Degree in English Studies. Option: English Pronunciation.

Lecturer: Ekaterina Sinyashina

Topic 4: Suprasegmentals

Unit 11. Pitch

Lecture 11
The aims of Unit 11 are:

To understand the notion of suprasegmentals.

To be able to define pitch and tone.

To be aware of the existence of tone languages.

To understand the lexical and grammatical use of tone.

To make the difference between tones and pitch-accents.

To know the basic dynamic tones of the English language

together with their communicative functions.

To practise phonemic transcription.

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Degree in English Studies. Option: English Pronunciation. Lecturer: Ekaterina Sinyashina

Pitch

1. Introduction

In Phonetics, Suprasegmental, also called Prosodic Feature, is a

speech feature such as stress, tone, or word juncture, that
accompanies or is added over consonants and vowels; these features
are not limited to single sounds but often extended over syllables,
words, or phrases. Suprasegmentals are so called in contrast to
consonants and vowels, which are treated as serially ordered
segments of the spoken utterance.
In Spanish stress is often used to distinguish between otherwise
identical words, e.g. término means term and termino means I finish.
In Mandarin Chinese tone is a distinctive suprasegmental, e.g. shih
pronounced on a high level note means to lose; on a slight rising note
means ten, on a falling note means city, market, and on a falling-
rising note it means history. In English nitrate and night rate are
distinguished by word juncture. These examples illustrate functional
suprasegmentals. Non-functional suprasegmentals that do not change
the meaning of words or phrases also exist, e.g. stress in French.
Pitch may be defined as “the sensation which corresponds to
the fundamental frequency of a periodic sound, varying between high
and low.” (Rocher 2001: 111). It may also be defined as “the relative

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Degree in English Studies. Option: English Pronunciation. Lecturer: Ekaterina Sinyashina

highness or lowness of a tone as perceived by the ear, which depends

on the number of vibrations per second produced by the vocal cords.
Pitch is the most important correlate of tone and intonation.”
(http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1357164/pitch).
In some cases, it is the pitch level that distinguishes a word,
while in others it is a pitch movement. We refer to these
characteristics of pitch as tone. Therefore, tone may be defined as a
variation of the pitch of the voice while speaking. The word tone is
usually applied to those languages (called tone languages) in which
pitch serves to help distinguish words and grammatical categories,
i.e. in which pitch characteristics are used to differentiate one word
from another word that is otherwise identical in its sequence of
consonants and vowels. For example, man in Mandarin Chinese may
mean either deceive or slow depending on its pitch. One of the
interesting facts about languages is that some use tone in this
distinctive way, while others (including most European languages) do
not. Languages which use tone distinctively are called tone
languages. It is probably true to say that the majority of the world’s
population speaks a tone language, so it is surprising how little
importance is given to this aspect of speech in books on phonetics.
Perhaps this shows that the subject is dominated by speakers of
European languages. We find tone-languages in South-East Asia (e.g.
Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese), in much of South and West Africa
(e.g. Hausa, Yoruba and Zulu), and in indigenous languages of
America (e.g. Mixteco, Zapotec and Navajo).

Lexical and grammatical use of tone

Tone works in different ways in different languages. For example, we

may say tone has a lexical function when the meaning of a word (as it
would appear in a dictionary) is determined by its tone. By contrast,
tone has a grammatical function when the grammatical category of a
spoken utterance is determined by its tone. The English language is
characterised by a grammatical use of tone. The following major

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Degree in English Studies. Option: English Pronunciation. Lecturer: Ekaterina Sinyashina

tones may be clearly differentiated in the English language (O’Connor

& Arnold 1966):

a) High fall (Descendente alto):

Mary works in a bank

It is used in affirmative sentences, in Wh-questions or non- polar

questions, in question-tags (meaning requesting confirmation),
and in commands, e.g. Yes, she was there, What do you want?,
What time did you arrive?, How did they manage to learn it?,
Martha, you’re a genius. How on earth did you do that?, He lives
in London, doesn’t he?, Open the door, Let me in, etc.

b) Low fall (Descendente bajo):

Mary is always complaining

It is used to express that the answer was expected by the

receiver of the message. It may also be used to express lack of
interest or motivation on the part of the speaker.

c) High rise (Ascendente alto):

Do you like going to the cinema?

It is used in polar questions or to make an affirmative utterance

into an indirect question, e.g. ‛Yes?, Do you like the ‛city?,
You’re ‛leaving your job, etc.

d) Low rise (Ascendente bajo):

Please, come in!

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Degree in English Studies. Option: English Pronunciation. Lecturer: Ekaterina Sinyashina

It is used to express lack of interest or motivation. It is also used

before short pauses (marked with commas in written language),
e.g. Good ‚morning, ‚Please come in, I don’t know it is a ‚dog, a
‚cat, a ‚wolf or ‘what, etc.

e) Rising-falling (tono quebrado, ascendente-descendente):

It is mainly used to highlight words, e.g. ˆYes (meaning Of

course, Indeed), The ˆdriver doesn’t know the way, Is ˆthis what
you were looking for?, etc.

f) Falling-rising (tono quebrado, descendente-ascendente)

I can’t believe what you are saying

It is used to express doubt, surprise, astonishment, insecurity,

reservations or confusion. It is also used to check something
out, e.g. ˇYes (meaning surprise), I ˇthink he’s coming (meaning
I am not sure), If you ˇlike (meaning I am not sure it is the best
thing to do).

Tones and pitch-accents

Nobody has ever claimed that English is a tone language. However,
pitch and pitch movements play an important role in English and
similar languages in marking out certain syllables as distinctive and
important. If you say the word ‘important’ on its own, you will
probable notice that on the middle syllable the pitch of your voice
steps up from the pitch of the first syllable, then glides down to the
lower pitch of the final syllable. This distinctive pitch movement is
sometimes known as accent, and the middle syllable can be said to
be accented. It is not always easy to distinguish this function of pitch
from the tonal contrasts that we have been looking at. In a number of
languages which are not normally thought of as tone languages it is

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Degree in English Studies. Option: English Pronunciation. Lecturer: Ekaterina Sinyashina

possible to find pairs of words which really seem to be distinguished

from each other by pitch characteristics, the Japanese, Swedish and
Serbo-Croat languages are some illustrative examples.
In a tone language, pitch variation is used on practically all the
syllables or words of the language, but in the cases just mentioned,
only a limited number of words are distinguished by pitch. To avoid
having to class Japanese, Swedish, Norwegian, and Serbo-Croat as
tone languages, we say that they are pitch-accent languages, and
that certain words are distinguished by pitch-accents.

References

Alcaraz Varó, E. & Moody, B. 1990. (2ª ed.). Fonética Inglesa para Españoles.
Pp. 179-190. Alcoy: Marfil.

O’Connor, J. D. & Arnold, G. F. 1966. Intonation of Colloquial English. Pp. 80-

257. London: Longman.

Roach, P. 2001. Phonetics. Pp. 25-29.Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Web references

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1357164/pitch

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/599104/tone

Seminar 1

Read the text above carefully and answer the

following questions:

1. Define in your own words the concept of suprasegmental.

2. Why are vowels and consonants called segmental phonemes?

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Degree in English Studies. Option: English Pronunciation. Lecturer: Ekaterina Sinyashina

3. Why are stress, tone, and word juncture called suprasegmental

phonemes?

4. Which suprasegmental phonemes may be considered to be

lexically distinctive in Spanish? Please illustrate your answer with
one example.

5. Which suprasegmental phoneme may be considered to be lexically

distinctive in English? Please illustrate your answer with one
example.

6. Why do we say that Mandarin Chinese is a tone language?

7. Define in your own words the concept of pitch.

8. Define in your own words the concept of tone.

9. Is English a tone language? What sort of function does tone play in

English?

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Degree in English Studies. Option: English Pronunciation. Lecturer: Ekaterina Sinyashina

10. State the major tones of the English language, describe and
illustrate their different functions with significant examples.

11. What is a pitch-accent language? Illustrate your answer with

examples.

12. Summarize the main contents of the reading passage above in

the box below (250 words).

Seminar 2

Phonemic Transcription

1. Look at the sounds /kw/, /w/, /n/ and/ŋ/ and think what
English letters, combinations of letters or positions of letters
in a word give these sounds.

2. Transcribe the following sentences using the phonemic

symbols.

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Degree in English Studies. Option: English Pronunciation. Lecturer: Ekaterina Sinyashina

1. I wish you’d wash the dishes with that cloth.

/aɪ wɪʃ ju:d wɒʃ ðə/e ˈdɪʃɪz wɪð ðᴂt klɒθ//

2. We found the treasure very easily.

/wi: faʊnd ðə/e ˈtreƷƏ ˈverɪ/i ˈi:zɪlɪ/i//

3. They visited the zoo with some of their relatives.

/ðeɪ ˈvɪzɪtɪd ðe/ə zu: wɪð sʌm ɒ/əv ðeƏ ˈrelƏtɪvz//

4. Alice’s blouse was stolen together with her shoes.

/ˈᴂlɪsɪz blaʊz wƏ/ɒz ˈstƏʊlƏn tƏˈgeðƏ wɪð hɜ: ʃu:z//

5. The day they died, we thought the trouble was over.

/ðe/Ə deɪ ðeɪ daɪd/wi: θɔ:t ðe/Ə ˈtrʌb(Ə)l wɒz ˈƏʊvƏ//

6. The robber ran round the rocks to the river.

/ ðe/Ə ˈrɒbƏ rᴂn raʊnd ðe rɒks tʊ/Ə ðe/Ə ˈrɪvƏ//

7. He drowned his sorrows in strong drink.

/hi: draʊnd hɪz ˈsɒrƏʊz ɪn strɒŋ drɪŋk//

8. Why has Harry got his hand on his heart?

/waɪ hæz ˈhærɪ/i gɒt hɪz hænd ɒn hɪz hɑ:(r)t//

9. Why is there so much chalk on the teacher’s jacket?

/waɪ ɪz ðeə səʊ mʌʧ ʧɔ:k ɒ/Ən ðe/Ə ˈti:ʧəz ˈʤækɪt//

10. I wish the watches in the shops were cheaper.

/aɪ wɪʃ ðe/Ə ˈwɒʧɪz ɪn ðe/Ə ʃɒps wɜ:/Ə ˈʧi:pə//

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Degree in English Studies. Option: English Pronunciation. Lecturer: Ekaterina Sinyashina

Please upload the phonemic transcription of the

sentences together with your self-assessment comments,
specifying the mistakes you made and highlighting all
corrections in red ink.

Seminar 3

Oral Reading

Practice reading the sentences from Seminar 2. When you

feel you are ready, record your oral reading of the
sentences and upload it to Moodle.

References

Hancock, M. 2003. English Pronunciation in Use (Intermediate).

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jones, D. 2006. Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary. 17th
Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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