Bruce,
What you’re describing are what linguists refer to as paralinguistic gestures. You’re right that they aren’t part of the language, but part of the culture, and they vary across cultures. They also, as you observe, tend to use sounds that are not part of the structure of the language. The “tsk” is voiceless dental click, a sound found widely in the Southern Bantu and Khoi-San languages of southern Africa. I agree with your description of “hrumph,” a glottal stop followed by an /m/. The “soft implosive h,” if it’s the sound I’m familiar with, is a pulmonic ingressive vowel, usually like the vowel in “pet.” That’s a sound that is only used paralinguistically. Languages do not use a pulmonic ingressive airstream mechanism in speech. Try speaking while breathing in, and you’ll see why. In Nigeria a nasalized “eh” as in “spent” means “no”; “eheh” with the vowel of “pet” in both syllables and a rising pitch pattern means “yes.” It sounds enough like the “no” grunt in English to be confusing until you’re familiar with it.
Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce Despain
Sent: 2008-02-28 10:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Right- and left-branching sentences and intonation
I'm leaving the topic of intonation because I had a thought this morning that relates to what I had asked about yesterday. When I read the sentence,
"Tut, tut," said he, . . .
I realized that I might have written "Tsk, tsk," but to be accurate would also be inclined to think "he uttered, . . . " In other words, it appears that the emotive sounds of this level of communication have been brought into the English language and given only approximative spellings, because they usually do not contain the normal phonemes of English. I think this sound is a forceful implosive t doubled. Another example would be "hrumph" which is really a forceful glottal stop nasal made without opening the mouth, usually communicating disbelief. Such sounds are evidently a part of a different level of communication, like body language and gestures. We would not make these latter modes of communication into English (instead we might describe the positions and movements of the communicants), but would clearly want to consider them part and parcel of our culture. For example, in Europe the soft implosive h expresses assent as self-evident. I hardly hear it in the U.S. Perhaps emotive language of the sort I was asking about is not part of grammar, but has been adopted by writers free to practice their own conventions and mete out abuse in this unpoliced area. Free modifiers don't usually share the same level of communication as the emotive utterances, though they tend to share the same punctuation -- rather like parasites on the back of sentence syntax.
Bruce
>>> Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 02/28/08 6:51 AM >>>
Bruce,
I was thinking myself how little attention has been given to
intonation and punctuation. Sometimes I think linguists become
interested in something in inverse proportion to its usefulness, but
that may be a writing teacher's perspective.
The reason why Christensen sets off free modifiers with commas is
because they are not bound up within the core sentence groups that they
modify. He is opposed to "loading the patterns", which gives a single
intonation group with a lot of modifiers embedded. He writes on a number
of occasions about "the eloquence of speech", in part because speech
tends to portion meaning out in right branching ways. It's interesting
to see him argue against a T-group analysis which includes these
structures as part of a core clause and not as independent. It has, as
he points out, a big influence on readability. Here's a response to
Hunt's argument for density inside the clause: "We should not in our
grammar and composition courses focus on tying syntactic knots that we
must add courses in reading to untie." ("The Problem of Defining a
Mature Style").
Restrictive and nonrestrictive modification depends on intonation in
speech, and only punctuation can help us finesse those nuances in writing.
"He dislikes politicians who put election ahead of the truth." "He
dislikes politicians, who put election ahead of the truth." The first
narrows the category down and leaves hope that some politicians might
rise above it. The second condemns all politicians and then gives the
reason why. They would be intoned as a single group or as two groups if
we were speaking them.
"Sentences can vary widely in the amount of information they contain
and in the way that information is organized." (I'm quoting myself
here.) A "free modifier" portions information out in its own intonation
group. Within the group, of course, you have places of tonal prominence
(a peak in the sound wave.) The default position is the end of the unit.
You can tie this in with given and new.
Halliday has much to contribute in a number of places; publication of
his book on intonation keeps getting shuffled back, though I'm told it's
in final production stages.
Intonation is a grammar system in speech. We need more attention to
how to harness it in writing, in how to carry it over.
Craig
Bruce D. Despain wrote:
> The site looks great, I'll look into it.
> I think there are a number of issues we don't spend much time on in
> grammar that have to do with intonation. This does not seem to relate
> to the sentence, as much as to the utterance. Consider such words
> usually classed as exclamatives or interjections, that are sometimes
> not even covered by phonology. There are usage problems: mispelling
> "O" as "Oh" and the British are forever spelling "uh" as "er" Tsk,
> tsk! and oh uh! about that. There is no syntax here to speak of, just
> prosody. I suppose punctuation should be mentioned as well.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Edmond Wright"
> <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 9:41 AM
> Subject: Re: Right- and left-branching sentences and intonation
>
>
>>> Herb,
>>
>> The Policeman sentence is an excellent example -- one that you can still
>> just say with understanding. Again one has to gabble 'the dog bit' at a
>> very low level of pitch, and pause momentarily after 'called'. The
>> 'House
>> that Jack built' example is made more difficult at every level when the
>> repetition of 'ate' kicks in.
>>
>> Bruce is clearly right over the part played by intonation here. I don't
>> know of any studies -- they are obviously called for. Whether
>> intonation
>> can be neatly quantified is another matter -- for one thing, consider
>> how to
>> invest what you are saying with an ironic tone, or one of disbelief,
>> or of
>> boredom, etc. -- or perhaps you have to leave moods on one side and
>> stick
>> with grammatical effects.
>>
>> Edmond
>>
>>
>> Dr. Edmond Wright
>> 3 Boathouse Court
>> Trafalgar Road
>> Cambridge
>> CB4 1DU
>> England
>>
>> Email: [log in to unmask]
>> Website: http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/elw33/
>> Phone [00 44] (0)1223 350256
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I wish I were still teaching so I could use that one. My favorite had
>>> been "The policeman the boy the dog bit called came," but Jack's
>>> left-branching house beats that one hands down.
>>>
>>> Herb
>>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>
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