English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 1

CHAPTER 7

PROSODY
Ádám Nádasdy

Contents of this Chapter:

7.1. What is Prosody?
7.2. The End-Weight Principle
7.2.1. Stress degrees in connected speech
7.3. Compound words
7.3.1. Initially-stressed compounds
7.3.2. Finally-stressed compounds
7.4. The Tone Unit
7.5. Rhythm
7.5.1. The Rhythmic Foot
7.5.2. The Rhythm Rule: stress-deletion
7.5.2.1. Medial Stress-Deletion (nice old lady)
7.5.2.2. Stress-Shift (afternoon tea)
7.6. Tonic Placement
7.6.1. Neutral Tonic Placement
7.6.1.1. On the last content-word
7.6.1.2. On a function-word
7.6.2. Dislocated Tonic
7.6.2.1. Dislocated tonic for contrast
7.6.2.2. Dislocated tonic for highlighting new information
7.7. Intonation
7.7.1. The components of intonation
7.7.2. The Four Tones and their use
7.7.2.1. The Falling tone
7.7.2.2. The Falling-Rising tone
7.7.2.3. The Low-Rising tone
7.7.2.4. The High-Rising tone
7.7.3. Question-intonations: a summary

——————————————————————

Note. For a more teaching-oriented treatment of these (and many other) phenomena, with
numerous examples, see BEP 12.34 to 14.34.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 2

7.1. WHAT IS PROSODY?

Prosody in linguistics means the study of stress, rhythm and intonation in units larger than the
word. The elements of prosody are also called suprasegmentals because they appear “above”
the segments.
Stress means pronouncing the syllable louder than others. Intonation, on the other hand,
means the “melody” – falling or rising – with which the sentence is spoken. Observe how we
can change one without changing the other:

(1) (2)
Main stress on last word Main stress earlier
(a) Falling (1a) (2a)
intonation She ′spent a ′year in the forest. She ′spent a YEAR in the forest.
(b) Rising (1b) (2b)
intonation ′Did she ′spend a ′year in the forest? ′Did she ′spend a YEAR in the forest?

All combinations exist, proving that stress and intonation are independent variables, both hav-
ing distinctive (contrastive, “phonemic”) value.
Even though italics and punctuation may represent some prosodic features, it often
happens that the same written sentence can be spoken with differing stress or intonation pat-
terns. Ordinary spelling can only express some features of prosody, e.g.
She spent a year in the forest! (emphatic stress on year)

7.2. THE END-WEIGHT PRINCIPLE

It is a general rule of English that if there is a sequence of equal stresses, the last must become
the strongest. The prosodic “weight” of an utterance must be at the end: this is the End-
Weight Principle. Observe the examples:
new bóok Amanda Cóllinder sit dówn
considerable expénses utterly destrúctive he criticized éverything
Unstressable function words (printed here in italics) do not count:
right in frónt of you – John dránk some – what I lóok for – Mary couldn’t dó it for me
Longer stretches of speech also obey the End-Weight Principle. The last (and therefore
strongest!) stress is called the tonic. In the following sentence the tonic is underlined:
The children managed to carry the suitcases as far as the edge of the róundabout.
The End-Weight Principle is satisfied through a Tonic Assignment Rule:

Tonic Assignment Rule

1 1→2 1 = of several primary stresses, downgrade each to secondary,
except the last, which will be the tonic.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 3

Example: 1 1 1 1 → 2 2 2 1
Rachel was happy to cycle home Rachel was happy to cycle home

The same mechanism is at work in many compounds:

1 1 → 2 1 1 1 1 → 2 2 1
photo montage photomontage second world war Second World War

It follows that the “secondariness” of secondary stress is predictable: a secondary stress is

actually a stress which is followed by another stress and has therefore been downgraded. Sec-
ondary stress is thus an “allophone” of primary stress. Lexically, we may represent words like
reformation, satisfactory, sardine with two equal “primary” stresses:
//ˈrefəˈmeɪʃən// //ˈsætɪsˈfæktəri// //ˈsɑ:ˈdi:n//
because the Tonic Assignment Rule will turn the first stress into secondary anyway:
/ˌrefəˈmeɪʃən/ /ˌsætɪsˈfæktəri/ /ˌsɑ:ˈdi:n/

We conclude that primary and secondary stress in an allophonic relationship (complementary

distribution), and can be seen as two realizations of the same thing: stress (or “major stress”)

7.2.1. Stress Degrees in connected speech

The effects of the End-Weight Principle are well known in the analysis of word stress:
– if a word has two (rarely three) stresses, the last must be the primary, the one(s) before it
secondary. Consequently, there cannot be a secondary after the primary. 1
– strong-unstressed syllables (fórmat /-mæt/, diréct /daɪ-/) are also called “tertiary-
stressed” because their vowel does not reduce (as it would in completely unstressed syllables
like sálad /-ləd/ or Óxford /-fəd/). From the prosodic point of view, however, 3ry and zero
stresses do not count as stresses because the End-Weight Principle does not “see” them: they
can never become 1ry-stressed.
We conclude that in prosody there are only two phonologically relevant stress degrees:
stressed (1ry or 2ry) and unstressed (3ry or zero).

STRESS DEGREES
example urbanization urbanization urbanization urbanization
(underlined) /ˌɜ:bənaɪˈzeɪʃn/ /ˌɜ:bənaɪˈzeɪʃn/ /ˌɜ:bənaɪˈzeɪʃn/ /ˌɜ:bənaɪˈzeɪʃn/

word-level: primary str. secondary str. tertiary str. zero str.

prosodic: stressed unstressed
(= major-stressed) (strong) (weak)

We shall occasionally mention (and indicate) secondary stress, but generally we shall just
speak of stressed and unstressed syllables – or, more simply, stressed and unstressed words
(meaning that their primary-stressable syllable is stressed or unstressed).

1
In transcription, it is customary to use a secondary-stress mark on the originally stressed (now terti-
ary-stressed) syllable of the second element if it is longer than one syllable: fíre alarm /0faIər əˌlá:m/.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 4

7.3. COMPOUND WORDS

A compound is a lexical unit (a lexeme) made up of two or more free stems (= words), e.g.
gréenhouse, to ill-tréat, car ferry, unemployment benefit. Compounds usually have a special-
ized meaning: a bláckbird is a special type of bird, not any bird that is black. Compounds be-
have as units from the point of view of grammar (syntactically) and meaning (semantically).
From a phonological point of view there are two types of compound:
 initially-stressed compounds, pattern # 1 # 3 #
primary stress on the first element: gréenhouse, cár ferry, compúter virus
 finally-stressed compounds, pattern # 2 # 1 #
primary stress on the second element: trade únion, fruit sálad, Victoria Státion
The type depends on the syntactic relationship between the two elements, their frequency, or
degree of lexicalization. The meaning or communicative “importance” of the elements is not
decisive.
The spelling of compounds in English is not consistent. Some are written as one word
(gréenhouse), some with a hyphen (wòrd-fínal), but the majority are written as two words
(cár ferry, geógraphy teacher, dòuble chín). The latter may be called “invisible compounds”,
since the spelling does not show that they are compounds.2
When two words are just an ordinary phrase (new book) and not a compound, both ele-
ments are stressed, the second has the primary stress according to the End-Weight Principle.
Observe the examples, where (a) and (b) have the same stress pattern, while (b) and (c) are
compounds:
a. (We are using a) néw bóok. – phrase; finally-stressed by End-Weight Princ.
b. (I’ll make some) fruit sálad. – compound, finally-stressed
c. (We drove to the) cár ferry. – compound, initially-stressed

7.3.1. Initially-stressed compounds

These sound like one word: the first element carries the stress. This pattern is the same as in
Hungarian, German, and many languages (e.g. telefonnévjegyzék). The second element is
downgraded to 3ry stress. This is expressed by the following rule:
(3) Compound Stress Rule
# 1 # # 1 # → # 1 # 3 # = when compounding two words, downgrade the
primary stress of the second word to strong-
unstressed (3ry) level.

Examples for initially-stressed compounds, with the stressed element underlined:

 NOUNS: gréenhouse, cár ferry, scréensaver, cán-opener, a búyout, a wríte-off, shóplifting,
Cánon Street, páperback, páperback writer, lánguage teaching, nemplóyment benefit
 ADJECTIVES: wáterproof, fún-loving, chócolate coloured, súnlit

2
In Hungarian invisible compounds are less frequent, e.g. túrós csusza, mérges kígyó.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 5

 VERBS: to báby-sit, to héadhunt, to bélly-dance, to áir-condition, to whítewash

Obscured compounds. In a small group of initially-stressed compounds the second element

has zero stress, a reduced vowel: póst|man /-mən/, wél|come /-kəm/, nónsense /ˈnɒnsəns/,
Éngland /ˈɪŋglənd/, Jóhnson /ˈdʒɒnsn/. These are called “obscured” compounds. Their stress
pattern is #10# and not #1#3#. They are always spelt as one word.

7.3.2. Finally-stressed compounds

In these the second element is primary-stressed, the first element has secondary stress, e.g.
tràde únion, Victòria Státion. They sound like two words, their stress pattern is identical to a
phrase (n w bóok, mànda’s fáther). We give some examples for finally-stressed compounds,
with remarks on the semantic or syntactic relationship between the elements:

 The compound is a NOUN:

– the “Y is (made) of X” relationship:
brìck wáll, fr it sálad, potàto crísps, r bber bóots, gàs fíre
– the “Y is (an) X” relationship:
tòy sóldier, twìn bróther, wòman wríter, bòy scóut, quèen bée, chìld áctor
– names of places (but not those ending in “Street”, which are initially-stressed!):
Victoria Státion, Cròmwell Róad, Fìfth Ávenue, Cèntral Párk, Hèroes’ Squáre
– various others:
Sòcial Démocrat, blàck márket, lìving condítions, trade únion, Còca Cóla, wèekénd3
– “initialisms” (letters pronounced as their alphabetical names):
DJ /ˌdi: ˈdʒeɪ/, etc.
 The compound is an ADJECTIVE:
èasy-góing, dìrt chéap, ser-fríendly, d ty frée, dàrk brówn
– the second element is a Past Participle:
bàd-témpered, clèar-cút, àbsent-mínded, well-desérved
 The compound is an ADVERB:4
hèad-fírst, dòwnstréam, pstáirs, òffhánd, wèll-óff, wày óut, fàr awáy, Nòrth-Éast
 The compound is a VERB:
to dòwngráde, to cròss-exámine, to òutnúmber, to òversléep, to ìll-tréat.

There are no clear-cut rules as to which compound is finally-stressed and which initially-
stressed:5 this is a lexical property of the given compound. The following guiudelines must be
remembered:

3
Weekend, ice cream are true compounds in AmE, having initial stress. There are a number of such
differences between the accents of English.
4
Observe that finally-stressed compound adverbs and verbs are normally spelt with a hyphen or as one
word.
5
This uncertainty only arises when the compound is spelt as two words. (Only one or two finally-
stressed compounds are spelt as one word: w ekénd, aròmathérapy.) Good dictionaries give the
stress pattern of compounds even when they are “invisible”, spelt as two words.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 6

(a) if the compound expresses the idea of “for...” (an object relationship), it is initially-
stressed.
(b) if the compound it expresses the idea of “is a...”, “is made of...”, “is characterized by...” (a
subject relationship), it is finally-stressed.6

a Énglish teacher (teaches English; object) a páper bag (bag for putting paper in)
b nglish téacher (she is English, subject) b pàper bág (the bag is made of paper)
a tóy factory (it makes toys, object) a drínking water (we drink it; object)
b tòy sóldier (the soldier is a toy, subject) b r nning wáter (the water runs; subject)

But in many cases such a semantic or logical explanation is not easy to find, and the two types
of stressing seem to be arbitrary, i.e. lexical, and have to be memorized as part of the pronun-
ciation of the compound.

SUMMARY TABLE OF COMPOUNDS

phrase compound, compound, obscured

finally-stressed initially-stressed compound
new bóok trade únion cár ferry Éngland
Is it a NO YES YES YES
grammatical word?
Is it a NO NO YES YES
phonological word?
Is the second NO NO YES YES
element de-stressed?
Is the second NO NO NO YES
element reduced?

We have included “obscured compounds” for the sake of comparison, but phonologically they
do not count as compounds because their final element is reduced, i.e. not a free stem.

7.4. THE TONE-UNIT

A tone-unit is a stretch of speech whose last stress is a tonic (the stressed syllable on which
the voice begins to fall or rise). The tone-unit usually corresponds to a sentence. If a sentence
is longer, the speaker usually breaks it up into several tone-units. A typical tone-unit is We
decided to come back in October.
The tone-unit has the following parts:
– Pre-head: the unstressed syllables before the first stress (We de-).
– Head: the part beginning with the first stress and leading up to the tonic syllable (-cided
to come back in Oc-).

6
Hungarian makes no such distinction, pronouncing (and spelling) both types as initially-stressed
compounds: ivóvíz, folyóvíz; játékgyár, játékkatona.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 7

– Tonic: the last stressed syllable (-to-).

– Tail: anything after the tonic (-ber).
We de- ′cided to ′come ′back in Oc- to- ber.
Pre-head Head Tonic Tail
non-obligatory non-obligatory obligatory non-oblig.
no stress stress(es) stress no stress
incomplete foot one or more feet one foot
TONE-UNIT

Many tone-units are not complete sentences. In the list below; each row is a tone-unit. Ob-
serve their parts. Only the tonic is obligatory, the other parts may be missing.

Pre-head Head Tonic Tail

We de- ′cided to ′come ′back in Oc- to- ber.

′Jeremy ′played the gui- tar,
but the ′others ′weren’t li- stening.
I re- mem- ber.
In ′front of the ′Swan The- atre,
there’s an in- ′credibly ′ugly pe- trol station.
′Not on ′top of the car, please!
′Jim was ′interested in 1inter′national law.
No.
I ′think A′manda should ′write ′Jennifer a le- tter.
′Unbe- lie- vable!
A- ′manda was up′set because ′John had ˌdisa- ppeared.

In connected speech the general rule is to stress every content-word, and leave function-words
unstressed. For example:
I ′think A′manda should ′write ′Jennifer a ′letter.
/aI 0FINk ə0mAndə Səd 0raIt 0dZenIfər ə 0letə/
When we say that “a word is stressed”, we mean that the primary-stressed syllable of that
word is stressed. The place of stress within the word is not important now, that is a lexical
question (Chapter 6). In this chapter it will be practical to indicate stress with separate stress
marks (as in transcription), rather than with accent marks above vowels. So instead of
mánda, Jénnifer we will write ′manda, ′Jennifer, etc. Of course the two notations are
equivalent.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 8

While in isolation (as in a dictionary) one-syllable words (think, write) need not get a
stress-mark, in connected speech they, too, must be stress-marked if actually stressed. Certain
unstressed function-words have their “weak form” (here should /ʃʊd/ weakens to /ʃəd/).
Punctuation (dots, commas, apostrophes, etc.) and capital letters are not shown in tran-
scription. The only thing shown is the space between words.
Content-words are the four major word classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs
(including adverbial particles like up in get up). Numerals (e.g. two), interrogative and de-
monstrative pronouns (e.g. who?, this), and negative words (e.g. not, couldn’t) are stressed
like content-words. Function-words are all others: auxiliaries, most pronouns, articles, and
conjunctions. Note that prepositions (e.g. with, along) also behave like function-words.7

The tonic
We have seen the working of the End-Weight Principle: if a longer word has several stresses,
the last one is the strongest (the primary, as in j stificátion). Similarly, in an English sentence
the last stressed word has the strongest stress, called the tonic. The tonic is, properly speak-
ing, a syllable (since stress is always attached to a syllable), but we will often refer to the
tonic-bearing word as “the tonic word” or simply “the tonic”.8 For example, in We met in
October, the tonic is really the syllable -to-, but we may also express this by saying that Octo-
ber is the tonic: We met in October.
In transcription it is not necessary to show the tonic specially, since it is by definition the
last stress. If necessary, the tonic can be highlighted by underlining the syllable (or the word
that contains it), and by placing an arrow in front of the tonic syllable ( or , depending on
whether the voice falls or rises there).

7.5. RHYTHM

7.5.1. The Rhythmic Foot

— The way stressed syllables follow each other in the “head” of the tone-unit is called
rhythm. The unit of English rhythm is the rhythmic foot.9 A foot is a stressed syllable plus
the unstressed syllables that follow it. Each tone unit is made up of one or more such feet. The
first foot may be incomplete, consisting of unstressed syllables only: this is pre-head. The last
foot always begins with the tonic: this is the tonic foot (consisting of tonic + tail).
The following sentence is a tone-unit consisting of five feet. (Foot boundaries are shown
here with a vertical line. The missing stress in the pre-head is shown by ^.)
| ^ We de|′cided to |′come |′back in Oc|to ber. |
Rhythmic feet need not coincide with words or grammatical structures. There exist feet like
“cided to” or “back in Oc“.
7
Content-words are also called “lexical words”. Function-words are also called “grammatical words”
or “form-words”. Some authors in syntax consider prepositions to be content words rather than
function words.
8
The tonic is also called nucleus, or sentence-stress, or accent.
9
The notion of „foot” is borrowed from poetry. Note, however, that poetic (= ‘metrical’) feet may be
more varied than ours.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 9

7.5.2. The Rhythm Rule: stress-deletion

When three stresses come too closely together, English tends to delete the middle one to make
the rhythm smoother. This is called the Rhythm Rule. The deletion means that the syllable is
downgraded from 2ry to 3ry stress. There are two subcases: in one case the deleted middle
stress is a short word (nice old lady); in the other it is the second stress of a word having a
2ry+1ry lexical stress (afternoon tea).

7.5.2.1. Rhythmic stress deletion (“nice old lady” rule)

When three stresses come closely together, with maximally one unstressed syllable between
them (ˈnice ˈold ˈlady), the middle one of the three stresses may optionally be deleted (“de-
stressed”) to make the rhythm smoother: ˈnice old ˈlady. Such de-stressing does not depend
on the meaning or grammatical role of the word affected, just the rhythmic pattern
In the examples below all stresses are underlined. The deleted middle stress (downgraded
to 3ry) is shown with a small circle (o).
three stresses close together Medial Stress-Deletion
a ′nice ′old ′lady → a ′nice oold ′lady
′very ′nice ′people → ′very onice ′people
my ′son ′speaks ′Hindi → my ′son ospeaks ′Hindi
′John 1disa′ppeared → ′John odisa′ppeared
The deletion also happens in the middle of very long words which have two secondary
stresses before the primary:
ˌpsychoˌana′lytical → 1psycho oana′lytical
ˌundeˌnomi′national → 1unde onomi′national
In We de′cided to ′come ′back in Oc′tober, stress deletion is not normal because though there
are two stresses (come, back) next to each other; there isn’t a third stress close enough.
Medial Stress-Deletion causes short content words to lose their stress, or a secondary
stress to be lost in the middle of a longer word (or finally-stressed compound). The result is
the deletion of a foot, as the de-stressed word now becomes attached to the previous foot. Ob-
serve the examples:

foot1 foot2 foot3 foot1 foot2

| nice | old | lady | → | nice old | lady |
| psycho-| ana- | lytical | → | psychoana-| lytical |
| North | Sea | oil | → | North Sea | oil |

7.5.2.2. Stress-shift (“afternoon tea” rule)

If a word with two stresses (e.g. 1after′noon) is immediately followed by a stressed word, three
stresses fall closely together: 1after′noon ′tea. This is subject to the Rhythm Rule, which de-
letes the middle stress: ′afteronoon ′tea. But as a result, the original [2 0 1] stress pattern of the
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 10

word 1after′noon is replaced by a [2 0 3] stressing ′afteronoon. The word’s lexical primary-

stressed syllable (noon) is degraded to strong-unstressed (tertiary) status.This gives the im-
pression that the major stress in the word has “shifted” leftwards to the place of the secon-
dary, and instead of the normal /ˌɑ:ftəˈnu:n/ we now have /ˈɑ:ftənu:n/.
Due to this Stress-Shift, the stressing of many longer words or compounds is variable,
depending on whether they are followed by a stressed word or not. 10 Stress-Shift is most fre-
quent in adjectives and nouns in attributive position, but it can affect practically any word that
has two stresses. Examples:
1Japa′nese → ′Japa onese ′garden; 1demo′cratic → ′demo ocratic ′country
1unde′clared → ′unde oclared ′goods to 1de′ice → to ′de oice ′everything
It may also hit the second element of a finally-stressed compound, causing the compound to
sound initially-stressed. For example, 1North ′Sea, when followed by óil, loses the stress on
Sea and appears with shifted stress as ′North Sea.
1North ′Sea → ′North oSea ′oil 1New ′Year → ′New oYear’s ′Eve
1duty ′free → ′duty ofree ′goods 1World ′War → ′World oWar ′Two

The two applications of the Rhythm Rule, Medial Stress-Deletion and Stress-Shift, are basi-
cally the same: they eliminate a stress between two other stresses. They have no communica-
tive significance: they are not applied to emphasize any part of the message. They are me-
chanical means to ensure a smoother rhythm in speech. Observe:

2 2 2 2 2 1 → 2 3 2 2 3 1
We had a nice old lady for afternoon tea. We had a nice old lady for afternoon tea.

7.6. TONIC PLACEMENT

Note. For a more pedagogical treatment of these phenomena, see BEP Chapter 13.
This section will examine the rules for tonic placement, that is, choosing the word that re-
ceives the strongest (= last major) stress in a tone unit.11 The place of the tonic can be neu-
tral12 (i.e. unmarked), or dislocated (i.e. marked, typically contrastive). The neutral tonic has
no special communicative value, and is prescribed by general rules. The dislocated tonic is
placed by the speaker on some other word than where it would normally fall, in order to ex-
press some communicative surplus by highlighting some element.

10
Words undergoing Stress-Shift (afternoon, North Sea) are also called “level-stressed”, because their
stressing can “tilt” either way.
11
Tonic placement is also called “tonicity”. All sentences in 7.6.1 have neutral tonicity.
12
This use of the term „neutral” has nothing to do with „neutralization”! (see Chapter 2).
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 11

7.6.1. Neutral Tonic

7.6.1.1. On the last content word

The neutral tonic falls on the last content-word of the tone-unit. This is the Last Content-
Word Rule. If the last words are function-words, they remain unstressed because these are
not “tonic-bearing”. The neutral tonic is mechanically assigned: the tonic need not be the
most “important” or communicatively most informative word. For example:

′Pat’s ′father is an ex′tremely ′rich man. I ′hope you can remember them.
A′manda ′made some de′licious ′fruit salad. ′What was your umbrella like?
′Turn ′left towards the car ferry. They ′couldn’t wait for us.

7.6.1.2. On a function-word
The neutral tonic may, in well-defined cases, fall on some function word. We will discuss
only two of these cases: neutral tonic on an auxiliary, and on an adverbial particle.

 Neutral tonic and auxiliaries. An auxiliary (including the finite forms of be, do, have) has
the tonic if there is no further stressable word in the sentence: ′Yes, we may. – ′Jim ′always
does. – This includes questions where the auxiliary is followed by its unstressed personal
pronoun subject: ′How ex′pensive is it? – ′Where am I? – ′How are you?
However, when a sentence-final auxiliary is preceded by its own stressed subject, the tonic
falls on the subject and the auxiliary is unstressed (but strong, i.e. tertiary-stressed!):
You ′play ′better than Joe does. I ′wonder ′when the exam will be.
′That’s the ′pub where my friends are. It ′fits me ′better than yours would.
A final auxiliary is never reduced to zero stress.

Neutral tonic and adverbial particles. An adverbial particle13 forms part of a phrasal verb:
get up, put off. The particle has no weak form, and is usually stressed:
You should ′get ′up before six. – I ′couldn’t ′ring you ′back on Tuesday.
 Sentence-finally (possibly followed by non-stressable words), it can have two kinds of
stressing:
(a) It is tonic-bearing after a verb or after an unstressed pronoun:
′Get up! ′Please ′put that down. The ′meeting was ′called off.
′It’ ˈhard to ˈget out of it. ′Shall I ′wrap one up for you?
(b) It is unstressed after a noun. This is the only case when a final adverbial particle is un-
stressed:
′Take your coat off! ′Tim’s ′got to ′call his mother back.
′Please ′put that gun down. ′Liz ′promised to ′put the children up.

13
Hung. ‘igekötő’.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 12

The verb before the particle may lose its stress due to Medial Stress-Deletion, as break in The
′car ′didn’t obreak down. A phrasal verb is thus stressed either on both components (′get
′up), or on the particle only (get ′up).
Let us remark that prepositions behave differently from adverbial particles in syntax as
well as in prosody. Laugh at, deal with, sit on are Prepositional verbs14 (verbs requiring a
prepositional complement), while call off, break up, put on are Phrasal Verbs (Verb + Ad-
verbial Particle). There is a syntactic differene: I [put on] the hat – I sat [on the hat]. A
preposition normally appears in a reduced (“weak”) form, while adverbial particles have no
weak form. The words at, for, from, of, to, with, without are only used as prepositions, never
as adverbial particles, while other words (up, off, etc.) can function as either.
A phrasal verb may be followed by a preposition, e.g. hang on to (‘insist’), get away with
(‘escape’), go in for (‘enjoy’). The stress of such combinations follows the rules outlined so
far: the adverbial particle is stressed, the preposition unstressed. Examples:
′Don’t hang ′on to this ′stupid idea. ′Don’t hang on to it.
′What is he ′hanging on to? ′Don’t hang ′on to THAT!

7.6.2. Dislocated Tonic Placement

In order to focus some part of the message, to contrast it with something, or to highlight it as
new information, the tonic may be dislocated, i.e. placed elsewhere than the neutral-
placement rules would prescribe. Compare:
(a) She spent a year in the forest. – neutral tonic placement
(b) She spent a YEAR in the forest. – dislocated tonic placement
A dislocated tonic need not be louder than the other stresses – it is just earlier or later than it
would be in the neutral stress pattern. (In the following examples the dislocated tonic is
printed in CAPITALS.)
In everyday life people use the word “stress” exactly for this kind of emphasis, and not
for the syllabic prominence that “stress” means to the linguist. People say: The headmaster
stressed that our school was a traditional one, meaning that he laid special emphasis on tradi-
tion. (The same is done in Hungarian, where the everyday meaning of “hangsúly(oz)” is simi-
larly “emphasis, emphasize”: z igazgató hangsúlyozta...). The layman would say that in sen-
tence (a) above we “didn’t stress anything”, while in (b) we “stressed” that it was a whole
year. From a linguistic point of view, the word year is stressed in both (a) and (b); but in (b) it
is made emphatic by receiving a dislocated tonic.

7.6.2.1. Dislocated tonic for contrast

The tonic may be dislocated in order to contrast one element (a word, a morpheme, or a gram-
matical feature, like tense).

 (A) LEXICAL CONTRAST

14
Hung. ‘elöljárós v. vonzatos ige’.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 13

A frequent case of dislocated tonic placement is lexical contrast, when the speaker empha-
sizes a word which is earlier than the tonic. For example
Jane BOUGHT three rabbits at the market. (She did not sell them.)
Tim was so drunk he literally CRAWLED out of the pub. (instead of walking)
Even the verb be can be lexically contrasted:
(She sounds Welsh to me.) — ′That’s beˈcause she IS Welsh.
(It tasted like bad wine.) — It WAS bad wine.

 (B) VERBAL CONTRASTS: MODALITY AND YES/NO POLARITY

Another type of contrast that we express with a dislocated tonic concerns the mood, tense, or
positive/negative value (the “polarity”) of the verb. The two sentences below show these three
types of difference:
(a) Tim will enjoy the performance. (neutral tonic)
(indicative mood, future tense, positive polarity)
(b) Tim WON’T enjoy the performance.
(indicative mood, future tense, negative polarity)
This is not lexical contrast since the verb (enjoy) is the same: the speaker is not contrasting
one verb with another, but is contrasting the accompanying values of the same verb. In mo-
dality and polarity contrast, the dislocated tonic always falls on an auxiliary. If there is no
auxiliary (in the simple present or past), the auxiliary do has to come in to bear the tonic.

 (i) Verbal modality (mood and tense) contrast

“Mood”, for our purposes, includes not only indicative and conditional, but also meanings
expressed by the modal auxiliaries (can, could, ought to, etc.). The category “tense” covers all
verbal categories including aspect like continuous (= progressive), passive, etc.

(Has Sue gone to France?) — No, but she MIGHT go.

(When will the students write the application?) — They ARE writing it.
(Why don’t you try the cheesecake?) — I HAVE tried it, thanks.
(I think Tim works at a hospital.) — He DID work there (...but doesn’t any more).
(You should use this dictionary.) — We DO use it.
(Shouldn’t Joe study classical music?) — He DOES study classical music.

 (ii) Yes/No polarity (positive/negative) contrast

The other type of non-lexical contrast in verbs concerns “polarity”, namely, positive (= af-
firmative) versus negative meaning. Polarity contrast (answering “yes” to “no”, or vice versa)
is again achieved by placing the tonic on the auxiliary:

(Sue can learn it on her own.) — She CAN’T learn it on her own.
(You can’t come in because you’re not members.) — We ARE members.
(I’m glad you’ve bought the tickets.) — We HAVEN’T bought them.
(You don’t like fish and chips, I suppose.) — I DO like fish and chips.
(It’s a shame you didn’t write to Liz.) — I DID write to her.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 14

Remember that do- forms or other auxiliaries are not needed in cases of lexical contrast,
where the verb itself must be stressed:
(Was Tim ill in hospital for so long?) — No, he WORKED there.
(Why don’t you throw away this old dictionary?) — We USE it!
(Joe teaches classical music, doesn’t he?) — He STUDIES classical music.

7.6.2.2. Dislocated tonic for highlighting new information

The speaker may consider some part of his sentence as “old” information, known both to him
and the listener. If this old information is at the end of the sentence, the speaker will de-stress
the words which express it, and move the tonic leftwards to the (end of the) “new” informa-
tion. In such cases there is no contrast or emphasis involved; the tonic-bearing word is not
opposed to anything, it is just highlighted as new.
In the examples below the old information is printed in italics; the DISLOCATED
TONIC which highlights the (last stress of the) new information, is capitalized:

(Was the headmaster angry about it?) — I ′didn’t SPEAK to the headmaster.
(We only serve Indian food here.) — I WANT Indian.
(My wife comes from Singapore.) — Oh, I ′grew UP in Singapore!
Sometimes the fact that the information is “old” (= “given”) is only obvious from the situation
or from the hearer’s knowledge of the general background:
′Here’s the CD I promised to bring you.
(Leeds is a very busy town.) — I know, my PARENTS live there.

Anaphoric words de-stressed for old information

The speaker may, alternatively, choose to express the old information with unstressed con-
tent-words, usually synonyms or other words which refer to the things mentioned:
(Why’s that man looking at you?) — I ′went to SCHOOL with the guy.
(Everyone was talking Chinese to me,) but I ′don’t SPEAK the language.
(Joe ran away) be′fore I could ASK the idiot.

In all these cases the tonic counts as dislocated because it is not on the last content word.

7.7. INTONATION

In the preceding sections we discussed one component of prosody: stress. We now turn to the
other prosodic component: intonation. While stress concerns the loudness of syllables, intona-
tion concerns their height, called “pitch” in linguistics.15 People easily confuse a high pitch
with a loud stress: these often appear together, but are not the same (see the examples in 7.1).
Intonation includes two things only: the melodies or “tones” (with their meanings and func-

15
Hung. ‘hangmagasság’.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 15

tions), and the division of speech into tone-units (that is, where one intonation pattern ends
and the next one begins).16
The pitch of the speaker’s voice is influenced by several factors. (a) natural factors (=
“symptoms”) like sex and age: women and children have a higher pitch than men, and every
person has a characteristic pitch; (b) paralinguistic factors: an excited speaker will use a
higher pitch than someone who is tired or bored; (c) linguistic factors: the pitch may depend
on whether the utterance is a question or a command, old or new information, encouraging or
neutral. These linguistic factors belong to the field of intonation.
Besides pitch, speech has other features like loudness and tempo, and is accompanied by
gestures and facial expressions (sometimes called “body language”), all of which are impor-
tant for communication, but do not form part of the linguistic system.

7.7.1. The components of intonation

In speech the height of a given syllable is called pitch. In phonology the linguistically rele-
vant (= “phonemic”) pitch changes are examined: this is what we call intonation. In every
tone-unit, the last stress, the tonic, is accompanied by pitch change, i.e. the voice falls or rises
on that syllable. The pitch-change attached to a tonic syllable is a tone.

The English tones

English has four phonologically distinct tones. One is falling, three are rising.
Name of
Type Diagram Example Meaning
tone
Falling Fall Blue neutrality, definiteness, finality

Fall-rise \Blue implication; softening; old info

Rising Low rise 

Blue indifference; encouragement

High rise Blue inquiry; Yes/No question

Intonation can be represented with lines actually depicting the rising or falling of the voice.
The tone (= the pitch change on the tonic syllable) is shown with a thick line.
Example 1. Falling tone.
high —————————————————
mid
low —————————————————
We de ′cided to ′come ′back in Oc tober.
{pre-h} {.......h......e......a......d........} {tn}{tl}
The following points deserve comment:
– The pre-head (We de-), containing only unstressed syllables, is spoken at a low pitch.

16
Some authors claim that intonation includes all features of connected speech, so they treat all su-
prasegmental phenomena (including rhythm and tonic-placement rules) under the heading “Intona-
tion”. We prefer a narrower definition.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 16

– The head (-cided to come back in Oc-) begins with a high pitch, and gradually becomes
lower as we proceed towards the tonic (“downdrift”).17
– The tonic syllable (-to-) has the only radical pitch change: the tone starts here. The height
of the voice suddenly changes on this syllable. (Our example has a falling tone).
– The tail (-ber) adds nothing to the intonation, it simply continues where the tonic has
pushed it (in this case at a low level).

Example 2. High-rising tone. The rise here is realized on one syllable (car), as there is no
tail. There is no pre-head either. The head starts high, the pitch descends gradually as far as
the end of the head; there the pitch suddenly breaks its descent, and rises from low to high on
the tonic syllable:
high —————————————
mid
low —————————————
′Did you ′park the car?
The falling or rising nature of the intonation of a tone-unit is determined by the tonic. If
the tonic has a falling tone, we call the whole intonation falling, no matter where it began or
what happened in the pre-head or head. If the tonic is rising, we call the whole intonation ris-
ing, though the sentence may actually end on a lower pitch than where it began.

Downdrift
The gradual lowering of the pitch within the tone unit’s head is called downdrift.18 Downdrift
itself does not count as falling intonation. Compare the examples again: the downdrifting
heads are highlighted with parallel lines:
—————————————————
FALLING INTON.
—————————————————
We de ′cided to ′come ′back in Oc tober.

—————————————
HIGH-RISING INTON.
—————————————
′Did you ′park the car?
Both sentences have downdrift in their heads. However, the first sentence has falling intona-
tion, the second rising, because their tonics are falling and rising respectively.

The intonation of the tail

If there is a tail, the tone spreads out over the tail: the syllables in the tail continue the move-
ment set by the tonic.
Falling tone: ——————— ———————
17
Some textbooks use the lower stress mark / 1 / for indicating low-pitch stress in the head (and not for
secondary stress as we do).
18
Hung. ‘lesodródás’.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 17

——————— ———————
Usually. Using it.

High-rising tone: ——————— ———————

——————— ———————
Usually? Using it?

We see that when the tone is falling, the syllables in the tail continue low. When the tone is
rising, the syllables in the tail continue to rise. The tail is thus not an independent factor in
intonation.

7.7.2. The four tones and their use

7.7.2.1. The falling tone

Form
The voice falls on the tonic from high (or mid) to low. If there is a tail, its syllables continue
low.
——————————————

——————————————
The ′papers ′aren’t interesting

Function
The falling tone has the following functions/meanings:
(a) Definiteness. The fall is the most neutral intonation. In statements and commands it ex-
presses definiteness and finality. It suggests that what we say is plain new information.
 Statements:
There ′isn’t e′nough time. Her ′book was ′published in French.
 Commands (serious, businesslike, not too polite):
′Keep your ′door ′safely locked. ′Open your ′books at ′page fifteen!
 Exclamations (to express surprise, etc.).
′What a ′marvellous picture! ′How ′utterly disgusting!
(b) Wh-questions. The fall is used for Wh-questions (i.e. questions beginning with a ques-
tion-word such as who, what, where, how, etc.):
′What’s her ′new address? ′Who’ll be the ′chief editor?
When? How much? ′What size are they?
To sum up: the fall is used for statements, commands, exclamations and Wh-questions.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 18

7.7.2.2. The falling-rising tone

Form
The voice falls from high (or mid) to low, then immediately rises to mid-high again. Thus the
second half of this tone is a low rise. If there is a tail, its syllables continue to rise to mid-
height.
——— —————————— ————————————

——— —————————— ————————————

\Fine You can ′ask the \porter. The \first part is interesting.

Function
The fall-rise has the following functions/meanings:
(a) Implications. What we say is not the whole truth. The speaker has reservations, does not
agree completely, or is hesitant to plainly say his opinion: “yes, but...” We call it implicational
because it implies something that remains unsaid (this is added after three dots in the exam-
ples below).
(Shall we go by car?) — \Fine. (...but I won’t drive)
We ′like to \travel. (...but not to silly places like that)
Such sentences often have a dislocated tonic:
The \FIRST part is interesting. (...but the rest isn’t)
The implication conveyed by the fall-rise is often that something should be done:
\Dinner’s ready! (...so come and sit down)
I ′can’t \lift this. (...so please help me)

(b) Partial negation. The fall-rise is able to express partial negation (see the (b) sentences
below), implying that the thing is true on the whole, but some part of it is negated. While or-
dinary full negation (a), expressed by the fall, simply means “no”, the partial negation ex-
pressed by the fall-rise means “yes, but...”. Compare:
(a) I ′won’t ′eat anything. (full negation; ‘I will eat nothing’)
(b) I ′won’t ′eat \anything. (partial negation; ‘I’ll eat, but not everything’)
(a) We ′haven’t ′heard them once. (full negation; ‘never heard them’)
(b) We ′haven’t ′heard them \once. (partial negation; ‘heard them many times’)
(a) It ′wasn’t ′published because a woman wrote it.
(full negation; ‘it wasn’t published, and the reason was that a woman wrote it’)
(b) It ′wasn’t ′published because a \woman wrote it.
(partial negation; ‘it was published, though not for this reason’)

(c) Softening. Another use of the fall-rise is to soften the directness of commands or ques-
tions, which might sound rude or too official with the falling tone.
 Polite commands (said rather like requests):
\Wait a minute! ′Keep your \passports ready! ′Have a\nother one!
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 19

 Polite Wh-questions:
′What’s your \name? ′How \old is she? \When?
To sum up: the fall-rise is used for implications (including partial negation); to soften a com-
mand or a Wh-question.

7.7.2.3. The low-rising tone

Form
The voice rises from low to mid. If there is a tail, its syllables continue at mid-height. Exam-
ples in diagrammatic notation:
———— ————— ———————————————

———— ————— ———————————————


Blue. She knows. We could ′ask them ′over for coffee.

The low rise does not indicate a question, as opposed to the high rise, which does. Compare
these two pronunciations of Really?:

Really? LOW RISE (just a polite way of saying “I see” or “I heard what you said”)
Really? HIGH RISE (a true question asking for confirmation of something surprising)
These two tone-units are a prosodic minimal pair, whose meaning difference is expressed by
the intonation difference. Tthe low rise is not an “allo-“ form of the high rise but a distinct
“intonation phoneme”, an independent tone of English.

Function
The low rise is mostly used in response to what someone else has said. It expresses the fol-
lowing meanings or attitudes:
(a) Indifference. “What I’m saying is true but I don’t think it’s important or interesting or
relevant.” It sounds as if the speaker was shrugging while saying these sentences.
(What’s your favourite colour?) — Blue. (What a childish question.)
(I suppose you don’t dare to tell your wife.) — She knows. (It makes no difference.)
(Did you enjoy the performance?) — It was all right. (Nothing special.)
(b) Encouragement. The low rise is used to encourage or comfort the hearer and to sound
reassuring. It sounds as if the speaker meant, “no problem, nothing serious, relax”.
 Encouragement to do something, not to worry, etc. Often used to children.
′Don’t worry. I ′don’t mind. We ′shouldn’t be afraid.
 Encouragement to continue speaking (“I’m listening, go on!”):

Yes. Is ′that so? ′That’s interesting. 
No. (but tell me)
It is also used with the polite tag ...will/won’t you?, attached to imperatives. The imperative
base sentence has a falling tone:
Help yourself, | won’t you? Come and lend a hand, | will you?
(c) Greetings, thanks, apologies.
′Good morning. ′No thanks. ′Bye-bye.
I’m sorry. Excuse me. ′See you soon.
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 20

To sum up: the low rise is mostly a response, something added to other sentences. It can ex-
press indifference and lack of importance. Due to its “lightness” it can also be used to express
encouragement and greetings. It is not used for questions.

7.7.2.4. The high-rising tone

Form
The voice rises to a high pitch.
———— ————— ———————————————

———— ————— ———————————————

You? To Jennifer? And ′is she permanently there?
The English high rise is distributed over the tonic plus the tail, so sometimes five or six sylla-
bles keep rising steadily (as above in ...permanently there?). 19 If there is a tail in the English
high rise, Hungarian learners will tend to use their rise-fall. This is dangerous for communica-
tion as the English ear will only hear the fall at the end, and interpret the intonation as falling,
i.e. not a question.

Function
(a) The high rise is mostly used in Yes/No questions, whether they are grammatically well-
formed interrogative sentences or not.
′Did you ′park the car? ′Could I ′bring it ′back on Saturday?
′One of the editors? Are you? Birmingham?

(b) “Please-repeat” questions. These are Wh-questions asking for the repetition of some-
thing just heard. Such “please-repeat” questions have a dislocated tonic on the question word.

(Jennifer is in Kuala Lumpur.) — WHERE’s Jennifer??

(Watson will be the new chief editor.) — WHO’ll be the new chief editor??
(My girlfriend is thirteen.) — HOW old is she??

The question-word bearing the tonic can also remain in the syntactic place where the ques-
tioned element stands in the statement. In this case the word order is not question-like:

(She bought herself a platypus.) — She bought herself a WHAT??

(We’ve got tickets for the 2am performance.)
— You’ve got tickets for WHICH performance??

—————————————————————————————————————
In Hungarian questions the tone only ends in a real rise if the last syllable is the tonic (e.g. Ez va-
jon ↑zöld?); otherwise the last syllable has to fall. If there are two or more syllables after the tonic

19
English Phonological Analysis – Chapter 7 – PROSODY (Autumn 2013) 21

(Zöl↑de↓ket? Zöldsé↑ge↓ket?), only the penult will rise and the ult will fall back. This is the char-
acteristic Hungarian “rise-fall”, used for Yes-No questions. For example:
——— ———— ————— ——————

——— ———— ————— ——————

Zöld? Zöldek? Zöldeket? Zöldségeket?
—————————————————————————————————————

7.7.3 Question-intonations: a summary

Because English questions may have a variety of tones, let us summarize them.20 The num-
bers refer to the examples below.

TONE Question type

Falling tone Wh-questions (2)

High-rising tone Yes/No questions (1)

Please-repeat questions (4)
Low-rising tone —

Falling-rising tone Polite Wh-questions (3)

The following list illustrates the various question intonations, using very short tone units:

(1) Ordinary Yes/No question: HIGH-RISING TONE.

Here? (neutral question)
(2) Ordinary Wh-question: FALLING TONE.
(I know a much better pub.) — Where? (neutral question)
(3) Polite Wh-question: FALLING-RISING TONE.
(I know a much better pub.) — \Where? (= “Oh, really? Tell me!”)
(4) “Please-repeat” question: HIGH-RISING TONE.
(There’s a better pub in Yahoo Street.) — Where?? (= “Sorry, couldn’t hear.”)

END OF CHAPTER 7

20
In this short chapter we cannot deal with Tag Questions, an interesting and complex subfield.