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Lecture 12
Intonation: Fall-plus-Rise tune;
information structure
Assimilation & elision
A) Intonation
CEI Unit
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SI! 10.1
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Compound tune: the fall-plus-rise
 A combination of high fall and low rise within
the same tone unit
 An exception to the rule of ‘only one nuclear
syllable per tone unit’
 Can occur with a low prehead (ex. 1e)
 Can occur with the (emphatic) high head (ex.
1f and g)
 Can occur with a (rising) tail
The meaning of the fall-plus-rise
 combines the meanings of the high fall and the
low rise: lively, involved
 less definite/more tentative than the high fall
on its own (ex. 1d and e)
 can sound pleading, persuading, plaintive and
encouraging
 can be used for continuation rises, i.e. to mark
that the speaker has not finished.
 can mark one bit of the tone unit as new (the
fall) and another as given information (the
rise). See ex. 1g.
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Distinguishing between the fall-rise and the
fall-plus-rise
Features of the intonation pattern:
 If there’s only one accented syllable, the fallplus-rise is ruled out (ex. a-c)
 Only the fall-rise occurs with a falling head (ex.
d-e)
 The fall-plus-rise occurs with a high head (if
there’s a head)
Contextual clues:
 The fall-rise is the typical pattern used for
contrastive emphasis (ex. f)
 If the falling part conveys given and the rising
part conveys new information  fall-plus-rise
(ex. g)
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Highlighting information by means of
 accent placing
Neutral accent placing: The first and the last
lexical word are accented. (Other lexical words
may be stressed, but not accented)
Emphatic: more lexical words are accented
(typically through the use of an emphatic head)
(i)
The ROOT of the problem lies in the
committee’s MANDATE.
(ii)
The ROOT of the PROBLEM LIES in the
COMMITTEE’S MANDATE.
(iii) Don’t DO it. (neutral accent, i.e. on the last
lexical word)
(iv) What SHOULD I do? (Marked, contrastive
emphasis – accented auxiliary)
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 tone unit boundaries
Neutral division into tone units: Tone unit
boundaries correspond to clause boundaries.
Emphatic: A tone unit boundary occurs in the
middle of a clause (usually at a phrase
boundary).
(v) | On the Saturday we went on the London
Eye | (tone unit = clause)
(vi) | On the Saturday | we went on the London
Eye | (marked/emphatic – tone unit boundary
between adverbial and subject)
 tunes
Some tunes are associated with particular
discourse meanings, e.g. the Fall-Rise often
signals contrast/reservation, which may not be
expressed by other means.
(vii) | On the /SATURDAY | we went on the London
\EYE | (Low Rise – continuation rise)
(viii) | On the \/SATURDAY | we went on the
London \EYE | (Fall-Rise – continuation +
contrastive emphasis)
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Discourse phenomena
 continuation rises
o The ‘non-conclusive’ feature of the rising
tone is exploited to show that the speaker
hasn’t finished yet (the utterance is
incomplete).
o All the rising tones can be used to mark a
continuation rise.
o Ex. (i) – a series of actions / statements,
where the fall on the final tone unit shows
that the actions are complete and the
utterance has finished.
o Ex (ii): The final fall suggests that this is
the end of the journey.
o Ex (iii): The rises on the first two whquestions show that there’s more to come.
o Ex (iv): In a series of yes-no questions all
the nuclei will be rising
o Ex (v): The fall on \MONEY marks the list as
complete. The rise suggests that more
could be added to the list, or that the
speaker is uncertain whether this was
really all.
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Subordination rises
 A rising tone can mark a section of a sentence
as (i) grammatically subordinate, or as (ii)
subordinate in meaning (or the two combined).
 Ex. (vi): Subordinate clause, less important in
meaning than the main clause.
 Ex. (vii): Comment clause, not grammatically
subordinate, but subordinate in meaning.
 Ex (viii): Disjunct adverbial; less important in
meaning, loosely attached to the rest of the
clause. (The same goes for conjunct
adverbials.)
Fall-rise preceding/implying reservations (‘but’)
Note that the reservation can be implied even if
there is no ‘but’, cf. ex. (ix).
New vs. given information
Marked accent-placing can be used to single out
new information
|That’s NOT what I \MEANT! |
| Well what \DID you mean? |
The fall-plus rise
The falling part is new, the rising given information.
| He’s always \wanted to go to South A/merica |
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Assimilation: a sound becomes more like (similar
to) an adjacent/nearby sound.
a) Allophonic variation
Most (but not all) instances of allophonic
variation in consonants result from assimilation
to neighbouring sounds.
e.g. /t/ - basically alveolar, but dental before a
dental sound, e.g. eighth []
b) Phonemic assimilation
Assimilation also results in one phoneme ‘changing
into’ another. This applies to consonants only.
e.g.
/s/  // in this shirt / ()/  /
()/– i.e. in front of //, //, /j/.
/z/  // in the same environment: these shirts
/()/
(i) This may be fixed or optional within words
e.g.
picture /()/ (no longer /p -
/
income // or //
(ii) Across word boundaries this is usually optional
Elision: ‘dropping’ or omitting phonemes
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a) Elision of vowels
(i) // is elided before /l, n, r, m,  / producing
syllabic consonants, as in little, button,
battery, madam, bacon. (Optional, but the
usual pronunciation if /t, d/ precede /l/ or
/n/).
(ii) Elision occurs in weak forms (in appropriate
contexts), e.g. would, had in He’d change(d)
his mind.
b) Elision of consonants
(i) /d/ is regularly elided in word-final position
between consonants, e.g. send two
/  / (Optional)
(ii) /t/ is regularly elided in word-final position
after a fortis consonant and before any
consonant, e.g. just wait / / 
/ / (But not in sent two: //)
(Optional)
(iii) Elision of consonants in weak forms –
obligatory in appropriate contexts. E.g. will
/, l /, have /, v/
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More about phonemic assimilation
Regressive assimilation (‘assimilation backwards’)
= the second consonant influences the first (more
common)
Progressive assimilation (‘assimilation forwards’) =
the first consonant influences the second (less
common)
Assimilation may affect (a) place of articulation; (b)
place and manner of articulation; (c) force of
articulation.
a) Place of articulation
This affects the alveolar sounds /t, d, n/, articulated
as /p, b, m/ before bilabial sounds, and /k, g,  /
before velar sounds.
Across word boundaries this assimilation is
regressive as in
fat boy //
fat cat //
bad boy //
bad cat //
thin boy //
thin cat //
The same type of assimilation can occur
progressively within a single word, as in
happen // bacon //
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Regressive assimilation of place of articulation also
affects /s, z/ before /j,  / (Examples above: this
shirt, these shirts)
b) Place and manner of articulation
This is progressive and involves substituting /, /
for /j/ after /t, d/, forming /t, d/, most commonly
when ‘you’ follows an auxiliary verb (with or without
n’t).
could you //  //
couldn’t you / //  //
c) Force of articulation (fortis/lenis)
Lenis /v, z/ are replaced by /f, s/ before fortis
sounds within certain compound words and fixed
phrases only! It is usually compulsory, unlike types
(a) and (b).
Examples:
news /n(j)u:z/ , BUT newspaper RP:
/ GA: / or /
have to /hæf t/, has to /hæs t/ used to /ju:s(t) t/
of course /()/ (optional)