2. Functions of intonationIn spoken language, intonation serves diverse linguistic and paralinguistic functions, ranging from the marking of sentence modality to the expression of emotional and attitudinal nuances. It is important to identify how they are expressed in the learner's native language, so that differences between the native and target languages are identified. It is particularly important to point out that many aspects of information structure and indirect speech acts are expressed differently across languages. Making learners aware of the existence of these functions will not only help them learn to express them, but will also help them to interpret what they hear in a more analytic way, thus reducing the danger of attributing unexpected intonation patterns as (solely) a function of the attitude or emotional state of the speaker.We have seen that intonation analysis involves categorical decisions about whether there is stress or accent, and, if there is an accent, which type of pitch accent it is. It also involves decisions about whether a boundary is present, and if so which pitch movement or level is used to mark it. There are also many gradient aspects to intonation, such as variation in pitch height or in the exact shape of the contour (equivalent to allophonic variation in the segmental domain).2.1. Lexical and morphological markingLexical and morphological marking does not belong to intonation proper but uses pitch, and to some extent also the other channels used by intonation. Categorical tonal contrasts at word level are characteristic of tone languages. Two quite different examples of tone languages are Standard Chinese, which has lexical contrasts such as the well-known example of the syllable ma with four different tonal contours, each which constitutes a distinct lexical item (mother, hemp, horse and scold), and the West African (Niger Congo) language Bini, which has grammatical tone: a change of tone marks the difference between tenses, e.g. low tone marking present tense and high or high-low tones marking past tense (see Crystal 1987: 172). Categorical tonal contrasts are also characteristic of so-called pitch accent languages which may also have lexical or grammatical tone. Both Swedish and Japanese are pitch accent languages. The difference between tone languages and pitch accent languages is that the former have contrastive tone on almost all syllables, whilst the latter restrict their tonal contrasts to specific syllables, which bear a pitch accent. However, it is difficult to draw a dividing line between these two language categories (seeGussenhoven 2004: 47).In intonation languages (the most thoroughly studied of which are generally also stress accent languages) like English and German, pitch is solely a postlexical feature, i.e. it is only relevant at utterance level. All tone and pitch accent languages have intonation in addition to their lexical and/or grammatical tone, although the complexity of their intonation systems varies considerably.2.2. Syntactic functionsAs we have already pointed out, syntactic structure and intonational phrasing are strongly related, but do not have to correspond exactly. Intonation can be used to disambiguate in certain cases between two different syntactic structures. The attachment of prepositional phrases is often said to be signalled by intonation. For example, in (6), a phrase break after verfolgt tends to lead to the interpretation that it is the man with the motorbike which Rainer is following. A phrase break after Mann would tend to lead to the interpretation that Rainer is on his motorbike and is following a man whilst riding it. In the first case the prepositional phrase modifies the noun phrase (den Mann) and in the second it modifies the verb (verfolgt). This phrasing has the same effect in the English translation.(6) Rainer verfolgt den Mann mit dem Motorrad. ‘Rainer is following the man with the motorbike.’However, it is often unnecessary to disambiguate between two readings, particularly if the context is clear. It should therefore not be expected that speakers will make such distinctions all of the time. A study on Italian and English syntactic disambiguation (Hirschberg and Avesani 2000) showed this particularly clearly, not only for prepositional phrase attachments, as in (7a), but also for ambiguously attached adverbials, as in (7b) (adapted from Hirschberg and Avesani 2000: 93).(7a) Ha disegnato un bambino con una penna. ‘lit. He drew a child with a pen’(7b) Lui le aveva parlato chiaramente. ‘lit. He to her has spoken clearly.’The two readings of (7b) are either that it was clear that he spoke to her (the adverbial modifies the sentence) or that he spoke to her in a clear manner (the adverbial modifies the verb).Diventa un supporter di questo podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/conoscere-per-orientarsi--6764113/support.Il programma del corso si trova in questa pagina.Verrà ...
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15 Min.