Intonation and clause combining in discourse

Abstract

Recent years have seen extensive discussion of clause combining in synchronic and diachronic perspective (Haiman & Thompson 1988; Traugott & Konig l99l;Hopper & Traugott 1993). The thrust of much of this researchimplicit in the term 'clause combining' itselfhas been to cast doubt upon the traditional dichotomy of coordination vs. subordination (Irhmann 1988; also Haiman & Thompson 1984). New models have been proposed for describing text-semantic, or rhetorical, links between clauses at the level of discourse rather than at the level of sentence (Mann 1984;Matthiessen & Thompson 1988; Mann 1992). And empirical studies have begun to appear showing what lexical and grammatical resources real speakers and writers rely on for particular kinds of clause linkage in spoken and written discourse (for causal linkage, see e.g. Altenberg 1984Altenberg , 1987Ford 1993Ford , 1994. Yet with only one or two notable exceptions, the intonation of clause combining has not figured centrally in these investigations.The present study, aligned in the empirical tradition, sets out to examine specifically how English speakers deploy pitch, loudness and timing in the configuration of lexically marked causal clause combining in discourse.l The study is based on close analysis of the use of becawe as a clause connector in approximately four hours of British and American spoken discourse, including face-to-face family chat, radio phone-in programs and televised public debate. Approximately 200 tokens of because underwent auditory and instrumental phonetic analysis in the course of the study. It will be argued that there is evidence for two distinct intonational patterns associated with causal clause combining in English. These patterns are found in different sequential environments and can be shown to have different sequential implications for subsequent talk. Moreover, they appear to be used prototypically for trvo different types of semantic causality and can thus be said to contribute to the constitution of distinct constructional schemas for causal linkage. However, the two constructions differ in terms of markedness. This markedness relation togetherwith a preference for'degrammaticizing'constructional schemas for causal clause combining in conversation conspire to favor only one of the intonational and sequential patterns vith becarue, thus accounting for its prevalence in the data corpus.1 I am grateful to Peter Auer, Susanne Gtinthner and Harrie Mazeland as well as to the editon of this special issue for helpful comments on this paper.

The functional value of non-integration in clause combining: Interpersonal versus discursive independence

“…As could be expected, integrated and non-integrated because-clauses equally differ in terms of these constructions (Rutherford 1970;Couper-Kuhlen 1996). Integrated because-clauses can be clefted unproblematically, as shown in (19).…”

“…In the internal examples (32) and (33), the because-clause is not related to the propositional content of the main clause but to some act of the speaker: the because-clause justifies the asking of a question in (32) and the drawing of a conclusion in (33). There is an important connection between our distinction between integrated and non-integrated because and the internal-external dichotomy, in that the internal because-clauses will always be of the nonintegrated type and conversely the integrated because-clauses will always be of the external type (as observed in Sweetser (1990) and Couper-Kuhlen (1996); Verstraete (1998) provides an explanation for these connections). The two dichotomies cannot be equated, however, because the non-integrated type is not always speaker-related (internal) but can also be proposition-related (external).…”

“…Altenberg (1984:49) describes the non-integrated type in terms of a "prosodic break, often manifested as a pause of varying length". Couper-Kuhlen (1996), finally, links the distinction between integrated and non-integrated because to the phenomenon of declination resetting. Declination refers to the fact that the fundamental frequency of the intonational "reference line" for an intonation phrase naturally decreases during the production of the intonation phrase.…”

The role of mood marking in complex sentences A case study of Australian languages

“…One possibility is that in spite of the apparent absence of relational markers, the two clauses are actually integrated via intonation, with intonational information taking over from segmental information as a relational marker. If we look at other languages where intonational patterns are better described than in Australian languages, the use of intonation as a marker of integration in clause combining is well-established (compare, for instance, Haiman & Thompson 1984, Konig 1995, Couper-Kuhlen 1996, including for the distinction between purpose and result constructions (Palmer 1987). In this perspective, a similar role of intonation would not be implausible for some of the purposive-glossed constructions without relational markers in our sample.…”

Between Syntax and Pragmatics: The Causal Conjunction Protože in Spoken and Written Czech

“…One such example is CL research into the causal marker because/cos that seems to suggest a change from prototypical subordinator to discourse marker (e.g. Couper-Kuhlen 1996Stenström 1998). Burridge (2014: 524), however, disputes this claim and suggests that the different grammatical behaviour of because/cos is not a consequence of grammaticalization and semantic bleaching, as was suggested by e.g.…”