Intonative Patterns of Subordinate Clauses in Japanese Complex Sentences
Schémas intonatifs de propositions subordonnées des phrases complexes en japonais
日本語の複文における従属節の音調
Résumé
In this paper, based on analysis of lead sentences from television news programs, I propose to determine the intonation patterns of subordinate clauses in complex Japanese sentences by correlation with the three following “connections among constituents”: 1) connections between subjects/complements and their verb, 2) modifying connections between adverbs and verbs, and between adjectives and nouns, 3) restrictiveness
of the meaning for the connections in 2).
Phrasal boundaries are set between constituents where the connection is weaker, where pauses are then inserted, and the weaker the connection, the longer the pause. A boost of pitch is also observed at the onset of a phrase, whereas the boost rate of pitch for the first constituent of a phrase, in which the connection is stronger, is higher than that for a first constituent with a weaker connection.
The results of this correlative acoustic analysis of subordinate clauses show that approximately 85% of intonative patterns correspond with the “connections among constituents.” This suggests that the intonation of Japanese complex sentences may be determined by specifying phrasal boundaries and intonative patterns which correspond to sentence structure analyzed by correlation with the “connections among constituents”.