1. Lesson 7
Intonation

2. From word stress to intonation
Intonation is the melody of speech. It concerns
how the pitch (=altezza) of the voice rises and falls,
How speakers use pitch variation to convey linguistic and pragmatic meanings
As well as pitch changes, intonation studies the rhythm of speech and the interplay of stressed and unstressed syllables

3. Pitch awareness exercises

4. Functions of intonation
Through intonation speakers signal:
Chunking
Clause type (question, statement…)
Focus in a sentence
Background vs foreground information
Attitude
The call centers experience

5. Three aspects of intonation
As regards intonation, speakers of English have to make three decisions
1. How to break the material into chunks (Intonation phrases of IP),
2. what is to be accented,
3. what tones are to be used

6. 1. Intonation Phrases (or tone group)
Generally, English speakers make each clause into a separate IP
Each IP in an utterance has its own intonation pattern
Because I love languages | I’m studying intonation. || When I’ve finished this book, | I’ll know a lot more about it
However, chunks smaller than a clause are possible (Wells ch. 4)
E.g in case of parenthetical material within a larger structure
Milk, | I believe, | comes from cows

7. 2. What is to be accented Tonicity (tone group stress)
Speakers use intonation to highlight words that convey an important part of the message, on which the hearer’s attention is drawn. In order to do so they accent important words in a sequence.
Accent= a pitch prominence added to the stressed syllable of the most important words.

8. nucleous
The last accent in the intonation phrase is called the nucleous /ˡnju:klɪəs/.
Also known as ‘sentence stress’
It is the most important stress in the IP
It signals the end of the focused part

9. Other constituents of the IP ‘anatomy’
Head
Pre head
Tail

10. 3. What tone to use
Having decided nucleous placement (found a suitable place for the nucleous), the last decision concerns which pitch movement is the speaker going to associate with it.

11. Tones: fall, rise, fall-rise

12. Default tones for each sentence types
Fall for statement, exclamations, wh questions and commands
Rise for yes no questions
For utterances involving two intonation phrases:
Fall on the main part a non fall on the subordinate or dependent part
Fall-rise signals that the speaker has not reached the end of what s/he wants to say

13. Connected speech: Weak forms
Weak forms are syllable sounds that become unstressed in connected speech and are often then pronounced as a schwa.
What do you want to do this evening?
the first 'do' is a weak form and the second is stressed.
Structural words, such as prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliaries and articles are often pronounced in their weak form, since they do not carry the main content, and are therefore not normally stressed.

14. Connected speech
speech is a continuous stream of sounds, without clear-cut borderlines between each word. In spoken discourse, speakers articulate with maximal  economy of movement rather than maximal clarity.
Thus, certain words are lost, and certain phonemes linked together across. Taking account of the context is a strategy that helps to deal with indistinct utterances caused by connected speech.
In real-life interaction, phonetically ambiguous pairs like
" a new display" / " a nudist play",
are rarely a problem as speakers are continuously making predictions about which syntactic forms and lexical items are likely to occur in a given situation.

15. Weak Forms
There are a large number of words in English which can have a "full" form and a "weak" form. This is because English is a stressed timed language, and in trying to make the intervals between stressed syllables equal, to give the phrase rhythm, we tend to swallow non-essential words. Thus, conjunctions, pronouns, prepositions, auxiliaries and articles are often lost, causing comprehension problems for students, particularly for those whose language is syllable timed. Some examples of words which have weak forms are; 
And fish and chips (fish´n chips); a chair and a table (a chair ´n a table)
Can She can speak Spanish better than I can (The first "can" is the weak form, the second the full form.)
Of A pint of beer;
Have Have you finished? (weak) Yes, I have. (full)
Should Well, you should have told me. (Both "should" and "have" are weak here)

16. The importance of weak forms
learners must come to not only recognise and cope with the weak forms they hear,  but also to use them themselves when speaking English. If they do not their language will sound unnatural and over formalised, with too many stressed forms making it difficult for the listener to identify the points of focus.

17. Weak forms: vowel>schwa
But strong form: /bʌt/ weak form: /bət/
Tell him to go strong forms /hɪm/ /tu:/ weak form: /tel əm tə gəʊ/
the grammatical words "him" and "to" are unstressed and have a weak form when pronounced inside a sentence.
I would like some fish and chips
strong forms /aɪ wʊd laɪk sʌm fɪʃ ænd tʃɪps/ This version sounds unnatural and, believe it or not, more difficult to understand for a native speaker.
weak forms /ɑ wəd laɪk səm fɪʃ ən tʃɪps/
weaker forms /ɑd laɪk səm fɪʃ ən tʃɪps/

18. Roach, P. (2009). English Phonetics and Phonology: a Practical Course (4th ed.). Cambridge: CUP.

22. Weak forms http://davidbrett.it/index.php?id=wf1
I went to the hotel and booked a room for two nights for my father and his best friend
/aɪˈwentəðə həʊˈtel ənˈbʊktəˈru:mfəˈtu:ˈnaɪtsfə
maɪˈfɑ:ðərənhɪzˈbestˈfrend/ 

23. Assimilation
The most common form involves the movement of place of articulation of the alveolar stops /t/, /d/ and /n/ to a position closer to that of the following sound.
For instance, in the phrase ten cars, the /n/ will usually be articulated in a velar position, /ˈteŋ ˈkɑːz/ so that the organs of speech are ready to produce the following velar sound /k/. Similarly, in ten boys the /n/ will be produced in a bilabial position, /ˈtemˈbɔɪz/ to prepare for the articulation of the bilabial /b/.

24. Assimilation

25. Elision
 Alveolar consonants /t/ and /d/ are often elided when 'sandwiched' between two consonants (CONS – t/d – CONS), e.g.
► The next day
/ðə ˈneks(t) ˈdeɪ/
► The last car
/ðə ˈlɑːs(t) ˈkɑː/
► Hold the dog!
/ˈhəʊl(d) ðə ˈdɒg/
► Send Frank a card
/sen(d) ˈfræŋk ə ˈkɑːd/

26. elision
The phoneme /t/ is a fundamental part of the negative particle not, the possibility of it being elided makes the non-native speaker's life more difficult. Consider the negative of can – if followed by a consonant the /t/ may easily disappear and the only difference between the positive and the negative is a different, longer vowel sound in the second:
Note that when can't is followed by a vowel, e.g. I can't eat, the /t/ is not elided.
► I can speak Spanish
/aɪ kən ˈspiːk ˈspænɪʃ/
► I can't speak Spanish
/aɪ ˈkɑːn(t) ˈspiːk ˈspænɪʃ/

27. Assimilation: yod coalescence
Yod is the name of the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet – it stands for the vowel /iː/ or the semi-vowel /j/. In English phonetics Yod coalescence is a form of assimilation, a phenomenon which takes place when /j/ is preceded by certain consonants most commonly /t/ and /d/:
/t/+/j/ -> /ʧ/
► What you need. /wɒˈʧu niːd/
► The ball that you brought. /ðə ˈbɔːl ðəˈʧuː brɔːt/
► But use your head! /bəˈʧuːz jə hed/
► Last year /lɑːsˈʧɪə/
/d/+/j/ -> /ʤ/
► Could you help me? /kʊʤu ˈhelp miː/
► Would your brother come? /wʊʤɔː ˈbrʌðə kʌm/
► Had you been there before? /hæʤuː ˈbiːn ðeə bɪˈfɔː/
► In second year /ɪn ˈsekənʤɜː/

28. Connected speech (BBC radio programme 1)
Consonant to vowel linking is the most commonform of linking.
When a word ending in a consonant sound is followed by a word beginning in a vowel sound, there is a smooth transition from one to the other. ‘Cup of’ becomes ‘cupev’
'a' 'cup' ' of' 'tea’ > 'cupevtea’
By Russian standards Tashtagol is a tiny little town - just twenty-thousand people, a few streets and a handful of roads. So you may be surprised to learn that traffic problems here have been causing chaos - not because of cars but because of cows.

29. Connected speech Vowel to vowel linking
"Don't forget to switch off the light before you go out"
When a word ending in a vowel sound is followed by a word beginning in a vowel sound, we need to add another sound to make the transition between the words smooth – either a /w/ is added as in 'win' or a /j/ as in yes.
do it – sounds like ‘dowit’
and ‘ I am’ is pronounced like ‘Iyam.’

30. Connected speech (BBC radio programme 2)
Linking r
Those British speakers who don't pronounce final 'r' will reintroduce it when the next word begins with a vowel.
‘there’ – in RP for example, no ‘r’ sound at the end – but
there is;
four eggs
Where is the car?
The car is here

31. Connected speech (BBC radio programme 2)
I’m a bit tired
we can’t really hear the t sound at the end of bit. What happens is that our tongue is in the right position to say t but we only release this sound when we say the next word.
We have a lot to do
Tell me what to say
Sit down

32. stress timed languages
Syllable timed language