Re: Pitch and tense

Joe Mondello wrote:
>
> tonight i was talking to a friend who speaks in a raised pitch whenever
> talking about something that happened to her, and i got the idea that this
> would work well with Nzva, which sounds very monotone.  the present tense,
> when said in a high pitch (i am using the term without being sure that it's
> appropriate), is the narrative past tense.  normal past tense is formed by
> the past tense of the modal auxiliary pan ("to do" i suppose would be the bst
> translation of that):
examples snipped

> I am still not sure how to write the high pitch, or whether the whole
> sentence or just the verb should be in a high pitch, but for now the idea
> stands. any comments?
>
> pacs precs
> Joe Mondello
I think it's a fascinating idea, Joe, and very believable, as we often
pitch our voices differently when we're imitating discourse.  I don't
know what your friend's quirks were, but I imagine that tension also
causes some of us to raise our voices unconsciously.  But I think it
very natural to imagine this idiosyncracy developing into a strategy
for conveying narrative, quoted, reported past.  What do you do,
however, about the chronically nervous speaker? <G>

Sally