TONICITY

 Tonicity: the study of the position of the nucleus

whithin an IP.

 Some important concepts to understand tonicity:

• Accent: a stressed syllable with pitch prominence.

• Focus: the parts of an intonation group that are in

focus are the parts that the tune is designed to call
attention to; the parts the speaker wants the
listener to pay attention to.
• Intonation Phrase (IP): any stretch of speech over
which an identifiable intonation tune operates; it has
four subunits: PREHEAD, HEAD, NUCLEUS and TAIL .

• Nucleus: the last stressed syllable in an IP that is also

an accent; it draws attention to new information.

• New information: something that hasn’t been

mentioned before; a new idea or topic.

• Old information: information that is common

knowledge, shared between the speakers.
• Content words or lexical items: nouns, main
verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

• Form or function words or grammatical

items: articles, conjunctions, pronouns,
auxiliary verbs.
 Locating the nucleus:

• Unmarked tonicity:
- a conceptual construction; all intonation is
context-sensitive
- End focus: the nucleus is the last content word
of the IP.

• Marked tonicity: the nucleus is a non-final

content or function word.

(See examples in your notes for Unit 3, p. 4)

 Rules for locating the nucleus:
a) Pragmatically controlled locations:

• When all the information is new, the nucleus is

the stressed syllable of the last content word.

• If the last content word contains old

information, the nucleus will be located on the
stressed syllable of the preceding content word.

(See examples in your notes for Unit 3, p. 5)

• Repeated items and synonyms are not
accented.

• Words which have a broader meaning than a

previously used word are not accented.

• Words that have a more specific or narrower

meaning than one that has been used attract
nucleus.

(See examples in your notes for Unit 3, pp. 5-6)

b) Grammatically controlled locations:

• Affirming and denying: when we affirm

something, the nucleus is the affirmative
form of the verb or auxiliary verb; when we
deny something, the nucleus is the negative
particle.

• Vocatives: usually de-accented.

• Appositive constructions: the two concepts

in apposition are highlighted.
(See examples in your notes for Unit 3, p. 6)
• Empty categories:
- one, place, thing, matter, affair, business never
attract the nucleus.
- each other, one another, myself are not accented
when they function as objects.

(See examples in your notes for Unit 3, p. 7)

• Intransitive constructions/Event
sentences (Subject + Verb):

- If the subject is a noun or noun phrase and the

information conveyed represents an event, the
subject attracts the nucleus.

- If the subject is a pronoun, the nucleus shifts

back to the end position, on the verb.

- If the sentence is not an “event sentence”, the

nucleus goes back to the final content word.
(See examples in your notes for Unit 3, p. 7)
• Noun phrase objects: they attract the
nucleus even when they do not occur in final
position.

• Final adverbials: they are usually de-

accented.

(See examples in your notes for Unit 3, p. 7)

Source:
Ashby, Patricia (2006) Class notes for the UCL Summer Course in
English Phonetics.