Nuclear accents

Reference FM 8-9, FM 8-10-7, AMEDD Center and School s Effects of Nuclear Weapons and Directed Energy on Military Operations, and DOD 5100.52-M (Nuclear Accent Response Procedures Manual -NARP). 

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This is often termed a nuclear accent in the literature. 

Most work agrees that the prosodic phrase as described in Section 6.2 is the basic domain of intonational tune patterns. Hence the phrase not only groups words together, it also serves as the start and end of each section of tune. In many models, we have a nuclear accent, which occurs once per phrase. 

The other main area of interest in tune description concerns what happens at the ends of intonation phrases. Often FO is low at a phrase boundary, but in many circumstances FO is high. For instance, if another phrase directly follows the current one, a continuation rise may be present. If the tune is that of a yes/no question, the final pitch may also be high. The British school deals with these effects by using different nuclear accent and tail configurations. The AM model makes use of high and low boundary tones which distinguish the different types of contour. 

It would be impossible to show all the possible types of intonational tune for English, but six common tunes which vary because of their nuclear accent types are shown in Figures 9.1 to 9.6. These examples are not comprehensive and other theories may classify these contours differently. 

Figure9.5 Low Rise, DidManny come with Anna . This accent shape may at first glance look similar to the fall-rise, but differs in that the stressed syllable ( ) ofthe word which carries the nuclear accent is not a peak but a valley. Thus the FO contour rises from the nuclear accent. Quite often this accent is preceded by a falling FO. This accent can be used to convey incredulity or disbelief.

In the account given by Crystal, the most important part of the contour is the nucleus which is the only mandatory part of an intonation phrase. The nuclear accent can take one of several configurations, e.g. fall, fall-rise, low rise. Other parts of the contour are termed the tail (T) which follows the nucleus, the head (H) which starts at the first accented syllable of the intonation phrase and continues to the nucleus, and the pre-head (P) which precedes the head. The intonation phrase has a grammar of (P) (H) N (T), where the brackets denote optional elements. 

Unlike the British school analysis, there is no strict division of the contour into regions such as head and nucleus. Both nuclear and pre-nuclear accents can be any one of the six types described above. The nucleus accent is distinguished because the phrase and boundary tones that follow it allow a much larger inventory of intonational effects. 

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