predications, also often contain more than a single PC, though these are often identical, the same pitch movement being repeated on each inherently stressed syllable of each separate word. It is for these reasons that I continue to speak of functionally defined superordinate units such as topic, predicate and focus, each of which contains an indeterminate number of pitch
contours, rather than speak of tone groups and intonation patterns as such. 2 As in Beratha’s analysis of Balinese (1991), nothing can intervene between the focus and the verb.
usually includes a verb word, which is preceded by an incorporated nominal item
functioning as the focus. The latter thus takes the main or tonic pitch movement. When the coda contains a verb word it can be referred to as the core, in order to emphasise that it is the key syntactic component of the predicate, and the head of the predication.1 I will follow this practice when it seems appropriate.
A coda can consist of a) a core (preceded by a nominal focus),
b)
several cores in series, i.e. a chain of VPs, c) a core plus a classifier noun head,d)
a core plus a conjunction or a discourse marker,e)
a core followed by the deontic auxiliaryOMA
(one or more tokens possible), orf)
a conjunction or a discourse marker. All of the above possibilities will be exemplified in the course of the following chapters.I here adduce a number of examples from a tape-recorded narrative text to illustrate the occurrence and use of some of the above-described pitch contours and
intonation patterns.2 In example (62) the final verb word is the focus. The focus is prosodically defined and centres on the main (i.e. normally the final) word stress on the final verb word, which is underlined here, along with all the other stressed syllables. Notice the contrastive topic a m u ?e isa in example (63):
PREDICATE: (EMek)
T O P IC ... PRE-TONIC FOCUS
(62) // 2
A.uni-?i
f&u, /
1ke-ka
ke-f£u-f£u.
//
both-3PL together 3PL-lie 3PL-sleep-RED “The two of them were lying down sleeping.”
PREDICATE: (EMek)
(63) TOPI T O P 2 ... FOCUS CODA
// 2
Pau,
/ 3am a'e isa, /
1lakä
e-io -k in i-o . //
now , dog him penis 3SG-squat-expose-PF-3SG
"Now,3 (the) dog him, his penis he sat (and) exposed it."
Every inherently stressed syllable is indicated in the above examples by the underlining of its main vocalic constituent. In each of these examples a topic is modified or expanded, by a limiting adverbial and by a resumptive pronoun respectively, each of which continues the tonic pitch contour (PC2 and PC3, respectively) on its stressed syllable. The main movement of each pitch contour thus falls on the last stressed item in 1 As already noted, the core is a verbal nucleus affixed with up to two verbal arguments. It is the marked syntactic head of a predication.
2 The Story of Kino-Kino (Flying Squirrel) and Ofuala (Blue-Tongued Lizard), Episode 3: The Dispersal of the Animals.
3 P a u is a time deictic. It is a constituent of the theme, although not a topic (see Halliday, 1985). I class time deictics as adverbial topics: TA .
each pause group, a fact which reminds us that these are underlying or potential
predicates themselves. It can be seen that PCI also occurs twice within each predicate. There are clear pauses (shown by commas) after each topic NP in the above texts, but these are not essential to the preservation of the essential topic-comment intonation structure: PC2 > PC I. Even a short utterance, delivered without a perceptible pause, preserves this characteristic intonation pattem: low-rise - (high-)fall.1 E.g.
(64) // 2
Oi,
1lo-vai.
// (EMek)you 2SG-go.home
"You go home (to your place)."2
Potential pause group is, however, an important category of the description, distinguishing separable groups o f words from inseparable groups, such as predicates. Predicates have in fact no other defining criteria apart from the impossibility of pause and the integrity of the pitch contour and/or intonation pattern. Every word is a potential pause group, in isolation. When a word in an example is followed by a potential pause, this means it is analysed as a topic (i.e. not a focus). Potential pause is marked
graphically by a comma.
There follow some longer examples from the text. In (65) and (66) there are contrastive topics marked with PC3:
(65) T O P ... FOCUS CODA // 3
ßla
age-age
is a,
/ 1gjja
e-ku.pu
//
lizard old.man him heart 3SG-block "Old man lizard him, (his) heart is/was angry"
(66) TOPI T O P 2 ... TOP3 // 3
e-mai,
/ 3ola
age-age
e-ula,
/ 3e-lao,
/
3SG-come lizard old.man 3SG-chase 3SG-go "He came (and) chased the old man lizard he went,
PREDICATE 1: PREDICATE2:
FOCUS CODA FOCUS CODA
/ 4
au-ai
ie-afi-au-kae
/ 1iu-ga-mo
e-a-m^u-a
//
tree-OBL 3SG-take-up-rise tail-3SG-just 3SG-bite-break-3SG having climbed a/the tree he bit his tail"
1 Pause and absence of pause between topic and predicate are performance