On the Intonation of Mono- and Di-Syllabic Words Within the Discourse Framework of Conversational Games

ON THE INTONATION OF MONO- AND DI-SYLLABIC WORDS WITHIN THE DISCOURSE FRAMEWORK OF CONVERSATIONAL GAMES Jacqueline C. Kowtko* Human Communication Research Centre University of Edinburgh 2 Buccleuch Place Edinburgh EH8 9LW SCOTLAND Internet: J.Kowtko@edinburgh.ac.uk Abstract Recent studies on the analysis of intonational func- tion examine a ran~ of materials from cue phrases in monologue (Litman and Hirschberg, 1990) and dialogue (Hirschberg and Litman, 1987; Hockey, 1991) to longer utterances in both monologue and dialogue (McLemore, 1991). Results match spe- cific intonational tunes to certain discourse func- tions which are more or less well defined. Al- though these results make a convincing case that intonation does signal a change in discourse struc- ture, the specification of discourse function re- mains vague. A suitable taxonomy is needed to fine-tune the relationship between intonation and discourse function. A recent analysis of dialogue (Kowtko et al., 1991) provides a framework of con- versational games which allows more fine-grained examination of prosodic function. The current pa- per introduces an intonational analysis of mono- and di-syllabic words based upon such a frame- work and compares results in progress with previ- ous work on intonation. Introduction Recent approaches to the analysis of intonational function within dialogue include an examination of the tunes carried by single-word cue phrases (e.g. now (Hirschberg and Litman, 1987), okay (Hockey, 1991), and others (Litman and Hirschberg, 1990)) across different discourse situations. The litera- ture also includes a more sweeping approach to- ward classifying phrase-final tunes which presents broadly generalized discourse functions for each of three types of intonational tune: phrase-final r/se, level, and fall (McLemore, 1991). Since there is currently no workable grammar of discourse, these studies devise their own relevant discourse cate- gories. Hockey (1991, p. 1) reflects upon the prob- lem, with reference to cue phrases. She states that *AUK Overseas Research Student Award provides partial support. Thanks to my advisors Stephen Isaxd and D. Robert Ladd for comments on drafts. cue phrases ...convey information about the structure of a discourse rather than contributing to the semantic content of a sentence .... Context and prosody are major factors contributing to differences in interpretation among various instances of a cue phrase. In order to investi- gate the connection between prosodic features and uses of a cue phrase, uses must be iden- tified. The above is partly a response to Himchberg and Litman (1987; Litman and Hirschberg, 1990) who limit their description to a binary discourse/sentential distinction. Litman and Hirschberg (1990) leave the analysis of cue phrase function to the interpretation of various specific discourse approaches and instead focus on validat- ing their (1987) prosodic model of cue phrase use with additional data from monologue. The model specifies that a cue phrase in discourse use will oc- cur either alone in a phrase (with unspecified tune) or initially in a larger phrase (deaccented or with a low tone). Thus, Litman and Hirschberg leave open the question of how their prosodic model could further specify discourse function. McLemore (1991) approaches discourse as structured …

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