Mancunian Intonation and Intonational Representation

Abstract

There has been little systematic description of the intonation of English accents other than RP and General American. In the first part of this article the characteristics of the tones of Mancunian intonation are described together with a functional categorisation of these tones, in which a dichotomy is proposed between Open and Closed varieties. In the second part the description is related to the current model of intonation known as ToBI and the inadequacies of a representation of Mancunian tones in a standard and a modified form of ToBI are revealed. A more radical modification of the ToBI approach based on tonal features is proposed.

Segmental and suprasegmental change in North West Yorkshire – a new case of supralocalisation ?

“…The rising part of the contour may sometimes span as little as 15-20 Hz, and its slumping section no more than [10][11][12]). This corresponds to what Cruttenden (2001bCruttenden ( : 57-59, 2007 54 A number of rise-falls, where the pitch returns to the speakers' baseline ( fig. 18), are also observed at the end of declaratives where RP speakers would have used simple falls.…”

“…They are described as the unmarked tones for statements in UNBI (Ladd, 1996 : 123). Cruttenden (2001bCruttenden ( : 57, 2007 also suggests that the variation observed between these patterns and simple falls at the end of statements in some northern British cities testifies to UNBI being used in alternation with RPI. If that is the case, UNBI rises testify to the co-occurrence of two distinct intonational systems and have phonological status.…”

“…Rather, they characterise Urban North British Intonation, or UNBI (Cruttenden, 2007), which Cruttenden (2007 : 257, 271) defines as 'an intonational system that operates in a number of cities in northern Britain […] characterised by a default intonation involving rising or rising-slumping nuclear pitch patterns'. Cruttenden often observes an alternation of UNBI and RP intonation (henceforth RPI) in the speech of the same informers (Cruttenden, 2001b(Cruttenden, , 2007Wilhelm 2015).…”

“…53 These patterns comprise contours which usually begin low to mid on the main accent of the intonation group according to the degree of speaker involvement, with a rising nuclear accent and a 'slumping' -that is, according to Cruttenden's (2001bCruttenden's ( , 2007 terminology, slightly falling -tail. The rising part of the contour may sometimes span as little as 15-20 Hz, and its slumping section no more than [10][11][12]).…”

De toon waarop: Wat is intonatie en hoe kan het afwijken van de norm?

“…in het Schots Engels geen onderscheid is in de klinkers in Luke and look, terwijl de uitspraak van deze klinkers in andere Engelse dialecten wel verschilt), zo kunnen talen ook verschillen in de set van intonatiecontouren die ze tot hun beschikking hebben (Ladd, 2008). Zo kent het Amerikaans Engels bijvoorbeeld niet de zogeheten 'rise-plateau-slump' (een L*HL% oftewel een stijging op de beklemtoonde syllabe gevolgd door een geleidelijke daling of een steilere daling aan het einde van de intonatiefrase), terwijl deze wel voorkomt in het Engels gesproken in het noorden van Groot-Brittannië (Cruttenden, 2001;Ladd, 2008). Een ander voorbeeld is de dalend-stijgende intonatie op 'ziek' die we in het Nederlands kennen in een zin als 'Maar je bent toch niet ziek?'.…”