English intonation

Dear teacher,

In the sentence It's interesting if people lay stress on the word people and use falling intonation it can suggest three meanings: 1. sacastic. 2. A polite way to say I don't agree with you. 3. To help the speaker to get out of an akward situation. In the first case the intonation has a lexical function. What about the rest two? Are they semantic functions or lexical functions? To me they are semantic functions? Am I right? I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you in advance.

Jiang

[RonBee]

• It's interesting if people lay stress on the word people and use falling intonation.

Is that the sentence?

[Casiopea]

Originally Posted by Jiang

Dear teacher,

In the sentence "It's interesting", if people lay stress on the word interesting and use falling intonation it can suggest three meanings: 1. sarcastic. 2. A polite way to say I don't agree with you. 3. To help the speaker to get out of an akward situation.
In the first case the intonation has a lexical function. What about the other two? Do they have a semantic functions or lexical functions? To me they have a semantic function? Am I right? I am looking forward to hearing from you.

It's [pause] interesting, with falling intonation on the word 'interesting' expresses the following: 1. sarcasm, 2. disagreement, 3. I really don't care to think about it.)

:D

[Tdol]

I would say that they are semantic rather than lexical. The functions they perform don't really strike me as lexical. It could also be argued that the sarcasm is semantic.

[Casiopea]

Originally Posted by tdol

I would say that they are semantic rather than lexical. The functions they perform don't really strike me as lexical. It could also be argued that the sarcasm is semantic.

Agreed. If it were lexical, then interesting would have three separate lexical entries, as in the stress different between a noun and verb that share the same form (an example fails me at the mo'). Intonation is supra-linguistic: above the lexicon. :D

[Tdol]

Import\record

Even here the stress is semantic, imho,- it changes grammatical form.
HTH

[Casiopea]

Originally Posted by tdol

Import\record

Even here the stress is semantic, imho,- it changes grammatical form.
HTH

import and record don't share the same form, shape.

:D

[jiang]

Originally Posted by RonBee

• It's interesting if people lay stress on the word people and use falling intonation.

Is that the sentence?

Thank you very much for your reply. The sentence should be:

In the sentence 'It's interesting' if people lay stress on the word interesting and use falling intonation it can suggest three meanings....

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you in advance.

Jiang

[RonBee]

Originally Posted by jiang

Thank you very much for your reply. The sentence should be:

In the sentence 'It's interesting' if people lay stress on the word interesting and use falling intonation it can suggest three meanings....

Thank you. Cas's interpretation was the correct one then.

:D

[jiang]

Originally Posted by tdol

I would say that they are semantic rather than lexical. The functions they perform don't really strike me as lexical. It could also be argued that the sarcasm is semantic.

What does your last sentence mean? Does it mean you think even when it is sarcastic it should be semantic rather than lexical?