The Recategorization of the Rheme and the Structure of the Oral Paragraph in French and in Finnish

At first sight, the intonation systems of French and Finnish – which are typologically distant languages – seem completely different. This paper aims, however, at showing that the discourse-structuring role of the utterance-final pitch rises in spontaneous spoken Finnish is in many respects reminisc...

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Main Author: Mari Lehtinen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses universitaires de Caen 2010-12-01
Series:Discours
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/discours/8007
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author Mari Lehtinen
author_facet Mari Lehtinen
author_sort Mari Lehtinen
collection DOAJ
description At first sight, the intonation systems of French and Finnish – which are typologically distant languages – seem completely different. This paper aims, however, at showing that the discourse-structuring role of the utterance-final pitch rises in spontaneous spoken Finnish is in many respects reminiscent of the final pitch rises that constitute an essential component of the French intonation system (Morel & Danon-Boileau, 1998). Indeed, in both cases, utterance-final pitch rises occurring inside a multi-unit turn seem to “recategorise the rheme as a preamble” for what will follow (Morel & Danon-Boileau, 1998). ‘Preamble’ and ‘rheme’ are the two main constituents of the so-called ‘oral paragraph’, which is the basic structural unit of French discourse according to their model. In addition to comparing the realization of the so-called ‘recategorization phenomenon’ in French and in Finnish, this paper aims at describing the structure of the ‘oral paragraph’ of Finnish within Morel and Danon-Boileau’s framework.
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spelling doaj-art-2c0f5cd7a5564fe08f8844fd23ae49c92025-01-30T09:52:37ZengPresses universitaires de CaenDiscours1963-17232010-12-01710.4000/discours.8007The Recategorization of the Rheme and the Structure of the Oral Paragraph in French and in FinnishMari LehtinenAt first sight, the intonation systems of French and Finnish – which are typologically distant languages – seem completely different. This paper aims, however, at showing that the discourse-structuring role of the utterance-final pitch rises in spontaneous spoken Finnish is in many respects reminiscent of the final pitch rises that constitute an essential component of the French intonation system (Morel & Danon-Boileau, 1998). Indeed, in both cases, utterance-final pitch rises occurring inside a multi-unit turn seem to “recategorise the rheme as a preamble” for what will follow (Morel & Danon-Boileau, 1998). ‘Preamble’ and ‘rheme’ are the two main constituents of the so-called ‘oral paragraph’, which is the basic structural unit of French discourse according to their model. In addition to comparing the realization of the so-called ‘recategorization phenomenon’ in French and in Finnish, this paper aims at describing the structure of the ‘oral paragraph’ of Finnish within Morel and Danon-Boileau’s framework.https://journals.openedition.org/discours/8007prosodyoral paragraphrecategorizationrhemeintonationpitch rise
spellingShingle Mari Lehtinen
The Recategorization of the Rheme and the Structure of the Oral Paragraph in French and in Finnish
Discours
prosody
oral paragraph
recategorization
rheme
intonation
pitch rise
title The Recategorization of the Rheme and the Structure of the Oral Paragraph in French and in Finnish
title_full The Recategorization of the Rheme and the Structure of the Oral Paragraph in French and in Finnish
title_fullStr The Recategorization of the Rheme and the Structure of the Oral Paragraph in French and in Finnish
title_full_unstemmed The Recategorization of the Rheme and the Structure of the Oral Paragraph in French and in Finnish
title_short The Recategorization of the Rheme and the Structure of the Oral Paragraph in French and in Finnish
title_sort recategorization of the rheme and the structure of the oral paragraph in french and in finnish
topic prosody
oral paragraph
recategorization
rheme
intonation
pitch rise
url https://journals.openedition.org/discours/8007
work_keys_str_mv AT marilehtinen therecategorizationoftherhemeandthestructureoftheoralparagraphinfrenchandinfinnish
AT marilehtinen recategorizationoftherhemeandthestructureoftheoralparagraphinfrenchandinfinnish