An Introduction to French Pronunciation

146 Intonation
exist for transcribing phonemes and allophones of languages
with an adequate degree of precision, there are no equally
widely recognized conventions for representing intonational
patterns. At least four fundamentally different systems, some
of them with markedly differing subvarieties, are in existence
and have been used in recent descriptions of French.
20.1.3 The system used in this book is a variation on what
is probably both the simplest (in the sense of easiest to grasp)
and the most widely used system. It consists of lines printed
above each rhythmic group which indicate schematically
whether the group in question is pronounced with a rising, a
falling, a rising-falling or a level intonation.
It should be noted, that, though the lines representing
rising and falling intonational patterns are straight, this does
not indicate that the intonation of the segments in question
rises or falls constantly and regularly from beginning to end.
It will be noticed that each line is marked with an arrow. This
is intended to suggest that the line indicates the general trend,
but only the general trend, of the intonation of a particular
segment. In reality, between the beginning and the end of a
segment marked as having a generally rising or falling intonation
there may well be secondary peaks or dips or short
stretches of level intonation, and what is basically a ‘falling’
segment may well rise a little at the end.
20.1.4 It cannot be stressed too much that all that we aim
to present here is as simple an account as possible of the
essentials of what is, in reality, a highly intricate system and
one which, furthermore, has not yet been fully investigated and
analysed in all its finest details. What follows is, therefore,
no more than a schematic description of French intonation,
characterizing in broad outline the principal intonation patterns
associated with different kinds of utterance (statements,
questions and commands).
We shall not attempt to deal at any length with the
numerous factors that can interfere with these basic patterns.