Scribd
Upload
7 views2 pages

Lessons' Notes

The document discusses intonation patterns in Spanish and English, highlighting the differences in tone for affirmative statements and questions. It outlines key suprasegmental features such as stress, rhythm, pitch, length, and quality, and introduces the Three Ts: tonality, tonicity, and tone. The document also explains the structure of the Intonation Phrase (IP) and introduces the Low Drop intonation pattern.

Uploaded by

Agustina Boltín
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
7 views2 pages

Lessons' Notes

The document discusses intonation patterns in Spanish and English, highlighting the differences in tone for affirmative statements and questions. It outlines key suprasegmental features such as stress, rhythm, pitch, length, and quality, and introduces the Three Ts: tonality, tonicity, and tone. The document also explains the structure of the Intonation Phrase (IP) and introduces the Low Drop intonation pattern.

Uploaded by

Agustina Boltín
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Wednesday March 3rd.

An intonation pattern (in Spanish, patron de entonación), is like a melody.

In English, affirmative statements are said in a falling tone, and questions in a rising tone.

In Spanish, affirmative statements are said in a rising tone, and questions in a falling tone.

If you do not use the right tone, the message may not be correctly delivered. Tone may be
used in a more general way to refer to different concepts, but if you want to be specific, tone
refers to pitch.

We will study suprasegmental features such as:

1. Stress: prominence of a syllable over another syllable.


2. Rhythm: perceived regularity of prominence or perception of regular prominence.
3. Pitch: tone/intonation (direction of the voice).
4. Length
5. Quality

In Spanish, the more syllables I use, the more time it takes to say them. In English that is not
the case. English is a stressed timed language.

Saying “Dogs chase cats” takes as long as saying “The dogs chase cats” or as saying “The dogs
chase the cats”. That is because in English we take into account how many stressed syllables
the sentence has.

Content words are nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and negative contractions.

Function words are prepositions, auxiliary verbs, modal verbs, pronounces, and articles. I think
that Schumacher said that there are about 40 common weak words.

The direction of the voice, the degree of the tone, and the speaker’s voice range are the
variables of speech.

The Three Ts (the most important part of the subject):

1. Tonality (division of our speech into smaller unit of meaning)


2. Tonicity (it has to do with the nucleus, the stressed syllable)
3. Tone
Tonality is about units of meaning (units of intonation, also called intonation phrases) and
pauses. English and Spanish are similar in this regard. Intonation phrases are the smallest unit
of speech.

Tonicity is about the choice of a nucleus, also called nucleus placement. Spanish and English
are different in this regard. In the nucleus we start the melody (the intonation pattern, the
pitch, the tone).

Here Schumaher finished her part, and Nancy showed up and started her lesson.

Intonation is characteristic. Intonation is significant. Intonation is systematic.

Intonation has to do with the intention of the speaker. A falling tone is more categorical. That
is why it is called the definitive fall. Rising and falling-rising tones are less categorical. They
have more implications. They express more overtones/shades of meaning.

Now we will learn about the parts, or the structure, of the Intonation Phrase (IP).

It was an unusually dark night, you know

The nucleus is the last important element of the Intonation Phrase. In this case, the nucleus is
the word “night”. Everything before it is the prenuclear pattern. In this case “It was an
unusually dark…” is the prenuclear pattern. The head is the segment that immediately preceds
the nucleus. In this case, the head is “-usually dark”. The post nuclear pattern is everything that
follows the nucleus. In this case “… you know” is the postnuclear pattern.

The nucleus is the only obligatory element of an IP. Prehead and head are not obligatory
elements.

The Low Drop is the first melody (intonation pattern) that we will learn. It consists of a low pre
head and a high head or of a low fall and a tail. Falling tones show finality or completion.

We have to study low drops from page 134. We have to practice the drills for the low drop.

You might also like