Re: Prosody-only utterance

From: John Atkinson (johnacko_at_bigpond.com)
Date: 01/11/05 

Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 03:59:48 GMT

"Douglas G. Kilday" <fufluns@chorus.net> wrote in message
news:41e1b28e_3@newspeer2.tds.net...
>
> "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbryant@mail.utexas.edu> wrote ...
> >
> > 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?
>
> I consider this speech. So are whistled forms of certain languages, in my
> opinion. But I draw the line when it comes to drummed forms of certain
> languages, stereotyped tapping for clubhouse entry, etc. which are loosely
> equivalent to Morse Code telegraphy and only _based_ on speech.

Drummed forms of what languages are loosely equivalent to Morse Code? The
only drummed languages I know about (those of West Africa) use drums to copy
the sound contours of actual sentences in the languages (which, of course,
are tonal). Seems to me this are exactly analogous to "I don't know" as
Bobby describes it (except much more expressive), and also to the various
whistled languages that I've read of.

John.

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