Re: Intonation patterns

On Sun, 25 Jul 1999, Mia Soderquist wrote:

> I was wondering whether other people plan their intonation patterns, or
> discover them when they start speaking the language aloud. I've pretty
> much discovered intonation when I start reading/speaking aloud.
>
I've never thought much about intonation patterns (just as I hadn't
given a thought to phonology) when I started Denden. However, when I
started making recordings, and listening to them, which I've been
doing since about 1990, I've noticed that the language began to get
an intonation pattern of itself. It was quite nice to see the changes
in intonation (and pronounciation) since my earliest 'teach yourself
Denden' course. I don't think I could pick an intonation pattern
and stick to it, I couldn't even get it right in natural languages
I learnt, like Nepali, except by imitation.

I still couldn't do a description of the intonation of Denden based
on my recording, although a few interesting facts, like the special
pronounciation of 'brother' and 'sister' in street gangs, I mentioned
here a while ago.

>
> Now that I am getting more comfortable with Yufora (much more
> comfortable than I was when I made that first awful recording that is
> still on the web page), I find that questions have a drop at the end. It
> is almost a downhill sentence all the way. :)
>
Yes, I noticed a slight hesitation in that recording - when are you
going to put up the new recording, and let us listen to the
question-marking downdrift? I wonder how unique that feature is - I
haven't heard of it before (but that's not saying much ;-).

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt