Intonational Phrases
We communicate by breaking our messages into intonational phrases. Each intonational phrase conveys a specific piece of information, which we express using distinctive patterns of pitches (intonation), stresses, pauses, and specific ordering of words in a sentence. Whether we need to convey a statement, a question, or an exclamation, we follow a specific intonational contour, signaled through the rising or the lowering of the voice tone (or pitch).
For example, when we want to signal a complete thought, our voice pitch drops (falling intonation), as in a declarative statement. On the other hand, a rising in our voice signals that we have not yet completed out thoughts or that we are asking someone to complete the thought, meaning that we are asking a question (rising intonation).
In both English and Turkish, we use our voice tone (or pitch) to convey the meaning of our utterances, and both languages distinguish between three main intonation contours:
In English:
Falling tone: complete thoughts, wh-questions (who, which, where, when, why, and how)
Rising tone: yes/no questions
Fall-rise tone: incomplete thoughts, implicational statements
In Turkish:
Slight rise-fall tone: complete thoughts
High rise-fall tone: yes/no questions (questions with mı)
Slight rise + fall-rise tone: incomplete thoughts, wh-questions (ne, nerede, ne zaman, neden, kim)
Types of Questions
To understand the difference between the pitches, it may help to understand the difference between the different types of questions.
There are six common types of questions:
Yes-no question: a categorical question that expects the answer yes or no.
Wh-question (information question): a question requesting missing information (an opposite of a yes-no question).
Alternative question: a question asking for a choice.
Declarative question: a declarative statement asked as a question.
Elliptical question: a question with omitted words assumed to be understood by the listener.
Tag question: a short question attached to a statement, to soften an imperative statement or to signal the interrogative nature of the statement.
Falling Tone
After a falling tone, the rest of the information unit is at a low pitch, as in complete statements. Roughly speaking, the falling tone expresses certainty, completeness, independence. So, a straightforward statement normally ends with a failing tone, since it asserts a fact of which the speaker is certain and which the speaker does not expect to continue discussing. The falling tone has an air of finality (with the focuses shown in CAPS):
⭧ ⭨ ⭧ ⭨
Akşam evDE olacağız. Yardıma ihtiyaCIM var.
⭧ ⭨ ⭧ ⭨
We will be home in the EVening. I need HElp.
Rising Tone (English) vs. Rise-Fall Tone (Turkish)
A rising tone expresses uncertainty or incompleteness or dependence. After a rising tone, the rest of the information unit moves in an upward pitch direction, as in questions that are answered with yes or no (the so-called yes/no questions), expressed with mı in Turkish.
Yes/No Questions
In both English and Turkish, the rising tone signals that the speaker is uncertain of the truth of what they are asking about, and that he or she is seeking a categorical response of either yes or no. In English, a yes/no question has a rising tone till the end:
🠢 ⭧ 🠢 ⭧
Are we there yet? Have you asked her about it?
The Turkish speaker expresses a yes/no question as a question with mi, with the high rising pitch until reaching the boundary before mı, after which the speaker's voice dramatically falls. This happens because mı is a prestressing clitic, i.e., it generates stress for the preceding constituent:
⭧ ⭨ ⭎ ⭧ ⭨
Henüz VARmadık mı? Bunu ona sorDUN mu?
With its high, rising pitch, the yes/no question is imposing on the addressee. To downplay the imposition, we often rephrase such questions by using a hedging device or a minimizer. In both languages, such strategy involves rephrasing by adding something to change the intonational contour of the sentence. For example, in English, we could rephrase it by adding the softening please, a comment clause (I wonder, I suppose, etc.), or an endearing term if the relations are familiar (baby, honey, love):
⭧ ⭨ 🠢 ⭧ ⭨ 🠢
Are we there yet, I wonder? Can you help me, please?
In Turkish, the best strategy is to add at the end of the yes/no question an adverb or a special expression, such as acaba, yoksa, or bakalım to mitigate the potential harshness of the question (similarly to the English equivalent I wonder):
⭧ ⭨ 🠢 ⭧ ⭨ 🠢
Dersini zamanında bitirebileCEK misin, bakalım. Bana özel bir indirim yapabiLIR misiniz, acaba?
Well, let’s see if you can finish your homework on time. I wonder if you could give me a special discount.
By using bakalım, the speaker includes herself in the addressee.
👆 These expressions are added as afterthoughts, not as backgrounded elements, which is why they can be emphasized and bear an emotive enough force to counterbalance the strength of the yes/no question.
Elliptical Questions
In both languages, statements pronounced with a rising tone at the end are understood as questions (signaled by a question mark in writing). Such questions include elliptical questions with omitted words that are easily context-recoverable, which we use in conversations to save time and effort:
⭧ ⭧
Sugar? Şeker?
Topic Shifting
In both English and Turkish, shifting from one topic to another may have a rising intonation to signal initiation of a conversation:
⭧ ⭧
As for my health, I can show you the necessary certificates. Sağlığıma gelince, gerekli raporları gösterebilirim.
Introductory Phrases/Clauses
In English and Turkish, an introductory adverbial phrase or clause is also often spoken with a rising tone. The reason is that this information is incomplete and dependent on the main clause:
⭧ ⭧
If you like, we can have dinner at my place tonight. İsterseniz bu akşam benim evimde yemek yiyebiliriz.
Parenthetical Comments
Interrupting parenthetical comments in both languages are marked by low-key pitch to signal the break in the flow of the main clause:
⭨ ⭨
The kids (I'm sure of this) will not agree to it. Çocuklar, (bundan eminim) buna katılmayacak.
Politeness Device
In English, polite denials, commands, invitations, greetings, farewells, etc., are generally spoken with a rising tone:
A: Are you busy?
⭧
B: No. Come in.
Pronouncing no with rising tone would make it sound softer, more attentive, inviting.
Politeness Device: Tag Questions
In English, adding a tag question to a command turns it into a polite request:
⭧
Shut the door, will you?
Fall-Rise (English) & Slight Rise + Fall-Rise (Turkish)
Implicational Fall-Rise
In English, by making a statement with the fall-rise, the speaker typically states one thing but implies something further. Linguists call this tone the implicational fall-rise. The unexpressed implication can usually be formulated in a clause beginning but ..., which would make it explicit. The implicational fall-rise can be thought of as the tone that signals a but ... to come.
A: What a nasty cold day!
↘ ⭧
B: It's certainly cold [implied: ... but I wouldn't say nasty].
Tentative Implication
The English fall-rise can also be used to signal that the speaker is tentative about what he or she says. This is another case of the implicational fall-rise when the speaker makes a statement but implies that she is not sure or that she doesn't want to commit:
A: What shall we have to drink?
↘ ⭧
B: We could have a red wine, maybe.
Polite Corrections
In English, if we think someone has made a mistake, and we want to correct them, we use the fall-rise for polite corrections:
A: They are coming on Monday.
↘ ⭧
B: No, on Tuesday, sir.
Partial Statements
The English fall-rise is often used when we want to make a partial statement; that is, to say that something applies partly, to some extent, but not completely:
A: So you both live in London?
B: She does [implied: But I don't].
Wh-Questions
Wh-questions, also called informational questions, are asked to inquire about some missing information. The Turkish intonation pattern for wh-questions follows a slight rise and then a fall-rise, while English wh-questions match a falling tone:
⭧ ⭨ ⭧
Eve NE zaman gideceksiniz?
⭧ ⭨
When are you going home?
As you may have noticed, the boundaries of intonational phrases are generally aligned with shifts in the pitch tone. A fall-rise tone, signaling incompleteness and dependency, often occurs at the boundaries of incomplete phrases or clauses to signal that something else is coming: for example, after subordinate clauses (adverbial or conditional clauses) in complex sentences and after all but the last items in a series. A falling tone signals completeness and independence and thus marks the boundaries of independent clauses in compound sentences.
In literary Turkish, as the example below shows, sentences are often long with many intonational phrases (nine in the sentence below); several topics (three below: biz, biz, düşünmemiz, shown with ꜱᴍᴀʟʟ ᴄᴀᴘꜱ) and/or topic shifters (one below: Kant’a göreyse) (which bear secondary stresses); focused positions (bearing primary stresses, shown with regular CAPS), and other stressed positions of semantically emphasized words (tam, her, yani, shown with ꜱᴍᴀʟʟ ᴄᴀᴘꜱ):
T(shift)↘ ⭧ ↘ ⭧ ↘T ⭧ 🠢 F ⭨ ↘ T ⭧ 🠢 F ⭨
Kant’a görEYse, | ᴛᴀᴍ tersine, | ʙɪᴢ, | objelere nitelikLER yükleriz; | çünkü ʙɪᴢ | bu biçimDE düşünürüz; |
For Kant, on the contrary, we think in such a way that we attribute qualities to objects, that whatever we think about,
↘ T ⭧ ↘ ⭧ 🠢 F ⭨
çünkü ᴅüşüɴᴍᴇᴍɪᴢ | ʜᴇʀ yerde öznelerle yüklemler oluşturmaya, | ʏᴀɴɪ zihnimizin bu formlarını kullanmaYA çalışır.
we are inclined to accompany subjects with predicates, and that out way of thinking is adapted to the forms of our minds.
Dil Felsefesi
Old Information & New Information
In a conversation, we tend to start statements with some old or given information (something that we have already mentioned before or assume to be known) and end with new or the most important information.
In conversations, we use pitch-intonation, stresses, pauses, and different word orders to signal the start and the end of an intonational phrase as well as the constituent of the phrase that we want to emphasize. In speech, using intonation, we can also distinguish new information from older information.
With old, or given, information, we communicate our topic, which often coincides with the subject of the sentence and involves a mild (secondary) stress. The new information consists of the sentence’s focus, which is its most emphasized constituent, marked with the heaviest (primary) stress.
Main Stress Positions
Whether it is English or Turkish, regular statements in each language follow a language-specific natural stress pattern, consisting of the following main stress positions: topic (T), focus (F), and background (B).
Topic (Old)
In both English and Turkish, topics are positioned at the beginning of the sentence. In English, which is a subject-prominent language, topics and subjects almost always coincide. In Turkish, which can be subject- and topic-prominent, topics can be any constituent: subjects, objects, complements, adverbials, etc.
The topic in a sentence tends to represent some old information, which connects to what has already been discussed. Topics are essential for maintaining cohesive and context-tied communication. In spoken regular sentences, to announce the start of a sentence and to signal what the sentence is about, the sentence-initial topic is mildly stressed (often receiving the secondary stress).
For example, the word kız, for the first time mentioned in the first sentence, becomes the topic of the second sentence:
Sadece evin kızı hastabakıcı kursuna girmişti. Kız, (T) onu gülümseyerek karşıladı.
The daughter of the family had simply begun a nursing course. The girl greeted him with a smile.
Ahmed Hamdi Tanpınar, Huzur
Focus (New)
The sentence’s most prominent position, the focus, conveys something new or important, which is often the main point of the sentence.
While the English focus is positioned at the very end the sentence, the Turkish focus is positioned very close to the end of the sentence, which is immediately before the verb. For example, compare the natural stress patterns in English and Turkish (with the focus shown in CAPS):
Kız kardeşim, evine TRENLE gitti.
T F
My sister went home by TRAIN.
T F
Depending on the context, the topic and focus positions can also signal contrastive stressing: specifically, contrastive topic (c-T) and/or contrastive focus (c-F), which receives the heaviest stress and tends to be complemented by the de-emphasized backgrounding.
Background (Given)
In addition to old and new information, there is also given or presupposed information that is assumed to be shared by most of us, the historical truths that we feel are universal and axiomatic. As such, the presupposed information is regarded by the speaker as a given truth, or something that is so self-evident that requires no additional intonational effort. The boundaries of the backgrounded part are markedly de-stressed and low pitch, reflecting the speaker's switching to the energy-saving mode of de-emphasizing.
Thus, the common ways to indicate givenness include:
De-stressing, which is an acoustic reduction in intonation.
Ellison (omission), an extreme form of reduction.
Backgrounding in English
In English, stress often marks the difference between given and new information: speakers clearly emphasize any new or important details, balancing them off by de-stressing the presupposed details:
“Is this your lizard?”
“NO, not THAT [lizard], THE OTHER [one].”
c-F c-T B c-F B
In English writing, backgrounding can also be exhibited in special focusing constructions such as it-cleft or wh-cleft sentences:
“I’ve heard she left by bus.”
“NO, it was BY TRAIN [that she left].”
c-F T c-F B
Backgrounding in Turkish
In Turkish, any constituent placed after the verb loses its prominence. The most frequently backgrounded element, whether in speech or writing, is the explicit topic/subject.
The main reasons for that are these:
Topics can be easily inferred from the context, so to save intonational effort, speakers opt to move them to the intonationally de-emphasized area.
Bringing the sentence-initial, context-inferable topic/subject closer to the verb makes the sentence easier to process, especially if the sentence is long and the topic and the predicate are separated by many constituents.
Some other reasons may be:
Shifting stressing positions within a sentence.
Reducing the number of stress positions in sentences with other additional focusing devices, such as pre-stressing clitics or focusing adverbs.
Creating a rhythmic structure, used in poetry, songs, drama.
For example, in the exchange below, the backgrounded topic/subject (o) shifts the adverbial (trenle) to the contrastive focal position:
“Kız kardeşin otobüsle mi gitti?”
“YOK, TRENLE [gitti, o].”
c-F B
“Did your sister left by bus?”
“NO, she left by TRAIN.”
c-F T c-F
Neutral (Unmarked) Sentences
Regular, or canonical, statements are neutral in their tone, with the topic and focus being only mildly stressed. What’s convenient about regular statements is their universal neutrality: whether they are spoken or written, both listeners and readers will process them by following the same natural stress pattern.
This is why regular, neutral statements are used in academic and formal writing, or as an opening sentence of an essay, presentation, or conversation.
Emphatic (Marked) Sentences
When we get emotional, however, we do not want to appear or sound neutral; we want to appear partial because we want to convey something important by emphasizing it. In speech, we may emphasize a constituent by pronouncing it with a higher pitch or a stronger stress; we may precede or follow it by a dramatic pause; or we may change the ordering of words in the statement altogether. In writing, however, our options are limited.
Apart from word order variations and special grammatical structures, punctuation is the ultimate, purely graphical way of organizing the written text, including indicating the stress positions, highlighting the emphasized elements, and signaling emotional undertones.
Comentarios