Notation systems

Linguistic analysis and the teaching of spoken language cannot disregard its prosody. That is why notation systems of prosodic phenomena are equally important both for research work and language teaching.

There is a fairly wide variety of notations that are being used in printed matter {papers, articles, textbooks, etc.). The aim of this chapter, however, is not to discuss all types of systems, but to acquaint the reader with the most widely used ones, so that he may read and reproduce them accurately.

It has already been mentioned, that any system of notation is a generalization of a great variety of linguistically relevant sound phenomena. The extent of the generalization may vary. Depending on what the notation is intended for, it may be broad or narrow.

For research work it is essential to discriminate all the linguistically relevant prosodic contrasts, both major and minor; whereas for teaching purposes it is generally sufficient to discriminate only the features that are more significant, frequent and easily perceived. A broad notation is intended to reflect only the most relevant prosodic features by using the fewest possible symbols. These symbols should represent intonation visually as clearly as possible and act as a pictorial stimulus for immediate reproduction. A narrow notation is intended to be more detailed and precise.

One should not be misled into thinking that the more detailed the notation is, the more valuable it is. Phonetic precision is not the main point. A highly detailed notation may turn out to be too complicated and inadequate even for the scholar, if it does not reflect the differences in the degrees of significance of the prosodic data which it denotes. There are various degrees of significance that it is necessary to discriminate. Even the narrow notation is to provide the scholar with means of indicating what is linguistically more relevant and what is less relevant. One should look for distinctive features in prosody, and these are the features that are to be adequately represented. Thus, adequate representation of distinctive features is the most essential requirement a system of prosodic notation is to satisfу.

There is a number of means to denote prosodic features: the musical notation, the head and nucleus system, the tonetic stress-mark system, the intonation contour system, the numerical or number system and others. These notations reflect the differences in the theoretical assumptions of scholars and the interpretation of prosodic data.

Until recently intonation was normally defined as pitch movement {or melody) alone. That is perhaps the main reason why one of the first attempts to represent intonation visually was the introduction of a musical notation. Scholars as far back as the 19th century used musical symbols to indicate the pitch changes in the voice, i.e. to transcribe what they considered to be intonation.

The next important development in the system of denoting prosodic phenomena was a notation within the line of the text. It was devised by H.Palmer, who used arrows inserted in the text to mark the pitch change in the nucleus (the most prominent word in a tone—group). H.Palmer's tonetic notation reflects his so—called "head-nucleus" approach to intonation, in which the central unit is the tone group. The tone group, in its turn, consists of two important elements: the nucleus and the head.

His notation system was accepted without any significant alterations by many English scholars (e.g. D.Jones, L.Armstrong and I.Ward, W.Lee and others).A rather accurate system was developed by R.Kingdon. It is known as t'h e tonetic stress — mark system. R.Kingdon considers stress to be a very important factor in giving prominence and associates it with pitch. Thus one and the same mark indicates stress and tone simultaneously.He distinguishes stressed syllables of two kinds: those in which the vocal cords remain at a given tension, producing a note of constant pitch (Static Tones); and those in which their tension changes, thus producing a sound of varying pitch (Kinetic Tones).There are other notation systems which aim at supplying the investigator with means of representing and discriminating various prosodic phenomena.

One of these systems is that of D.Crystal. It includes symbols to mark various degrees of pitch variation, pitch range, pause, loudness, speed, rhythmicality and tension.

Дата добавления: 2015-08-03