Prosody-only utterance

From: Bobby D. Bryant (bdbryant_at_mail.utexas.edu)
Date: 01/05/05 

Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 05:23:44 +0000 (UTC)

Among anglophones, especially children, the prase "I don't know" is
sometimes uttered in a very reduced form, without any consonantal
segments, and the vowels (if vowels they are) are a neutral sound
without any relation to the vowels in the ordinary phrase; but the
pitch, stress, and timing of the ordinary phrase are retained. (I
think it can also be hummed rather than vocalized.)

Questions: Do you consider this speech? Can you think of any other
phrases that get the same treatment, in English or other languages?
Is there a name for the phenomonen? Has anyone investigated what
rules, if any, govern its application? Do we know anything about the
history of this treatment for "I don't know" in English?

Somewhat similarly, though perhaps not related to the above, we get
the bisyllabic forms of 'yes' and 'no' in English, which I will
venture to transcribe as -

        'yes' : /?^h^/ - an iamb with rising pitch
        'no' : /h^?^/ - a trochee with falling pitch

These can also be hummed, I think with nazalization on the first
syllable of the 'no' form, something like -

        'no' : /hn?m/ - where /n/ and /m/ are syllabic resonants

The hummed 'yes' form seems to be subject to prolongation beyond the
normal length of syllables, and variations in the pitch and stress as
well.

The vocalized forms seem to be 'designed' to maximize contrast when
working with a very limited set of segments. (They might be seen as a
pair with a reversal of the order of the syllables, dragging the pitch
and stress along with the reversal, though that "explanation" may just
be the natural fallout of maximized contrast when using just a few
binary features.)

And I have similar questions for these too: Do you consider them
words? Can we derive them from anything? Is there a name for this
phenomonen? Is it related to the "I don't know" form? Are there
similar phenomena (or other manifestations of the same thing) in other
languages?

Thanks for any discussion, 

-- 
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas

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