STRESS: POST-LEXICAL LEVEL

SENTENCE ACCENT

SENTENCE ACCENTINTRODUCTION
It is an aspect of postlexical phonology It is one of the three basic components of intonation. It is an aspect of prosody. It is also known as tonicity

SENTENCE ACCENT
Two schools of thought: British and American British: There is a close interaction between intonation and accentuation- Kingdon (1938) American: Phoneticians have analysed stress and pitch as separate features. Present perspective: sentence accentuation prominence of utterances and intonation pitch pattern of utterances will be analysed as two sides of the intonation coin.

SENTENCE ACCENT
NUCLEAR ACCENT - DEFINITION
PHONETICALLY: It can be identified as the syllable starting the last pitch movement in an intonation group. FUNCTIONALLY: It can be identified as the syllable that marks the beginning of the most meaningful portion of utterance. Nucleus: it is defined as a feature of stress which may or may not co-occur with pitch movement.

SENTENCE ACCENT
NUCLEAR ACCENT IS ALSO KNOWN AS:
TONIC SYLLABLE- HALLIDAY-CRYSTAL BRAZIL TERMINAL ACCENT OR LAST MAIN ACCENT- BOLINGER SENTENCE ACCENT OR UTTERANCE LEVEL ACCENTUATION POSTLEXICAL ACCENTUATION

SENTENCE ACCENT
NUCLEARITY- DEFINITION IT CAN BE CLASSIFIED INTO THREE MAIN GROUPS:
PHONETIC DISTRIBUTIONAL FUNCTIONAL

SENTENCE ACCENT
1- PHONETIC: It concentrates on the type of
prominence displayed by the nuclear accent. It refers to the stressed syllable of the most prominent word, major pitch movement, the syllable at which a significant pitch movement begins. 2- DISTRIBUTIONAL: It refers to the position in the intonation-group. i.e. the last prominent syllable. 3- FUNCTIONAL: It is of a more phonological nature. It says what the nucleus does- the primary cue to what the speaker considers the most important part of his utterance-

NUCLEUS PLACEMENT THEORIES

THERE ARE FOUR SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT TO NUCLEUS PLACEMENT:
THE TRADITIONAL MODEL THE SYNTACTIC MODEL THE SEMANTIC MODEL THE FOCAL MODEL
We are going to focus on the first and the last model.

NUCLEUS PLACEMENT THEORIES

TRADITIONAL MODEL
IT IS BASED ON A CLASSIFICATION OF WORDS ACCORDING TO THE SEMANTIC BURDEN THEY CARRY AND CONSEQUENT CAPACITY OF ACCENTABILITY WHEN USED IN CONNECTED SPEECH.
CONTENT OR LEXICAL ITEMS NOUNS-ADJECTIVES-VERBS-ADVERBS

STRUCTURAL OR FUNCTION WORDS

PRONOUNS- PREPOSITONS-(ONE SYLLABLE) CONJUNCTIONS-

NUCLEUS PLACEMENT THEORIES

TRADITIONAL MODEL:
It has been incorporated into another traditional rule of nucleus placement:
LLI- LAST LEXICAL ITEM RULE- HALLIDAY 1967.
TONICITY: NEUTRAL TONICITY: falls on the last lexical item in the tone group. MARKED TONICITY: there are two conditions under which it can occur1- When a non-final element is contrastive. 2- When a final element is give.

NUCLEUS PLACEMENT THEORIES

THE FOCAL MODEL
FOCUSING IS A CENTRAL PART OF WHAT WE DO WHEN WE ACCENT-LADD-1979-

IT IS INTRODUCED BY HALLIDAY-1967 He talks about points of information focus Part of the theory that explains the way in which intonation relates to information structure in spoken language. He distinguishes between marked and unmarked focus.

NUCLEUS PLACEMENT THEORIES

FOCUS:
It explains the correlation between a phonological notion- nuclear accent and prominent material of different lengths- from one syllable to whole constituents and sentences The word which is labelled as new:
The most important Informative Newsworthy unpredictable

NUCLEUS PLACEMENT THEORIES

FOCUS:
DEFINITION:
The accentual pattern of an utterance is the physicla manifestation of the focus of the utterance. There is general agreement:
ACCENTS SIGNALS FOCUS NOT ALL FOCUSED CONSTITUENTS NEED TAKE AN ACCENT. UNFOCUSED CONSTITUTUENTS DO NOT TAKE AN ACCENT.

NUCLEUS PLACEMENT THEORIES

BROAD AND NARROW FOCUS:
BROAD FOCUS:
THE INFORMATION CONVEYED IN THE INTONATION-GROUP IS COMPLETELY NEWALL NEW- THEREFORE IN FOCUS-

NARROW FOCUS:
IT CONTAINS NEW AND GIVEN INFORMATION

NUCLEUS PLACEMENT THEORIES

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS:
THE NARROWER THE FOCUS, THE MORE OBVIOUS NUCLEUS PLACEMENT.

THE NUECLEAR ACCENT FALLS WITHIN THE FOCUSED MATERIAL. THE FOCUSED MATERIAL INVOLVES NEW INFORMATION.

NUCLEUS PLACEMENT THEORIES

AVANTAGES:
IT TAKES CONTEXTUAL AND PRAGMATICSITUATIONAL -ASPECTS INTO ACCOUNT. IT ALSO OFFERS A SATISFACTORY EXPLANATION FOR THE NEUTRAL CONTRASTIVE-EMPHATIC ACCENTUAL PATTERN-

NUCLEUS PLACEMENT THEORIES

NEWNESS AND GIVENNESS
THEORY OF INFORMATION STRUCTURE CONCEPTS OF NEW + GIVEN INFO PRAGE LINGUISTS HALLIDAYS CONCERN TO EXPLAIN THE PROCESS THAT LINKS INFORMATION WITH INTONATION.
GIVEN INFORMATION IS OPTIONAL AND NOT MARKED BY PITCH. THE UNMARKED POSITION OF GIVENNES IS DETERMINED BY THE SPEAKER.

NUCLEUS PLACEMENT THEORIES

NEW INFORMATION:
It is that part of information which the speaker has decided to present as not being already available to the hearer.

GIVEN INFORMATION:
It is that part of information which the speaker decides to treat as already known or assumed. It is information physically present in the context or mentioned in the discourse. Others: in the air- on stage- shared knowledgecommon ground

NUCLEUS PLACEMENT THEORIES

GIVEN INFORMATION
It can be stablished
Linguistically- physically present in the discourse
There are various types of sense relations: Synonymy- hyponym-superordinate- conv ersepart/whole-

Situationally- related to a particular situation or non-linguistic context.

NUCLEUS PLACEMENTGIVENNESS
ACCENTING- NEWNESS DEACCENTING-GIVENNESS
GIVENNESS IS BROUGHT INTO FOCUS AND THEN REACCENTED:
Identical material can be focalised as a process of recapitulation on the part of the addressee, to make it clear to the speaker that he agrees with him or that he has understood the message. To reiterate information for clarification purposes. To mark the beginning of a new aspect of the same topic. When the same form conveys two different meanings. When there are no new items in the discourse context. Intonation idiomaticity.

EXCEPTIONS TO LLI RULE

BROAD FOCUS: LLI RULE ARGUMENTS:
EVENT SENTENCES NOUNS + INFINITIVES WH-QUESTIONS ENDING WITH A VERB FINAL RELATIVE CLAUSES NOUNS + ADJECTIVES / PARTICIPLES TRANSITIVE VERBS + OBJECT + VERBAL PARTICLE INDIRECT QUESTIONS SUBJECT + PASSIVE VERB

EXCEPTIONS TO LLI RULE

WORDS OF LOW SEMANTIC WEIGHT:
OBJECTS OF GENERAL REFERENCE FINAL VOCATIVES FINAL REPORTING CLAUSES FINAL ADVERBIALS:
ADVERBIALS OF TIME AND PLACE ADVERBIALS OF COURTESY-DEGREE- PROPER FUNCTIONING SENTENCE ADVERBIALS SENTENCE VS. NON-SENTENCE ADVERBIALS NEGATIVE STATEMENTS REFLEXIVE-EMPHATIC PRONOUNS PREPOSITIONS
ADVERBS VS. PREPOSITIONS

OPERATORS