4 - A theory of intonation

Summary

Introduction

In chapter 2, we elaborated on how intonation manifests itself phonetically at the three usual levels of description: production, acoustics and perception. We emphasized that, ideally, these three phonetic aspects should be studied in a complementary fashion, with the aim of integrating these various forms of appearance into one coherent phonetic description that also allows a natural link with a more abstract, phonological characterization of intonation.

In chapter 3, we presented the major features of the IPO approach to the study of intonation. One salient characteristic of this approach is its emphasis on perception. From a historical point of view, our perceptual vantage point was, at first, a practical option. Indeed, in the absence of physiological research facilities, the production aspect could not be the natural starting point of the investigation. Secondly, in the early sixties the acoustic analysis of F_o still caused great difficulty and, whenever it produced a qualitatively satisfactory result, it confronted the investigators with a wealth of physical detail that could not be interpreted in any straightforward way. Indeed, the measured F_o curves did not suggest by themselves a suitable descriptive unit whose application would result in some form of data reduction. Such a unit offered itself quite naturally in the perceptual domain where – impressionistically at least – the course of pitch could be decomposed into a sequence of discrete pitch movements.