The main aim of this thesis is to begin to extend phonetic distance measurements
to the domain of intonation. Existing studies of segmental phonetic distance
have strong associations with historical linguistic questions. I begin with
this context and demonstrate problems with the use of feature systems in these
segmental measures. Then I attempt to draw strands from the disparate fields
of quantitative historical linguistics and intonation together. The intonation of
Belfast and Glasgow English provides a central case study for this. Previous
work suggests that both varieties display nuclear rises on statements, yet they
have never been formally compared.
This thesis presents two main hypotheses on the source of these statement rises:
the Alignment hypothesis and the Transfer hypothesis. The Alignment hypothesis
posits that statement rises were originally more typical statement falls but
have changed into rises over time through gradual phonetic change to the location
of the pitch peak. The Transfer hypothesis considers that statement rises
have come about through pragmatic transfer of rises onto a statement context, either
from question rises or continuation rises. I evaluate these hypotheses using
the primary parameters of alignment and scaling as phonetic distance measurements.
The main data set consists of data from 3 Belfast English and 3 Glasgow
English speakers in a Sentence reading task and Map task.
The results crucially indicate that the origin of the statement rises in Belfast and
Glasgow English respectively may be different. The Glasgow statement nuclear
tones show support for the Alignment hypothesis, while the Belfast nuclear tones
fit best with the Transfer hypothesis. The fundamental differences between Glasgow
and Belfast are the earlier alignment of the peak (H) in Glasgow and the
presence of a final low (L) tonal target in Glasgow and a final high (H) target in Belfast. The scaling of the final H in Belfast statements suggests that the transfer
may be from continuation rather than from question rises.
I then present a proposal for an overall measure of intonational distance, showing
problems with parameter weighting, comparing like with like, and distinguishing
between chance resemblance and genuine historical connections. The
thesis concludes with an assessment of the benefits that intonational analysis
could bring to improving segmental phonetic distance measures
