Around two months ago, I attended a workshop conducted by a native American English speaker. At a point in her presentation, on seeing a piece of clothing on the floor, she addressed one of the attendees and said to her "Your jacket fell". You might think that this detail might be as inconsequential as not to be written about in a blog post. However, as some of you may remember, I'm mad keen on phonetics and am all the time paying attention to this aspect of (the English and Spanish) languages. An this is what I did. I paid particular attention to where the tonic was in that chunk of speech (=tone unit) she pronounced.
These types of utterances have been described as event sentences, in which the verb is normally intransitive. The tonic syllable is typically placed on the noun and not on the verb, even though the verb is a content word. As J. C. Wells states in English Intonation: An introduction on p. 175, "One possible explanation [for this pattern] is that the verb (or adjective) in an event sentence is predictable from the context, so does not need to be in focus". So the right pattern (and the one the presenter used) is
//Your ˈjacket fell//
In class, we've given some other examples, such as
//The ˈphone's ringing//
//The ˈbaby's crying//
//The ˈwindow's open//
//I have a ˈwedding coming up//
//The ˈzip's broken//
Have you heard any other such utterances to share with us?
Below are the examples you have mentioned in your comments
//The ˈsystem's crashed//
//The aˈlarm went off//
//The ˈpaper came off//
//The ˈair comes out//
//The ˈdinner's ready//
Well, teacher, in class I think you suggested //The ˈsystem's crashed// when someone working with a computer announces he can't go on because its not working any more. is that oK? Mariana
ReplyDeleteThat's just right, Mariana. Prodigious memory! Another one is just crossing my mind. Let's imagine we announce an alarm has started to make its typical noise. If that were the case, we could say //The aˈlarm went off//.
ReplyDelete"Hey there! I think that in Sounds English we had a copuple of examples of event sentences. Do you remember where exactly? Thnx"
ReplyDeleteGood point, Lorena. There are at least two event sentences as presented in the book we use in 1st year. There's one on p. 47, where speaker B complains about the package not being properly wrapped. She says //The ˈpaper came off//.
ReplyDeleteThe other one, I've noticed at the back of the book on p. 117. Speaker A has brought in his car for repair and he tells the mechanic what should be repaired. Speaker A finishes with "And would you repair the spare wheel? //The ˈair comes out//.
I'm thinking perhaps in a very common utternace...but...what about /The 'dinner's ready/
ReplyDeleteGreat, Gisela. That's a very good example of an event sentence. We can add it to our list!
ReplyDelete"The `coach taking us to the hotel broke down" - "The `room hasn´t been cleaned" - "The `people arrived"
ReplyDelete