Subject: review : watt , phonology of intonation .

watt , david l . e . 1994 . _ the phonology and semology of intonation in english : an instrumental and systemic perspective . _ bloomington : indiana university linguistics club publications . 192pp . paper . reviewed by karen steffen chung < karchung @ ccms . ntu . edu . tw > good books on intonation are not that easy to come by , in this reviewer 's opinion , but this should be considered one of them . it is not an introductory text that will take you through english intonation in a systematic way . and the book 's ostensible main thesis , which concerns the semantic interpretation of various intonation ' melodies ' , is not its primary attraction , either . what it offers is a solid collection of valuable observations , in bits and pieces , on english intonation . so i think that the best way to do justice to a book like this in a review is to simply pick out what i found to be some of the more interesting points and condense them here , without too much additional commentary . * * * * * * * * intonation as a subfield of linguistics is still wide open to pioneering work . the author describes intonation as one of the ' most puzzling and idiosyncratic ' aspects of human speech within the sphere of language as behavior , and he points out the role of intonation in the 'd ynamism of discourse ' ( from the preface ) . unlike another work in this series recently reviewed for linguist , taylor 's _ a phonetic model of intonation in english _ , this book focuses mainly on * language * as we speak and hear it , rather than on mechanical - and often difficult-to - interpret - computer models , though computer recorded and analyzed data is also used to help analyze stretches of speech in this study . watt concludes that since instrumentation is far from infallible , and the human ear can also be quite subjective in what it hears , the most reliable method is to use auditory impressions for the initial recording of data , and instrumentally collected data as a supplement . the book starts out with a useful introduction , in which terms are defined and goals set . the two sections of the main body stress the development of a phonological and semantic model of intonation , respectively . these are divided into two chapters each , entitled ( part i ) : " the phonology of intonation " , and " tones in sequences " ; and ( part ii ) : " intonation and meaning " , and " the semantics of phonological gradience " . two appendices of instrumental data from recorded speech consist of selected examples taken from halliday 's _ course in spoken english : intonation _ ( 1970 ) , and from a corpus compiled by the author . the book concludes with 14 pages of references . the data come from ' non-surreptitious ' but unmonitored , casual 'd iadic conversations ' between native speakers of ' educated standard toronto english ' - rather rare in a field where most of the works are based on british rp or standard us english . the author points out that the data are not intended to contrast with those taken from other varieties of english ; his main goal was to achieve consistency in the speech form used . among the power and distance parameters of social and personal relations , the author chooses for his data collection ' equal ' , over 's uperordinate ' and 's ubordinate ' ; ' acquainted ' , as opposed to ' intimate ' or ' foreign ' ; and ' face-to - face ' rather than 'd istance ' ( i . e . phone conversations , subject to various kinds of distortion , were excluded ) . intonation is a suprasegmental ( i . e . ' a feature whose domain extends over more than one segment ' ) feature of language , and the author adopts a _ prosodic _ ( ' the use of pitch contours to realize linguistic meaning ' ) approach in analyzing it . below follow some a few other terms as watt uses them in his study . _ tonality _ refers to the division of the message into phonological tone groups or ' information units ' ( iu ) . _ tonicity _ involves a process of locating the salient syllable in a tone group , the ' focal point of ideational meaning in the information unit ; each group must contain at least one tonic syllable , which is located at the onset of pitch movement associated with nuclear tone contour ' . _ tone _ refers to the selection of one of five simple or two compound tone contours that phonologically realize interpersonal meanings in the iu . particular tone choice can mediate speaker / hearer relations ( e . g . indicate the need for a response , change of turn , or continuation ) or mediate speaker-message relations : i . e . attitudes toward a message , such as reservation , certainty or assertion ( pp . 18-20 ) . also defined is _ paratone _ , a larger intonational unit , which cannot extend beyond a breath group ; and no larger intonational unit was found in this study . section one begins by proposing that a theory of intonation must strive to make two different kinds of descriptions , namely , ( 1 ) a phonological one , which emphasizes identification of nuclear tones and other refinements derived from instrumental analysis , and ( 2 ) a semantic description of the functional impetus responsible for motivating language behavior , which includes tone sequences , intertonal relations , paratones , and connected speech . section one concentrates on ( 1 ) . watt describes _ simple tones _ - namely ( 1 ) simple falling , ( 2 ) simple high rise ( with fall-rise option ) , and ( 3 ) low rise - and _ complex tones _ , which consist of more than one pitch movement and are naturally more complicated . these are : ( 4 ) , which occurs on the last two syllables of the final word of an utterance and reaches the top level of pitch , then falls sharply , and ( 5 ) , which consists of a rise-fall movement , with the intensity on the rise . there are also _ compound tones _ , i . e . combinations of simple tones fused into a single tone group . there are two compound tones , 1 + 3 , and 5 + 3 . watt notes that some researchers have proposed a model of intonational meaning similar to that of grammar , in which one compound tone is linked with one particular meaning or function . but intonation in fact does * not * function like this - intonation is a realization of * semantics * rather than syntax . the interpretation of intonation must be made within the context of grammar , but it is not linked element by element to the syntax . as g . brown ( only first initials are given in the references ) puts it : ' the phonological resources for signaling meaning are far fewer than the semantic functions which " exploit " them ' ( p . 73 ) . a notable pattern revealed by instrumental analysis of spoken data is _ downdrift _ , a declining of the fundamental frequency ( f0 ) over the span of short utterances for a wide range of languages . it oscillates between the two extremes of an equally descending and slightly narrowing bandwidth with sentence final fall and slight prolongation at the breath group boundary . the declination slope is not always constant , but it can be a series of descending plateaux , or sets of declination lines . this model is not as 's usceptible ' to errors of data interpretation as following individual nuclear tones can be ( pp . 66-71 ) . section two concentrates on developing a semantic model of intonation , i . e . providing an initial account of meaning often attributed to intonation . watt here advances his view that intonational meaning can be derived both from phonological contrasts of tone and tonicity and from the phonetic gradience characteristic of these contrasts . there is less consistency in generalizing the meaning of intonation than with a phonological description of sound substance due to ( 1 ) the nature of intonation and ( 2 ) the variety of inferences people draw from voice-related cues . as members of a speech community , we make inferences about what is meant both by what is said and how it is said . we must draw conclusions on discrete meanings from only * part * of the speech continuum ( and not include e . g . physical appearance of the speaker in our analysis ) . to deal with the semantics of intonation , you can take either a linguistic approach , in which you look at meaning * contrasts * and form-to - function correspondences , or you can take a psychological approach , in which ' polar clines ' are posited , e . g . bored vs . interested , or timid vs . confident ; watt addresses only the * linguistic * contribution of ' tonicity ' and ' tone ' ( p . 76 ff . ) . watt refers to halliday , who stresses the ideation function of intonation , how it highlights information for specific attention , i . e . given vs . new , also fresh vs . contrasted . the stressing of new information is an outcome of 's peaker assessed importance ' . the tonic of unmarked utterances will tend to fall on the last lexical item of the tone group ; this results in a broad , ' unspecified ' focus ; this focus is narrowed in a ' contrastive ' utterance ( p . 79 ) . intonation has an ' interpersonal metafunction ' by serving as a channel for linguistic expression of * attitude * , though it is not the only such channel . other channels include register and lexicon ; and sometimes certain stylistic effects can be achieved by combining incongruous linguistic content and intonations , e . g . imagine ' put that goddam pipe away ! ' uttered in a smiling , gentle tone of voice . so the listener 's perception of the speaker 's attitude may be based on two or more signals combined ( p . 87 ) . intonation adds information to disambiguate speech function . speech function is identified and interpreted through the cumulative effect of contextual , morpho-syntactic and phonological cues ( p . 91 ) . it can include competition for turns ( an initiating peak can be used for this ) , initiating a topic ( marked by an initial peak of intensity and high pitch ) , continuing ( upward drift ) , responding ( the second speaker approximates the relative pitch height of the baseline of the last utterance produced by the previous speaker , i . e . an accommodation of one speaker 's melodic pattern to that of another ) , terminating ( fall to the lowest level of the speaker 's voice range ; a termination often falls well above the baseline before its final fall ) , checking function ( conversation monitoring with sporadic checks on the status of the conversation , i . e . checking that the hearer understands , agrees on the appropriateness of what is being expressed , and is still engaged ; this is intended to elicit a response from the hearer , but usually involves no change of turn , e . g . ' is n't it ? ' , ' right ? ' , ' you know ' , ' eh ' ) , certainty ( speakers can indicate ' certainty known / absolute ' , ' certainty irrelevant / conditional ' , or ' certainty unknown / assumed ' ) . watt points out that a major difficulty of doing description of intonation is the inherently gradient characteristic of the spoken medium . there is a gradient between the linguistic and the paralinguistic , as well as a division between what constitutes a linguistic contrast and what signals a modification of the phonological cline within that contrast . watt offers a revealing quote from bolinger : ' the higher the rise , the greater the exasperation if it is a statement , the greater the surprise of curiosity if it is a question . the lower the fall the greater the certainty or finality if the utterance is a statement , and the greater the confidence if it is a question ' [ 1986 : 240 ] . that is , in watt 's own words : ' . . . the greater the degree of the rise , or the height of a given contour , the greater the strength of the contextual meaning assumed for that contour ' ( p . 109 ) . watt sums his work up nicely - and what he says could easily be applied to just about any worthy field of inquiry - in the final chapter thus : ' there is a certain fractal logic that seems to pervade the investigation of intonation . the more we magnify the field under scrutiny , in the hopes of reaching an explanation of its details , the more we find new and unexpected details in need of explanation . the deeper we probe into the next level of detail , the more difficult it becomes to extricate ourselves from its detail with a parsimonious description of the new possibilities ' ( p . 121 ) . in addition to recapping the highlights of his book in the conclusion , watt offers his vision for what his work has to contribute to the field in general , namely , a ' compatible point of departure from which to further the description of discourse ' ( p . 122 ) . he believes that accurate synthesizing of intonations may possibly add to our knowledge about our auditory perceptions , and that can also help further develop our models of synthesized speech . * * * * * * * * although the book 's basic structure is clearly set out in the section and chapter titles , the contents of each subdivision are diverse and often hard to incorporate into a coherent , linear narrative on intonation ; one must content oneself with the fragments one is able to latch onto . yet one has the feeling that much is being said in this motley collection of ideas , observations , and analyses , much more than in many other of the works on intonation available . and for this reason , the interested reader is advised to bear with the author , take notes , and enjoy the ride . this book has a rather amateurish , low-budget look , perhaps to be expected from university publications of this kind . the instrumental graphs bordered by thick black outlines and incorporated into the chapters in many places seem stuffed in a little too close to the written text , though there is no problem of clarity . the text itself is set in a relatively large serif typeface , which makes for comfortable reading , though occasionally some startlingly inconsistent type sizes turn up . new concepts ( e . g . _ paratone _ , _ concord _ ) appear in bold and are easily spotted . minor typos appear here and there . the diy look of the design is not a serious flaw , though , for anyone after unalloyed content , of which you get plenty in this book . overall , this is a worthwhile and rather refreshing book for someone seriously interested in intonation . the reader had better be ready , however , to invest a bit of work to mine it of its wealth . reviewed by karen steffen chung , department of foreign languages and literatures , national taiwan university , taipei .
