reflect the tonal configurations (nuclear
and pre-nuclear) of the British tradition in the following way.

Nuclear tones Pre-nuclear tones

High-fall HL High H
Low-fall ML Low M (not L)
High-rise MH
Low-rise LM
Mid-level MM
Fall-rise HLH
Rise-fall LHL

Finally, it is important to note that no matter which system we use for the analysis of
intonation, the intonational patterns of a language are always the same. That is, the

17
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana
speakers of a language know exactly how to express liveliness or boredom or any other
feeling or nuance. In this way, we should be able to model the same intonation patterns
with the two proposals we have presented here. We have already seen a couple of
examples from the book, which we reproduce below with the two modeling proposals.

*Where’s the *hosp it al? *Where’s the *hosp it al?

H H L M M L

'Where’s the hosp it al? Where’s the  hosp it al?

Self-evaluation activities
Exercise 2

Annotate the intonation patterns of the sentences presented in exercise 1, according to

the model we use in this course, as in the following example.

Example: I ' didn’t k now it.

I *didn’t *know it.
H H L

1. It’s nice!

2. I’ll try to  ring you.

3. Can you  hear me?

4. My sister ° loves the °beach.

5. Peter may be  meeting him.

6. What did she °take?

7. Fortunately | I was wrong.

8. Fine, thanks. | How are you?

18
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana
Solutions to the self-evaluation activities
Exercise 1
1. It’s nice
Nucleus: “nice”, no Tail, no Head, Pre-head: “It’s”
Nuclear tone: fall-rise, no Pre-nuclear (head) tone
2. I’ll try to  ring you
Nucleus: “ring”, Tail: “you”, Head: “try to”, Pre-head: “I’ll”
Nuclear tone: low-rise, Pre-nuclear (head) tone: low
3. Can you  hear me?
Nucleus: “hear”, Tail: “me”, Head: “Can you”, no Pre-head
Nuclear tone: low-rise, Pre-nuclear (head) tone: high
4. My sister ° loves the °beach.
Nucleus: “sis”, Tail: “ter loves the beach”, no Head, Pre-head: My
Nuclear tone: high-fall, no Pre-nuclear (head) tone
5. Peter may be  meeting him.
Nucleus: “meet”, Tail: “ing him”, Head: “Peter may be”, no Pre-head
Nuclear tone: low-fall, Pre-nuclear (head) tone: low
6. What did she °take?
Nucleus: “What”, Tail: “did she take”, no Head, no Pre-head
Nuclear tone: high-rise, no Pre-nuclear (head) tone
7. Fortunately | I was w  rong.
Two intonation phrases
Description of the first intonation phrase ( Fortunately)
Nucleus: “For”, Tail: “tunately”, no Head, no Pre-head
Nuclear tone: fall-rise, no Pre-nuclear (head) tone
Description of the second intonation phrase (I was wrong)
Nucleus: “wrong”, no Tail, no Head, Pre-head: “I was”
Nuclear tone: high-fall, no Pre-nuclear (head) tone
8. Fine, thanks. |How are you?
Two intonation phrases
Description of the first intonation phrase ( Fine, thanks)
Nucleus: “Fine”, Tail: “thanks”, no Head, no Pre-head
Nuclear tone: high-fall, no Pre-nuclear (head) tone
Description of the second intonation phrase (How are y ou?)
Nucleus: “you”, no Tail, Head: “How are”, no Pre-head
Nuclear tone: high-fall, Pre-nuclear (head) tone: high

Exercise 2
1. It’s nice!
It’s *nice!
HLH

2. I’ll try to  ring you.

I’ll *try to *ring you.
M L M

3. Can you  hear me?

*Can you *hear me?
H L M

4. My sister ° loves the °beach.

My *sister *loves the *beach.
H L

19
 Asignatura: Pronunciación de la lengua inglesa
Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura (UNED)
Unit 6: Focus and intonation
Eva Estebas Vilaplana
5. Peter may be  meeting him.
*Peter may be *meeting him.
M M L

6. What did she °take?

*What did she *take?
M H

7. Fortunately | I was wrong.

*Fortunately | I was *wrong.
H L H H L

8. Fine, thanks. |How are y ou?

*Fine, thanks. | *How are *you?
H L H HL

20