Understanding Intonation and Rhythm in Speech

Posted on Feb 13, 2025 in Applied Francophone Studies

Isochrony, Stress, and Intonation in Speech

Isochrony: It is the postulated rhythmic division of time into equal portions by a language (syllable-timed, stress-timed).

Lexical Stress: This is a property of words.

Rhythmic Stress: Sentence Stress. Rhythmic beat. It varies according to the speaker’s communicative intentions.

These are the systems of choice available to a speaker when deciding on the intonation of a bit of speech (a text).

Intonation Components

  • Tonality (Chunking): How many intonation patterns.
  • Tonicity (Nucleus): Syllables stressed, accented & nucleus.
  • Tone (Nuclear Tone): Pitch pattern.

Intonation: It is the number of choices of patterns or speech that the speaker has to express something.

Nucleus: It is the most important stressed syllable in an utterance. It is always going to be in the second accented syllable of the utterance. It is the last accented syllable in the intonation.

Interlinear Chart or Graph: It is a representation of syllables or pitch variations in speech.

Pitch: It is that perceptual attribute of voiced speech sounds which is connected with the rate of vibration of the vocal folds.

Accent: It is an extra prominence caused by pitch features. It is the syllable where the speaker is going to make a pitch variation.

Nuclear Tone: It starts and operates in the nucleus syllable. Pitch configuration.

Parts of an Utterance

PRE-HEAD: It goes before the first accented syllable.

  • Low Prehead: No mark.
  • High Prehead: Marked with –

HEAD: It begins with the first accented syllable until the syllable before the nucleus.

Head Types

  • High Head: First syllable of head high in pitch. All subsequent syllables in head high and level. HF, LF, HR, LR, (FR), RF, ML.
  • Falling Head: First syllable in head high in pitch. All subsequent syllables lower than preceding syllable. FR, ML.
  • Rising Head: First syllable in head low in pitch. All subsequent syllables higher than preceding syllable. HF, (RF).
  • Low Head: First syllable in head low in pitch. All subsequent syllables in head low and level. LR.

NUCLEAR TONE: It is in the nucleus. It is a pitch configuration.

Nuclear Tone Types

  • High Fall: High pitch on nucleus falling to low. All tail syllables low & level.
  • Low Fall: Mid pitch on nucleus falling to low. All tail syllables low and level.
  • Low Rise: Low pitch on nucleus, rising steadily to the end of the intonation pattern.
  • High Rise: Mid pitch or above on nucleus, rising steadily to end of intonation pattern.
  • Mid Level: Mid pitch on nucleus, sustained to end of intonation pattern.
  • Fall-Rise: High pitch on nucleus, falling to low, leveling out and rising towards end of tail.
  • Rise-Fall: Mid or low pitch on nucleus, rising to high by end of nucleus or next syllable, falling to low and then leveling out to end of intonation pattern.

TAIL: It is all the rest of the syllables. It begins with the syllable after the nucleus.

Tail Types

  • Low level: Falling nuclear tone.
  • Rising Tail: Rising nuclear tone. Not higher than mid-range.

Steps for Intonation Analysis

  1. Stressed syllables.
  2. Nucleus.
  3. Accents (circles).
  4. Intonation Chart.
  5. Parts of the utterance.
  6. Types of the parts.