 In the e-lecture, present-day English suprasegmental phonology 1, we specify the significance of stress in present-day English. This e-lecture focuses on the second suprasegmental phonological effect, tonal phenomena. But what exactly are tonal phenomena, that is phenomena that have to do with pitch variation? Well, as we will see in this e-lecture, pitch can be utilized in various ways. Let us look at an example from present-day English first. Now, suppose someone says the following sentence. I saw a cross-eyed elephant and your answer would be really. The interpretation of your answer depends on the tone associated with the nucleus of that word. For example, if the nucleus is associated with a level tone. I saw a cross-eyed elephant and someone says, really? Well, then obviously the interpretation will be something like lack of interest. If by contrast the nucleus is associated with a rising tone and the answer is really? Then of course you might want to show that you are in doubt about what someone said to you. And this sort of doubt can even be increased if you use a contour tone which involves a falling element first and then a rise. So something like really? And of course you would really agree with me that this involves a high degree of doubt. Now here is another option. Let us say your answer involves a rise first and then a fall. So the nucleus is associated with a rise and fall. Then the conversation would sound like this. I saw a cross-eyed elephant, really? And of course you might want to express some sort of emotional involvement. In many languages, for example in English, pitch variation is used not to vary the meaning of a word or an utterance, but to express the speaker's intention in uttering it. As a statement, as a question to express doubt, to show emotional involvement, etc. In such languages, the phonological correlate of pitch variation is referred to as intonation. Intonation can be contrasted with tone, a phonological correlate of pitch which does distinguish words. For example to express lexical distinctions, word classes, or the morphological role expressing such features as aspect, tense, etc. A language that uses pitch variations in such a way to affect the meaning of a word or an utterance is referred to as a tone language. Now the simplest kind of a tone language uses two possible tones, high and low. Such languages are called register tone languages and we find examples of them primarily in Africa, for example within the Bantu languages of Africa. More complex tonal systems are the so-called contour tonal systems, that is they involve tones with some sort of gliding movements, rising, falling, rise-fall and fall-rise. Many of the languages of Southeast Asia are contour tone languages, for example Mandarin Chinese. Let us exemplify this. Our Chinese MA student, Yuxi, will now illustrate the phenomenon of tone for you. So now we will illustrate the phenomenon of tone in Chinese. We have one of our MA students here, Yuxi. So Yuxi, can you first of all introduce yourself in Chinese? Yeah, hello Brody. My name is Yuxi. I come from Beijing. She probably introduced herself. I didn't understand it, but it must have been right. So Yuxi has prepared a number of words in Chinese. You see the wonderful symbols over here. And all these words can be associated with one sound segment, but they have different tones. So can you first of all very slowly pronounce all the words after each other? Yes. The first one is yu, second one is yu, third one is yu, fourth one is yu. Okay, perhaps I identified some tones already. So the first tone is what I heard is level. Is that right? Level. Okay. The second one, can you do that again? Yu. That is a rise. Yes. Okay. Rising tone. The third one. Yu. That is fall rise. Yes. Okay. So I'm not that bad. And the last one. Yu. A fall. Yes. Okay. Now we only have to know what do they mean? The first one is stupid. Stupid. Okay. Next one. Fish. With a rise, it means fish. And with a fall rise. Give. Give. Okay. And finally we have. Meat. Meat. Well Yuxi, it's been wonderful to meet you. Thank you for your wonderful demonstration of Chinese. And now you should have an idea about tone in a tone language. Yes. Thank you. Bye. Let us now turn our attention to tonal phenomena in present day English. When we listen to a stretch of speech in English, it becomes apparent that its melody is organized according to some general principles. These principles concern principles of tonality. That is, principles that relate to the tonic organization of utterances. In other words, how many tone units do we have? Another such principle is referred to as tonicity. Tonicity principles define the nuclear syllables within tone units. And finally, we have tone principles themselves. That is, we select what type of nuclear tone is to be associated with the nucleus within a tone unit. Together, these principles define the intonation of an utterance. Now, these principles have first been defined by the British linguist Michael Halliday, who you see over here. Halliday was born in 1925. Any utterance, as I said, can be subdivided into tone groups. The boundaries between them are referred to as intonation boundaries or terminal junctures. The number and the location of such terminal junctures define the tonality of an utterance. So let us look at the tonality of an utterance next. Mostly, the number of terminal junctures within an utterance depends on the taste of the speaker. So here we have an utterance, which we will discuss in a second. However, there are cases where the position or the presence or absence of terminal junctures may influence the meaning of an utterance. Thus, the tonality of an utterance may be an important factor concerning its interpretation. Let us now deal with our example behind me. Now, here is Natalie. Natalie is my research assistant and she will now explain to you what we can do with this utterance. She washed and brushed her hair. Well, if we look at our example, she washed and brushed her hair. We can see that there are two possible interpretations, depending on how many tone units we have. So let us assume we only have one tone unit. Then, she washed and brushed her hair. So she washed her hair and she brushed her hair. But there is another interpretation possible. Let us assume we have two tone units. Then it means that she washed something like her hands, her clothes, her body and brushed her hair. So here are the two tone units. Okay, so we can see that the number of tone units may influence the interpretation of an utterance. Now, tone groups themselves contain one syllable that is more prominent than any other syllable within the same tone group. This syllable is referred to as the nucleus. The placement of the nucleus is referred to as the tonicity of a tone group. The tonicity of a tone group is unmarked if the nucleus falls on the last potential prominent content word. For example, a noun, an adverb, a verb, an adjective, etc. However, there are marked cases where the placement of the nucleus before the last potentially prominent syllable is necessary for reasons of contrast or disambiguation. So let us illustrate this again and Natalie will do that. So, here is our utterance. Let us look at the sentence, John has plans to leave. And again, the meaning changes depending on the choice of the nucleus. So, if the nucleus is on leave, then John has plans to leave and not to stay. Okay. But if the nucleus is on plans, then John has some plans like from the city, from his architect to drop off somewhere, like in an office. So you see that the meaning changes entirely depending on the choice of the nucleus. Well, and what about tone itself? Do we find examples even in English where the tone distinguishes the meaning or the function of a word or a utterance in English? Earlier on we saw the really example. I hope you remember where the type of tone influences our interpretation of a dialogue. However, not in a systematic and predictable way. Well, even in English, there are more systematic cases. So let's look at tone next. Any tone group contains one and only one syllable that carries the nuclear tone. In English, one can define simple tones like level, for rise and fall, or rise, fall and fall rise. In contrast to tone languages like Mandarin, which uses tone to distinguish meaning, the function of tone is difficult to define in present day English and often depends on syntactic considerations. However, there are some clear-cut cases. For example, here is the first. Now, what do you think, Natalie, if I say milk, water, beer and wine? Well, that's clearly the end of the list in present day English. Okay, so this might be referred to as list intonation with a falling tone on the last item. Exactly. Here is another one. Mary passed her exams yesterday. Well, that's clearly a declarative sentence in present day English. Okay, and if I now change it and turn this into Mary passed her exams yesterday? Well, then it would be an interrogative, so a question in present day English. Okay, and here's the last one, which I like most. Natalie doesn't go out with any man. Well, that would mean that I don't go out with men at all. Not even with me? No, sorry. Ah, that's bad luck. But what if we change that, oops, if we change that and turn it into a fall rise? Natalie doesn't go out with any man. Well, that means that I only go out with particular men. Okay, so I still have a chance. All right, thank you very much, Natalie. So these examples illustrate that tonal phenomena do play a role in English. Only in rare cases in a systematic and phonologically well-definable way. Let's summarize the whole e-lecture. English is stress-timed. English is stress-timed. That is, not the syllables within words are equal in length, but tone groups. Furthermore, present day English is not a tone language. Yet, the tone associated with the nucleus of an utterance may play a role. It can distinguish sentence types from one another. It can define the end of lists. It can evoke certain feelings. In contrast to a tone language, however, tone cannot define the meaning of the syllable with which it is associated. Bye-bye, or that was a strange tone.