What triggers the occurrence of falling `continuation` in French?

What triggers the occurrence of falling ‘continuation’ in French?
Elisabeth DELAIS-ROUSSARIE
UMR 7110-Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle, Université Paris-Diderot
[email protected]
French has often been described as predominantly using rising intonation patterns (see Delattre
1966; Post 2000; Jun & Fougeron 2000, among others). This is due to the fact that rising tonal
movements are generally realized at the end of any non-final prosodic phrases: H* pitch accents at
AP right edges as in (1), H*H- continuation rises are realized at the end of intermediate phrases (or
major phrases) as in (2), and H*H% intonational contours at the end of non-final clauses or
interrogative sentences as in (3).
(1)
[(Le rhinocéros)AP (court dans la savane.)AP]IP
H*
L*L%
(2)
[{(Les jeunes enfants)AP (de mon voisin)AP}ip {[reviennent demain)AP}ip]IP
H*
H*HL*L%
(3)
a. [[(Les enfants)AP (sont arrivés)AP]IP, [(ils sont allés)AP (à la plage)AP]IP, [(ils ont rencontré)AP
H*
H*H%
H*
H*H%
H*
(leurs copains.)AP]IP]IP
L*L%
b. [(les enfants)AP (sont là ?)AP]IP
H*
H*H%
In some cases, however, the melodic movement occurring at the end of non-final prosodic
phrases (AP or ip) is falling. Such realizations were mentioned in several studies on French intonation
(Delattre 1966, Delais-Roussarie et al (to appear), among other). They have even been accounted for
through a phonological mechanism called the “contraste de pente” by some authors (see Martin
1977 and seq.). Since these various proposals are not completely satisfactory, it is important, to our
mind, to understand what trigger the occurrence of these falling tonal movements. This is thus the
aim of our contribution. To achieve this goal, we will:
-
provide an inventory of the contexts where such realizations occur. For this, a distinction
will be made between the different levels of prosodic structure (AP level vs. ip level, etc.);
-
analyze what triggers the occurrence of the falling melodic movement. Particular attention
will be given to falling continuations (H*H-) that occur at the end of intermediate phrases.
Indeed, the falling pattern seems compulsory in this particular position, whereas it is often
a free variant in AP final position.
References
Delais-Roussarie, E. ; B. Post ; M. Avanzi ; C. Buthke ; A. Di Cristo ; I. Feldhausen ; S-A. Jun ; P. Martin ; T.
Meisenburg ; A. Rialland ; R. Sichel-Bazin & H. Yoo (to appear). Intonational Phonology of French :
Developing a ToBi system for French. In S. Frota & P. Prieto (eds), Intonational Variation in Romance. Oxford
University Press
Delattre, P. (1966). Les dix intonations de base en français. French Review 40/1: 1-14.
Sun-Ah, Jun & C. Fougeron (2000). A phonological model of French intonation. In A. Botinis (ed.), Intonation:
Analysis, Modelling and Technology. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 209-242.
Martin, P. (1975). Analyse phonologique de la phrase française. Linguistics 146: 35 68.
Martin, P. (1987). Prosodic and Rhythmic Structures in French. Linguistics 25-5: 925-949.
Post, B. (2000). Tonal and phrasal structures in French intonation. The Hague: Thesus.