BACKGROUND(Phonology)

Phonology

 

◈ BACKGROUND 

 

■ The discussion of what can go wrong in terms of intonation has not so far considered the fact that most of the world's languages can be classified as either (a) tone languages or (b) intonation languages. 

 

 

■ Some tone languages are Asian languages such as Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, or African languages such as Yoruba, Ibo, and Hausa. Many Indian languages of the Americas such as Navaho and Quechua are also tone languages. In tone languages, pitch applies lexically to distinguish words. 

■ There are intonation languages such as Japanese, Korean, English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, virtually all European and Middle Eastern languages. Intonation languages apply pitch patterns to entire utterances, not just to lexical items the way tone languages do.

 

 

■ In general, if learners speak an intonation language as their first language, it is assumed they will learn the intonation of another language more easily than will someone who speaks a tone language as their first language, or vice versa.

 

 

■ However, just because two languages happen to be intonation languages does not mean that their utterance-level pitch patterns will be the same. They rarely are.