• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.119-128
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• 2009

Many researchers have argued about the relationship between information structure and intonation. Their results can be summarized in three main points: the intonation of topic and focus in English information structures is implemented as i) a pitch accent, ii) a tune (a pitch accent + (an) edge tone(s)), or iii) a boundary tone. The purpose of this paper is to study various intonational patterns of topic and focus in English information structures, using natural conversations. In this paper, the types of topics and foci are divided, based on contrastiveness. The topics are classified as five non-contrastive and four contrastive topics. The foci are classified as neutral focus, informational focus, and contrastive focus. The results show that the intonation of the topic in English information structures is mainly implemented as a pitch accent, except for the type of the pronoun topic (Lp) which is not implemented as a pitch accent or a tune. However, the intonation of the focus is implemented as a tune in the neutral focus (Fn) and as a pitch accent or a tune in the informational focus (Fi) and the contrastive focus (Fe). In our discussion and conclusion, we suggest that it is not always true that for the meaning of contrast, the topic or the focus is represented as a $L+H^{\ast}$ pitch accent, which has been the main contrastive intonation from earlier studies.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.109-125
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• 2000

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the intonational meaning of various sentences based on the English Intonational Phonology, and to show the superiority of Intonational Phonology in explaining the intonational meanings in comparison with the other existing intonational theories. The American structuralists and British schools which attempt to describe the intonation in terms of 'levels' and 'configurations' respectively, analyze intonational meaning from a holistic perspective in which an utterance cannot be divided into smaller parts. On the other hand, Intonational Phonology considers English intonation as composed of a series of High and Low tones, and as a result, intonational meaning is interpreted compositionally as sets of H and L. In this paper, the phonological relations between intonation and its meaning from the compositions of pitch accents, phrase accents, and boundary tones which consist of an intonational tune are discussed.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.6
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• pp.119-143
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• 1999

In this paper, the development of English Intonational Phonology is introduced. The existing representation systems of intonation are largely divided into the American structuralist school and the British school, which describe intonation by means of 'levels' and 'configurations' respectively. Both representation systems have some theory-internal problems, however. As for the American school, there is no way to represent pitches much lower than the reference line, while the system of intonation in the British school is limited in that intonation is described in a phonetic impressionistic way rather than from a phonological perspective. Intonational Phonology, a real phonological approach, which has grown out of the basic assumptions of autosegmental-metrical(AM) theory has been suggested by Pierrehumbert(1980). In her approach, an intonational tune is made up of one or more pitch accents, followed by an obligatory phrase accent and an obligatory boundary tone, and interestingly 22 combinations are possible. Intonational Phonology has been revised from Beckman & Pierrehumbert(1986) in developing ToBI(Tones & Break Indices), a proposed standard for labelling prosodic features of digital speech databases in English.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.97-112
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• 2000

This study examines how both English native speakers and Korean speakers realize the intonational tunes of English sentences when a sentence has two different meanings, through comparison of the utterances of the two groups of speakers. The results indicate that the English native speakers realize the difference in the meanings of given sentences in terms of differences in the boundary tones, as predicted in Pierrehumbert(1980) and Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg(l990), according to whom intonation is composed of a series of pitch accents, phrase tones, and boundary tones, and the meaning of a given sentence is delivered by the composition of the individual meanings of each component. The Korean speakers, however, fail to realize the difference in meaning with its boundary tones. Rather, they realize it by the number or positions of pitch accents and paralinguistic cues such as emotions and gestures. The Korean speakers, unlike the Americans, emphasize subject in sentences.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.163-167
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• 2003

Intonation as suprasegmental phonetic features conveys meanings on the postlexical or utterance level in a linguistically structured way. It includes three aspects: tunes, relative prominence, and intonational phrasing. In this article, I will treat how prosodic phrasing is functionally related to the listening comprehension of English by analysing the students' errors of listening comprehension. When utterance meaning is conveyed, it is realized to be divided into intonational phrases. The small intonational phrase is regarded as an intermediate phrase which has a primary accent and a phrase tone or audible break. Most students' errors of listening occurred with linking pronunciation in the intermediate phrases of the fast speech. Thus through the smallest unit with tune we can help students improve their pronunciation and listening ability of English.