DEVELOPMENT OF INTONATION PATTERNS IN TIME 

CLAUSES AMONG EFL PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS: AN 

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 

 

 

 

ĠNGĠLĠZCE ÖĞRETMEN ADAYLARINDA ZAMAN 

GÖSTEREN YAN CÜMLELERĠN TONLAMA 

ÖRÜNTÜLERĠNĠN GELĠġTĠRĠLMESĠ: BĠR DENEYSEL 

ÇALIġMA 

 

 

 

FULDA KARAAZMAK 
 

 
 

 

Submitted to Graduate School of Educational Sciences of Hacettepe University as 

a Partial Fulfillment to the Requirements for the Award of Master‟s Degree in 

English Language Teaching program 

 

 

 

 2015 





iii 

ĠNGĠLĠZCE ÖĞRETMEN ADAYLARINDA ZAMAN GÖSTEREN YAN 

CÜMLELERĠN TONLAMA ÖRÜNTÜLERĠNĠN GELĠġTĠRĠLMESĠ: BĠR DENEYSEL 

ÇALIġMA 

 

Fulda KARAAZMAK 

 

ÖZ 

Bu çalıĢmanın temel amacı Ġngilizce öğretmen daylarının Ġngilizce cümle tonlaması 

konusunda mevcut olan yeterliliklerini keĢfetmek ve gerekli ise de konuĢmalarında 

bulunan tonlama sorunlarını çözmektir. ÇalıĢmanın katılımcılarını Türkiye‟deki 

büyük devlet üniversitelerinin birinde öğrenim görmekte olan Ġngilizce öğretmen 

adayları oluĢturmaktadır (S=84). ÇalıĢma 2014-2015 akademik yılı bahar 

döneminde gerçekleĢtirilmiĢ ve ilgili veriler toplanmıĢtır. ÇalıĢmanın temel amacına 

ulaĢmak için, araĢtırma metodu olarak ön-test son-test deneysel yöntem 

kullanılmıĢtır. Ön-test ve son-test arasında, katılımcılarla Ġngilizce cümle tonlaması 

konusunda düzeltici öğretim dersleri gerçekleĢtirilmiĢtir. Bu oturumlarda, içerisinde 

anadil konuĢucularının ses kayıtlarından alınan zaman cümleciklerinden oluĢan 

çeĢitli tonlama alıĢtırmalarının olduğu bilgisayar programı sunumları kullanılmıĢtır. 

Gramer Tonlama Modeli (Cauldwell, Hewings, 1996; Hahn, 2004) ile ilintili olan 

ĠĢitsel Sesletim Modeli (Demirezen, 2003, 2004) öğretim derslerinde kullanımıĢtır. 

Ana veri toplama aracını 48 adet Ġngilizce zaman cümlesi oluĢturmaktadır. Bu 

maddelerin güvenirliğini belirlemek için Kuder–Richardson Formülü 20 (KR-20) 

istatistik analiz tekniği uygulanmıĢtır. Sonuçlar .90 üzeri puanla güvenilir 

bulunmuĢtur. Üç gruba bölünmüĢ olan toplam 48 zaman cümlesi üç grup katılımcı 

tarafında ön-test ve son-test uygulamalarında seslendirilmiĢtir. Hem ön-test hem 

de son-testte, veriler ses formatında e-posta aracılığıyla toplanmıĢ ve katılımcılar 

tarafından araĢtırmacıya gönderilmiĢtir. Katılımcıların zaman cümlelerini 

seslendirirken ses yalıtımlı bir ortamda olmaları rica edilmiĢtir. Katılımcıların ses 

kaydı yaptığı sırada araĢtırmacının ortamda var olması durumunda ortaya 

çıkabilecek olan endiĢe, huzursuzluk, stresli ya da rahatsız hissetme gibi müdahil 

etkileri ortadan kaldırmak amacıyla ses kaydı için uygun zaman ve mekanı 

belirlemek katılımcıların kendi istediğine bırakılmıĢtır. E-posta aracılığıyla ön ve 

son testte elde edilen ses dosyaları ilk olarak biri araĢtırmacının kendisi olmak 



iv 

üzere farklı değerlendiriciler tarafından doğru ya da yanlıĢ olarak iki seçenekli bir 

ölçeğe göre değerlendirilmiĢtir. Değerli sonuçlara ulaĢmak için, notlandırma 

sürecinin değer-biçiciler arası güvenirlik değerleri SPSS 21.0 yazılımı aracılığyla 

hesaplanmıĢtır ve sonuçlar 0.80 üzerindedir. Bu da farklı değer-biçiciler arasında 

yüksek güvenirlik degerine iĢaret etmektedir. Katılımcıların ön-test ve son-test 

sonuçları arasında önemli fark olup olmadığını değerlendirmek için SPSS 21.0 

yazılım tarafından eĢleĢtirilmiĢ örneklemler T-testi yapılmıĢtır. Bu çalıĢmada konu 

edinilen Ġngilizce tonlamanın 3 bileĢeni olan cümle vurgusu, duraklama, ses 

yüksekliği kullanımları açısından katılımcıların ön ve son test sonuçları arasında 

önemli fark (p<0.05) bulunmuĢtur. Düzeltici tonlama öğretimi dersleri de Ġngilizce 

öğretmen adaylarının konuĢmalarında cümle vurgusu, duraklama, ses yüksekliği 

kullanım sorunlarını çözmede etkili olarak görülmüĢtür. 

 

Anahtar Sözcükler: Ġngilizce tonlama, cümle vurgusu, duraklama, ses yüksekliği, 

öğretmen eğitimi, Ġngilizcenin yabancı dil olarak öğretimi, ĠĢitsel Sesletim Modeli, 

Dilbilgisi Tonlama Modeli 

 

DanıĢman: Prof. Dr. Mehmet DEMĠREZEN, Hacettepe Üniversitesi, Yabancı Diller 

Eğitimi Anabilim Dalı, Ġngiliz Dili Eğitimi Bilim Dalı  

 

 
 



v 

DEVELOPMENT OF INTONATION PATTERNS IN TIME CLAUSES AMONG 

EFL PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 

Fulda KARAAZMAK 

 

ABSTRACT  

The major aim of this study was to explore the present competencies of 

prospective English language teachers about English sentence intonation and if 

necessary, to remedy the intonation problems in their speech. The participants of 

the study consisted of prospective EFL teachers enrolled at a major state 

university in Turkey (N=84). The study was conducted and the related data was 

collected in 2014-2015 academic year spring semester. To reach the main 

purpose of the study, a pre-test post-test experimental design was used as the 

research methodology. Between pre and post-tests, remedial English sentence 

intonation teaching lessons were carried out with the participants. In these 

sessions, PowerPoint presentations including various intonation exercises about 

time adverbial sentences from the voices of native speakers were used. Audio 

Articulation Model (Demirezen, 2003, 2004) was employed for the remedial 

teaching lessons in accordance with the Grammar Intonation Model (Cauldwell, 

Hewings, 1996; Hahn, 2004). A corpus of English time adverbial sentences (N=48) 

was the main data collection instrument. To determine the reliability of the items in 

the corpus, Kuder–Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20) statistical analysis test was 

conducted. The results were found to be reliable due to having above .90 score. 

There were three groups of time adverbials in the corpus of 48 sentences which 

were read out by three groups of participants in pre and post-test applications. In 

both pre-test and post-test, the data was collected from the participants in audio 

form and handed over to the researcher via e-mail. The participants were asked to 

record their voices in a sound proof environment while they were reading out the 

time adverbials in the corpus. Determining the suitable time and place for the voice 

recording was deliberately left to the discretion of the participants to eliminate the 

interfering effects like anxiety, uneasiness, feeling uncomfortable or stressed, that 

could have been arisen if the researcher was present at the time of voice 

recording of the participants. Audio material gathered in both pre-test and post-test 



vi 

via e-mail was analyzed firstly by different human raters including the researcher 

in the form of dichotomous scale as either correct or incorrect. To reach valuable 

results, inter-rater reliability measures of the human rating process were calculated 

by SPSS 21.0 software and the results were above 0.80, which indicates high 

inter-rater reliability among different raters. To evaluate if there was any difference 

in the participants‟ pre-test and post-test results indicating an improvement in their 

English intonation in terms of sentence stress, juncture and pitch usages, which 

are three components of English intonation dealt with in this study, paired samples 

T-test statistical analysis was carried out  by SPSS 21.0 software. It was found out 

that there were significant differences between the pre and post-test results of the 

participants in the three components of English intonation mentioned above. 

Remedial intonation teaching lessons were also found to be effective in correcting 

problems of sentence stress, pitch and juncture usages in the prospective EFL 

teachers‟ speech. 

 

Key Words: English intonation; sentence stress; juncture; pitch; teacher 

education; EFL context; Audio Articulation Model; Grammar Intonation Model 

  

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Mehmet DEMĠREZEN, Hacettepe University, Department of 

Foreign Language Education, Division of English Language Teaching 

 

 
 





viii 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

 

First of all, I would like to thank my dear supervisor, Prof. Dr. Mehmet 

DEMĠREZEN for his valuable guidance and encouragement in every stage of this 

study. Without his help and patience, this thesis study would not have been 

completed.  

 

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Asst. Prof. Dr. Hüseyin ÖZ for his 

help and support in all the stages of this thesis study. I would also like to thank 

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Arif SARIÇOBAN and other distinguished lecturers of Hacettepe 

University, English Language Teaching Department from whom I have learned a 

lot from the beginning to the end of MA program.  

 

I would like to thank Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey 

(TUBITAK) for its material support during my MA study. 

 

I am grateful to all the participants of the study who willingly took part in the data 

collection process. 

 

I would also like to thank the manager of Çankaya University Preparatory School 

Dr. Bülent ĠNAL who assisted me in the process of completing this thesis study. 

 

Lastly, I would like to send my gratitude to my family members who supported me 

with patience. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://tureng.com/search/scientific%20and%20technological%20research%20council%20of%20turkey


ix 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To my mother, 

I hope there is a place that we may meet again… 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



x 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

ÖZ …………………………………………………………………………iii 

ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………………v 

ETHICS ……………………………………………………………………..…vii 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………..viii 

LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………………xiii 

1.INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1 

1.1. Background of the Study .............................................................................. 3 
1.2. Statement of the Problem ............................................................................. 6 
1.3. Purpose of the Study .................................................................................... 6 

1.4. Significance of the Study .............................................................................. 7 

1.5. Research Questions ..................................................................................... 7 
1.6. Assumptions and Limitations ........................................................................ 8 
1.7. Definition of Key Terms ................................................................................ 8 

1.8. Conclusion .................................................................................................... 9 

2. LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................... 10 

2.1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 10 
2.2. The History, Background and the Significance of Pronunciation and 

Intonation Teaching in English .................................................................... 10 

2.3. The Definition and Scope of Intonation and Other Related Prosodic 
Features ..................................................................................................... 20 

2.4. Conclusion .................................................................................................. 40 

3. METHODOLOGY .............................................................................................. 41 

3.1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 41 
3.2. The Research Design ................................................................................. 41 
3.3. The Participants .......................................................................................... 43 

3.4. Data Collection Instrument ......................................................................... 44 
3.5. Data Collection Procedures ........................................................................ 45 
3.6. Data Analysis .............................................................................................. 46 
3.7. Conclusion .................................................................................................. 48 

4. RESULTS .......................................................................................................... 49 

4.1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 49 
4.2. Results for the Research Question 1 .......................................................... 49 

4.2.1. Results of First Group Of Time Adverbials Including “Before, 

After, When, While, Since” .................................................................... 49 

4.2.2. Results of 2nd Group Of Time Adverbials Including “Once, Every 

Time, Whenever, By the Time” .............................................................. 51 



xi 

4.2.3. Results Of 3nd Group Of Time Adverbials Including “As, Until, 

Till, Soon After, As Long As, As Soon As” ............................................. 52 

4.3. Results for the Research Questions 2 And 3: ............................................. 54 

4.3.1. Results of First Group Of Time Adverbials Including “Before, 

After, When, While, Since” .................................................................... 55 

4.3.2. Results of 2nd Group Of Time Adverbials Including “Once, Every 

Time, Whenever, By The Time” ............................................................ 57 

4.3.3. Results of 3nd Group Of Time Adverbials Including “As, Until, Till, 

Soon After, As Long As, As Soon As” ................................................... 59 

4.4. Results for the Research Question 4 .......................................................... 59 

4.4.1. Results of First Group Of Time Adverbials Including “Before, 

After, When, While, Since” .................................................................... 60 

4.4.2. Results Of 2nd Group Of Time Adverbials Including “Once, Every 

Time, Whenever, By the Time” .............................................................. 61 

4.4.3. Results Of 3nd Group Of Time Adverbials Including “As, Until, 

Till, Soon After, As Long As, As Soon As” ............................................. 62 

4.5. Results Related to the Results of Research Question 5 ............................. 63 

4.6. Conclusion .................................................................................................. 67 

5. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ......................................................................... 68 

5.1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 68 

5.2. Overall Evaluation of the Findings .............................................................. 68 

5.2.1. Discussion for Research Question 1 .................................................. 69 

5.2.2. Discussion for Research Questions 2 and 3 ...................................... 70 

5.1.1. Discussion for Research Questions 4 ................................................ 72 

5.1.2. Discussion for Research Questions 5 ................................................ 72 

5.2. Conclusion .................................................................................................. 73 

6. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 74 

6.1. Pedagogical Implications & Limitations....................................................... 76 
6.2. Suggestions for Further Research .............................................................. 76 

REFERENCES ...................................................................................................... 78 

APPENDICES ......................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. 

APPENDIX 1. ETHICS COMMITTEE APPROVAL NOTIFICATION .................. 85 
  

APPENDIX 2. DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENT (CORPUS OF 
SENTENCES) ............................................................................................ 86 



xii 

APPENDIX 3. DETAILED INTONATION ANALYSIS OF THE TREATMENT 

LESSONS EXERCISES ..................................................................... 88 

APPENDIX 4. TREATMENT LESSONS EXERCISES .......................................... 95 

APPENDIX 5. ORIGINALITY REPORT ............................................................... 111 

CIRRICULUM VITAE .......................................................................................... 112 

 

 

 
 

 

 



xiii 

LIST OF TABLES 

Table 2.1: The Functions of Intonation 

Table 2.2: Segmental and Supra-segmental Phonemes in English 

Table 2.3: The Description of Prosody in Different Approaches 

Table 2.4: The Supra-segmental Phonemes in Intonation 

Table 4.1: The Correct and Wrong Percentages of Group 1 in Stress Placement 

Table 4.2: The Correct and Wrong Percentages of Group 2 in Stress Placement 

Table 4.3: The Correct and Wrong Percentages of Group 3 in Stress Placement 

Table 4.4: Paired Samples T-test Results for Group 1 and Descriptive Statistics  

Table 4.5: The Correct and Wrong Percentages of Group 1 in Juncture Usage 

Table 4.6: The Correct and Wrong Percentages of Group 2 in Juncture Usage 

Table 4.7: Paired Samples T-test Results for Group 2 and Descriptive Statistics 

Table 4.8: The Correct and Wrong Percentages of Group 3 in Juncture Usage 

Table 4.9: The Correct and Wrong Percentages of Group 1 in Pitch Usage 

Table 4.10: The Correct and Wrong Percentages of Group 2 in Pitch Usage 

Table 4.11: The Correct and Wrong Percentages of Group 3 in Pitch Usage 

Table 4.12: Paired Samples T-test Results for Pitch Usage of the Participants and 
Descriptive Statistics  

Table 4.13: The Average Correct and Wrong Percentages for All Components 

Table 5.1: Summary of Paired Samples T-test Results and Descriptive Statistics 
for Stress Placement  

Table 5.2: Summary of the Paired Samples T-test Results for Juncture Phoneme 
Usage and Descriptive Statistics  

Table 5.3: Summary of the Paired Samples T-test Results for Pitch Usage and 
Descriptive Statistics  

 

 

 

 



xiv 

 
LIST OF FIGURES 

Figure 2.1. Types of Junctures in English 

Figure 4.1. Results for the Group 1 

Figure 4.2. Results for the Group 2 

Figure 4.3. Results for the Group 3 

Figure 4.4. Overall Success Rate of the Participants in All the Components 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 



1 

1. INTRODUCTION  

In English language teaching environments, learners generally study via using all 

four skills which are listening, speaking, reading and writing together with grammar 

and vocabulary. The degree of importance attached to teaching all these branches 

of the language changes in relation to some concepts like the purposes of 

teaching and learning the language, whom and where to teach the language, 

hours allocated for each language skill etc. Among all the branches of language, 

teaching speaking skill has some priority if the main purpose of learning a 

language is to use it. It should also be taken into account that teaching speaking 

skill may be harder than teaching other skills because it is one of the productive 

skills and it requires learners to put a great amount of effort. Another issue to be 

taken into consideration is that while teaching speaking, pronunciation and 

intonation are crucial components to be incorporated to the teaching process.  

Especially in English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching environments like 

Turkey, English has no official status in the country. For this reason, learners 

generally do not have adequate opportunities to use the language they are 

learning outside of the class. Being related with this situation in Turkey, English 

language learners have limited opportunities to speak English except from 

language classrooms. Due to having limited or no opportunity to use language in 

their normal life, it is even more difficult for EFL learners to grasp and use the 

correct intonation patterns in English. For this reason, EFL learners should be 

deliberately taught about English intonation in language teaching classrooms. 

Since intonation is an important concept to convey the correct intended messages 

to the speakers, the teaching of it to the language learners is crucial.  In this 

sense, teaching speaking, pronunciation and intonation becomes more and more 

important in foreign language learning and teaching environments. 

As indicated by many researchers intonation is generally considered as the most 

challenging area of foreign language learning; therefore, specific attention should 

be given to determine the elements of intonation and then to teach them with 

appropriate teaching techniques and activities (Brazil, 1997; Demirezen, 2009; 

Hayes, 2009; Levis, 1999; Morley, 1991; Taylor, 1993). The key elements of 

intonation are described as stress, juncture and pitch and these three components 



2 

make the learning and teaching of intonation of English difficult for many language 

learners and teachers, as well. They are generally “problematic to Turkish 

students and teachers, who have very strong fossilized intonation errors” 

(Demirezen, 2009, p. 2777); but there are also some research studies conducted 

to teach English language learners these difficult components of English 

intonation. 

 In a research study conducted by HiĢmanoğlu (2012), the problematic English 

word stress patterns for Turkish EFL learners were investigated and Turkish EFL 

learners participated in the study were found to develop in terms of the usage of 

English word stress patters. These types of studies are crucial because they prove 

that if the necessary amount of attention is given to the teaching of English 

intonation patterns in language teaching classrooms, intonation teaching can get 

rid of its neglected place in English language teaching area.  

If it is accepted that learning correct English intonation patterns is important and 

should be an integral component of language teaching curriculum, then the 

question of teacher effectiveness comes into mind; namely the question of how 

effective English teachers are at both using and teaching English intonation to 

language learners. In EFL contexts, not only language learners but also language 

teachers have limited opportunities to use English. In this sense, it may not be 

wrong to state that firstly English teachers should be effective in using correct 

intonation patterns in English enough to teach them. Here, the issue of evaluating 

and if necessary, advancing EFL teachers‟ effectiveness in using correct English 

intonation in their own speech becomes quite significant. Therefore, the important 

problem is that intonation teaching in EFL classrooms is not always given the 

necessary attention and one of the reasons of this situation is related to teacher 

effectiveness.  

For the reasons stated above, this study is more concerned with prospective EFL 

teachers‟ effectiveness of using and teaching correct intonation patterns in English 

time adverbial clauses. If prospective English teachers are found to have problems 

about using correct English intonation in their speech, the aim is to cure their 

intonation problems. While doing this, the other aim of this study is to give some 

perspective to pre-service EFL teachers about the issue of how to teach intonation 

in English. In this study, prospective EFL teachers are informed about the correct 



3 

usages of pitch, stress and juncture of English time adverbial clauses. In this 

sense, it should be kept in mind that sentence stress, which is one of the concerns 

of this study, comprises the learning of phrases, clauses and sentences and it is 

an extremely complex task for many non-native English teachers (Demirezen, 

2009). 

1.1.   Background of the Study 

From the very beginning of English language teaching (ELT) and learning history, 

there have been some changes in the amount of importance attached to the 

teaching of different language skills like listening, reading, grammar etc. To begin 

with, a great amount of importance was attached to the teaching of grammar rules 

and vocabulary of the target language via translation with the purpose of teaching 

the literature of the target language when the Grammar Translation Method (GTM) 

ruled English language teaching area (Larsen-Freeman, 2003). Then, during the 

Audio Lingual era, the attention was given to the teaching of language for 

communication via repetitive drills. Listening, speaking and pronunciation teaching 

became important in that era and reaching the native speaker-like pronunciation 

was the purpose (Richards & Rodgers, 2014). It can be stated that in the 1940s, 

1950s and 1960s, pronunciation was seen as an important part of language 

teaching curricula in both Audio-lingual and Situational Language Teaching 

approaches and the language learning aim was to acquire correct grammar and 

accurate pronunciation (Morley, 1991).  

In the 21st century, via Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), the focus has 

shifted towards the teaching of language with the purpose of triggering real 

communication among learners and generally having a communicative end 

(Harmer, 2007). With that purpose in mind, the importance has been attached to 

all four skills, which are listening, speaking, reading and writing with spoken skills 

taking the priority (Howatt & Widdowson, 2004). Since the main aim of language 

learning is communicating in the target language, spoken skills have been 

important. However, the significance of pronunciation teaching has decreased 

slowly. Therefore, for pronunciation teaching, comprehensible, not native-like 

pronunciation has become the purpose to reach (Richards & Rodgers, 2014). 

Native like pronunciation is no longer an aim of language teaching and learning in 

CLT approaches. As it can be grasped in this short summary of English language 



4 

teaching history, grammar, vocabulary and all four language skills have taken 

some different levels of attention at different times in the history because of 

various reasons like the changing needs of learners, technological developments 

etc.  

Initially it should be stated that pronunciation is a prerequisite for intonation. With 

keeping that in mind, giving specific reference to pronunciation teaching and more 

importantly to intonation teaching in English is believed to be necessary as 

intonation teaching and learning is the main concern of the present study.  As 

stated earlier, in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, less attention was given to the 

teaching of English pronunciation to learners. The significant result of the 

decrease in the importance of pronunciation teaching was that many language 

teaching programs abandoned pronunciation teaching entirely. In terms of 

materials, textbooks and teacher reference publications were concerned; almost 

no new material on pronunciation was produced in those years (Morley, 1991).  

If the intonation teaching branch of ELT field is taken into account, it can be seen 

that not much attention has been given to the teaching of English intonation 

patterns throughout English language teaching history. Even when the teaching of 

native-like pronunciation was the target of language teaching during the Audio-

lingual era, intonation teaching was not given considerable attention. However, it 

should also be stated that in some parts of the history, intonation teaching was 

attached some importance. For instance, in the 1970s and 1980s, some attention 

was paid to intonation teaching (Allen, 1971; Yule, 1989). All the supra-segmental 

features of language began to take importance. The importance of supra-

segmental features including intonation and their place in conveying 

communicative meaning in discourse was mentioned. But again, these intonation 

studies were less in number compared to the research studies conducted in other 

branches of English. For this reason, it may not be wrong to state that intonation 

teaching is considered as a neglected part of English language teaching area 

throughout history and even today.  

About the issue of not giving enough attention to the teaching of intonation 

patterns of English, many different reasons can be stated. Firstly, much time may 

not be allocated to the teaching of intonation in the language teaching curriculum. 

Additionally, some educators or students may think that learning the correct 



5 

intonation patterns is not important compared to learning grammar rules or 

vocabulary of the target language. The last and maybe the most important reason 

can be related to the proficiency levels of English teachers in terms of the 

knowledge of English intonation. In the departments of teacher education in 

Turkey, problem causing consonants for Turks like (ʧ, ʤ, ɲ, r, h, w, ʠ) and vowels 

like (ow, uw, ɑ, ɛ, ʌ, ə, ɶ) working together prepare a faulty basis for intonation. 

This fact is important to understand the difficulty of teaching and learning English 

intonation and therefore, its neglected nature in ELT.  

Considering the solutions to the problems stated above, if the importance of 

learning and using the correct intonation patterns while speaking the language is 

understood, then the necessary time can be allocated to incorporate intonation 

teaching into English teaching curriculum in advance. This can be a solution to the 

possible teacher and learner resistance to learn intonation, as well. To find a 

solution to the last reason, namely English teachers‟ lack of necessary background 

knowledge and skills to teach intonation, more research results are needed to be 

aware of the current proficiency levels of language teachers and what can be done 

to improve them further in the field of teaching English intonation.  

For the previously stated reasons, finding solution to the last problem of EFL 

teacher effectiveness in using and teaching English intonation can be stated as 

the main concern of this study.  For this end, the Audio-Articulation Pronunciation 

Teaching Model developed by Demirezen (2003, 2004) and Grammar Intonation 

Model (Cauldwell & Hewings, 1996; Hahn, 2004) were used in this research study 

to evaluate prospective EFL teachers‟ knowledge of English intonation and if 

necessary, to cure their intonation usage problems. The Audio-Articulation Model 

promotes the production of utterances via Grammar Intonation Model towards 

Discourse Intonation Model. So, the pronunciation and intonation teaching method 

mentioned above was also used in some other important studies concerned with 

English pronunciation teaching. For instance, HiĢmanoğlu (2007) used this method 

in his research study as the data collection tool to remedy the pronunciation 

problems of Turkish learners of English concerning the production of the [o:] and 

[oʊ] sounds. Incorporating more pronunciation and intonation teaching activities 

into English teaching process has a crucial importance for language teaching. In 

this sense, HiĢmanoglu (2006) draws the attention of the foreign language 



6 

educators towards incorporating pronunciation teaching and learning more into 

English teaching area.  

1.2. Statement of the Problem 

As stated previously, pronunciation and intonation teaching is considered as a 

neglected part of language teaching process (Demirezen, 2009; HiĢmanoglu, 

2006). Pronunciation teaching was described as the Cinderella of language 

teaching (Underhill, 2011) due to its neglected place in the language teaching 

area. In this sense, as a subcomponent of pronunciation, intonation teaching can 

be considered of the Cinderella of pronunciation teaching in English, as well. 

Because of various reasons like time limitations in the language teaching 

curriculum, the lack of expertise of the teachers in ELT area or not putting much 

emphasis on the teaching of intonation, this area still remains disregarded in terms 

of both teaching English intonation in language classes and conducting academic 

research studies. 

Specifically for Turkish EFL context, English and Turkish come from the different 

language typologies and this fact may increase the importance of teaching English 

pronunciation and intonation patterns to Turkish learners of English. To attach the 

necessary importance to the area of teaching intonation, initially the language 

teachers should be efficient enough in that area. The crucial problem is the fact 

that there is a lack of research to see the efficiency of especially the prospective 

EFL teachers concerning both the issue of using correct English intonation and 

then teaching it. For the reasons mentioned above, it is vital to investigate the 

prospective EFL teachers‟ English intonation knowledge and to improve their 

knowledge if necessary. Last and maybe the most important issue is to take 

necessary steps to advance the present situation of prospective EFL teachers via 

providing valuable research in language teaching area. 

1.3. Purpose of the Study 

This study aimed to explore the proficiency levels of prospective EFL teachers at a 

major state university in Ankara in Turkey in terms of using the correct intonation 

patterns in English time clauses. In addition, it aimed to evaluate how their 

proficiency levels change after being taught the correct intonation patterns via 

Audio Articulation Model (Demirezen, 2003, 2004) based on Grammar Intonation 



7 

Model (Cauldwell & Hewings, 1996; Hahn, 2004). In this respect, the researcher 

intends to find out the existing problems of English sentence intonation in the 

prospective EFL teachers‟ speech and to remediate these problems with the help 

of Audio Articulation Model (Demirezen, 2003, 2004). The further aim is to raise 

more effective English teachers in terms of teaching correct intonation patterns in 

English.  

Huynh (2012) showed that there is a difference between the intonation knowledge 

provided in the books and in real life conversations, which brings up a topic like 

Discourse Intonation Model. The idea is that to acquire correct intonation patterns, 

L2 learners should be exposed to native speaker input along with the course book 

materials. For this reason, the remedial teaching activities in this study were 

prepared via using authentic native speaker speech segments. The purpose was 

to provide learners with authentic pieces of English intonation. 

1.4. Significance of the Study 

The importance of this study lies on the fact that there is considerable lack of 

research in English intonation teaching and learning area; especially in EFL 

contexts including Turkey. Since English learners in EFL contexts have a more 

limited access to use English in their normal life, the importance of learning 

English intonation patterns increases. In this respect, there is a need to get 

valuable data to evaluate the current situation and if necessary, to improve the 

present condition of prospective teachers studying in ELT departments in Turkey 

about their English intonation knowledge. 

1.5. Research Questions 

The following research questions were formulated for this research study: 

1. Is there any significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores of 

prospective EFL teachers on using the primary stress on one of the content 

words in time adverbials in English? 

2. Do prospective EFL teachers pause when a dependent clause precedes a 

main clause in English adverbial clauses of time? 

3. When a main time clause precedes a dependent clause, which intonation 

pattern do prospective EFL teachers use? 



8 

4. Is there any significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores of 

prospective EFL teachers on using the correct pitch patterns while reading 

out the time adverbial clauses? 

5. Is there any significant difference between overall pre-test and post-

test scores of the prospective EFL teachers about using the correct 

intonation patterns of English adverbial clauses of time? 

1.6.  Assumptions and Limitations 

The participants of this study comprised 84 prospective EFL teachers at a major 

state university in Ankara. First limitation can be the number of the participants; it 

could be better to reach more participants in terms of the generalizability of the 

results attained at the end of the study. Another limitation could be related to 

collecting data from only one ELT department students studying in their first year. 

To collect more comprehensive data, further research can take into account 

incorporating more ELT departments from different universities in Turkey and 

students from different grade levels like second, third, fourth year into their studies. 

1.7. Definition of Key Terms   

In this subsection, definitions of some key terms that are important for this study 

are provided.  

Intonation: Pitch changes happening on a phrase or sentence (YavaĢ, 2011); “the 

combination of pitch, stress and juncture with which an utterance is spoken.” 

(Demirezen, 1986, p.120). 

Prosody: “A term used in supra-segmental phonetics and phonology to refer 

collectively to variations in pitch, loudness, tempo and rhythm.” (Crystal, 2008, p. 

393). 

Pitch: “The attribute of auditory sensation in terms of which a sound may be 

ordered on a scale from low to high (Crystal, 2008, p. 369). 

Stress: “A term used in phonetics to refer to the degree of force used in producing 

a syllable.” (Crystal, 2008, p. 454). 



9 

Juncture: “A term used in phonology to refer to the phonetic boundary features 

which may demarcate grammatical units such as morpheme, word or clause.” 

(Crystal, 2008, p. 258). 

Rhythm: “An application of the general sense of this term in phonology, to refer to 

the perceived regularity of prominent units in speech.” (Crystal, 2008, p. 417). 

1.8.  Conclusion 

This chapter has presented the background information about the study, 

explanation of the problem which is investigated in the study, purpose and 

significance, research questions, possible limitations of the study and the 

definitions of key terms.  The aim is to explain the general topic of the study and to 

give some information about what is investigated throughout this study. In the 

following chapters, detailed information regarding the previous research 

conducted, pros and cons of them, research methodology of this study along with 

providing necessary information related to the participants of the study, data 

collection instrument and procedures, data analysis techniques, results gathered 

at the end of the study and the discussion of these results in relation with the 

research questions will be presented. This research will be finished with providing 

a general conclusion about what is the effect of this study in English language 

teaching field and with providing some important recommendations for the future 

studies that will be conducted in relation to the topic of this study. 

 

  



10 

2. LITERATURE REVIEW 

2.1. Introduction 

Pronunciation as a cover term and intonation as a subcomponent of pronunciation 

should have a significant place in English language teaching and learning area. 

However; pronunciation and intonation teaching does not take the necessary 

levels of attention in ELT classrooms and even in the language teaching 

departments in the universities, which are responsible for bringing up competent 

English language teachers. In this chapter, the definition and the general scope of 

the term intonation and what it covers are explained. Then, the history and the 

background of pronunciation and intonation teaching in the world and in Turkey 

are provided with reference to related academic studies carried out in ELT field 

beforehand. The purpose was to present the place of English intonation learning 

and teaching, which is one of the main concerns of this study, in ELT field via 

examining the situation in one of the English language teaching departments in a 

university in Turkey. Since it is considered that to teach English intonation to the 

language learners, firstly teachers should be competent enough to be able to 

teach it. Therefore, especially the EFL teachers should have the necessary 

knowledge about English intonation rules and about what to teach and how to 

teach. For these reasons, the studies conducted on English intonation teaching 

and learning until recently have been reviewed to show the purposes of 

conducting this study.   

2.2. The History, Background and the Significance of Pronunciation and 

Intonation Teaching in English 

To begin with, it should be borne in mind that using correct intonation patterns in 

speech is important for many reasons and one of the most important reasons is 

that it facilitates intelligibility of the speech. Therefore, especially English foreign 

language learners should be specifically taught about   these patterns of 

intonation. 

Celce-Murcia, Brinton and Goodwin (2010, p. 218) mention that; 

“In any ESL/EFL class where oral skills are thought, … prosody and grammar must be 

highlighted and taught, since contextually appropriate control of stress and intonation is 

an essential part of oral communicative competence that is usually not self-evident to 

nonnative speakers.” 



11 

 Concerning the issue of why intonation teaching should be a part of the English 

language teaching in the EFL/ESL classrooms, Kelly (2012, p. 87) states that;  

“Intonation needs to be a feature of classroom language analysis and practice. This will 

help students towards greater expressiveness and articulacy in English, and also help them 

to a better understanding of some of the subtleties of native-speaker speech.” 

Concerning pronunciation teaching in language classrooms as a cover term of 

intonation teaching, the questions of what and how to teach became crucial 

(Leather, 1983; Pennington & Richards,1986). Morley (1991) also provides a 

general look to the pronunciation teaching paradigms and how they have changed 

throughout the language teaching history. As a term, intonation can be regarded 

as a sub-branch of pronunciation and also in the pronunciation teaching books, 

intonation teaching sometimes has a place as a sub-branch. To make the second 

language (L2) learners acquire more intelligible pronunciation, learning about 

English intonation was seen as an important step (Nagamine, 2002).  

Regarding the intonation teaching process in the language classrooms, what can 

be taught about intonation is a crucial issue. About this concern, one view 

mentioned by Vanpatten and Benati (2010) is that L2 learners may not acquire 

native like fluency in phonology, namely in sound system and pronunciation. On 

the other hand; they can be native like in acquiring the morphology and syntax of 

L2. According to this view, phonological component of the language can fossilize; 

it means that it cannot improve in the learners‟ minds. However; syntactic and 

semantic components can carry on developing. These are important views about 

the issue of what portion of phonology to teach to the language learners. About 

pedagogical implications concerning what to teach about intonation, Allen (1971) 

suggested that the teachers should show the relation between punctuation and 

intonation system. Language teachers should also provide knowledge to L2 

learners about how to differentiate between the intonation of isolated sentences 

and the intonation of segments in the discourse.  

The power of using correct intonation lies in the fact that it is a crucial part of the 

way people express themselves (Kelly, 2012). Using correct intonation patterns 

while speaking not only makes the speakers clear in the meaning they are trying to 

convey but also helps the listeners understand the intentions of the speakers 

correctly. This can be really important to avoid misunderstandings in conversation. 

Much research (Brazil, 1997; Cauldwell and Hewings, 1996; Celce Murcia et al., 



12 

2010; Gumperz, 1982) shed light on the fact that many nonnative speakers are 

misunderstood or misinterpreted as being rude or disinterested because of using 

wrong intonation or stress patterns. To avoid misunderstandings or possible 

miscommunication between speakers, Kelly (2012) states that intonation gives the 

listeners hints about the attitudes and feelings of the speakers about what they are 

uttering. Therefore, intonation is used for a variety of purposes like for making 

grammatical boundaries clear (phrases and clauses), for identifying sentence 

types (e.g., statements and questions), and for transferring the speaker‟s attitude 

(surprise, irony, anger, etc.) (Trask, 1996).  

More recently, Roach (2009) described the functions of English intonation 

consisting of attitudinal, accentual, grammatical and discourse ones (Table 2.1):  

Table 2.1: The Functions of English Intonation  

The attitudinal function: 

to express attitudes and emotions 

The accentual function: 

 

about placing the stress on a most prominent syllable in  a word 

The grammatical function:  

 

related to helping to understand the grammatical and syntactic structures of the speech via using the 
information a person can get with the intonation usage 

The discourse function:  

 
to make it clear what is new information and what is already mentioned 

From these functions of intonation, it can be inferred that intonation can help 

speakers in terms of all the competencies as grammatical, sociolinguistic, 

discourse and strategic competence proposed by Canale and Swain (1980).  

 According to Celce-Murcia et al. (2010), speakers use prosody (intonation, rhythm 

etc.) in specific circumstances with the purpose of conveying their intentional 

meaning in a spoken discourse. So, about the functions of intonation, Celce-

Murcia et al. (2010, p. 200) state that intonation has “an important conversation 

management function.” It means that the speaker can signal the other speaker to 

end speaking or to give his/her attention to some important part of the 

conversation. It also has some social functions like showing the speaker‟s level of 

interest to continue the conversation or not, the relationship between the speaker 

and listener, the speaker‟s statement of sarcasm etc. If people speak without using 



13 

intonation, their speech could sound mechanical like a robot. So, intonation in 

English is used for many purposes like to expect or ask further information, to 

approve or disapprove something. 

 About the semantic function of intonation, it can be stated that in English, 

intonation makes the meaning of the utterances clear. According to Cauldwell and 

Hewings (1996), apart from the intonation rules provided in ELT text books, it is 

more useful for learners to provide them with better intonation descriptions 

focusing on the communicative value of English intonation. In addition, using 

different intonation patterns sometimes changes the grammatical category or 

meaning of the word. So, in some languages, intonation has a more clear-cut 

function of changing the meaning of the word. For instance, in tone languages like 

Chinese, the different pitch and movement of the voice on a syllable can change 

the meaning of the word (Kelly, 2012).  

Regarding the various functions of English intonation, Brazil (1997) examined the 

communicative value of question intonation in English like taking uncertainty away 

from the speaker‟s mind. Concerning both the pragmatic and semantic functions of 

English intonation, Grabe, Rosner, Garcia-Albea and Zhou (2003) investigated the 

effect of different first languages on identifying fall-rise intonation pattern in 

English. The participants had English, Spanish and Chinese as first languages and 

they found out that first language can affect the understanding of different 

intonation contours in the second language. Warren (2005) studied intonation in 

different language varieties like the intonation of New Zealand English and tried to 

find systematic intonation differences in each variety. Moreover; Constant (2012) 

investigated English rise-fall-rise intonation pattern and its effect on 

disambiguation. Steedman (2014) conducted a comprehensive study about the 

semantics of English intonation in relation to discourse context and grammar in his 

recent research study.  

Concerning the grammatical function of intonation, some researchers tried to 

explain the relationship between grammar and intonation by classifying the 

intonation patterns according to three or four types of sentences, which are 

statements, yes-no or wh-questions, commands and exclamations (O‟Connor & 

Arnold, 1961; Thompson, 1995, p. 237). It is a structural classification of sentence 

types in English in relation to intonation patterns. Related to these grammatical 



14 

classes, Bolinger (1965) stated that “intonation has been invoked to define 

grammatical classes ever since the first discovery that most questions go up and 

most statements come down” (p. 95). According to Crystal (1969), grammatical 

patterns are related to the study of intonation as long as a change in intonation 

requires a change in the syntactic structure of a sentence or utterance. As a type 

of research methodology, Crystal (1969) stated a way of studying intonation 

patterns related to pre-determined grammatical categories like the intonation of 

clauses. This is part of the research methodology used in this research study. In 

addition, Crystal (1969) stated the aspects coinciding with intonation and grammar 

as the following: tone-unit structure, tonicity and the placement of nuclear tone.  

After clarifying some views related to what to teach about intonation and different 

functions of intonation, some research studies about the pedagogical implications 

of English intonation teaching in language classrooms are presented. For 

instance, Leon and Martin (1972) looked the relation between applied linguistics 

and the teaching of intonation in English and he informed about intonation being 

the most difficult linguistic feature to comprehend. This result is important to grasp 

why intonation teaching does not take considerable attention in language teaching 

classrooms. So, the reason is the difficulty of both understanding and teaching of 

it.  

Bot and Mailfert (1982) showed in their research study that training in intonation 

caused considerable improvement in the production of correct intonation patterns 

in their student participants. The importance of raising English learners‟ awareness 

of prosodic features of language including intonation was acknowledged by 

Pennington and Ellis (2000), as well. To teach about the discourse intonation, 

Beaken (2009) used narrative as a teaching method in relation to Brazil‟s 

discourse intonation system. About the same issue, Chapman (2007) explained 

discourse intonation as “explaining how intonation patterns in English affect the 

communicative value of speech, through the use of falling and rising tones along 

with changes in pitch.” Braun and Chen (2010) try to find out the effect of 

intonation from semantic aspect and looked at the intonation of the word “now/nu” 

about solving the ambiguity in Dutch and English.  

There are some research studies about the importance of intonation teaching and 

its results especially in EFL classrooms. In a recent study, Mitrofanova (2012) 



15 

conducted a research about the awareness of EFL students about the intonation 

pitch patterns in complex English sentences and found out that intonation 

awareness raising activities are useful for language learners. In contrast with the 

EFL contexts, some researchers investigated the issue of intonation acquisition in 

immersion situation. Kang (2013) found out that students of immersion English 

education have more native like intonation patterns in their speech than the other 

students who have non-immersed education. It could be stated that intonation 

teaching has gradually become a concern in different language learning and 

teaching environments as stated above.  

The importance of supra-segmental training in L2 acquisition has been 

acknowledged more often recently. Meng et al. (2009) mentioned that L2 learners 

must have correct supra-segmental usage for effective communication. About the 

teaching of supra-segmental features in Turkey, it can be stated that teaching 

English stress patterns to Turkish EFL learners is a limited area in Turkey. Just a 

few researchers like HiĢmanoğlu (2012) conducted some studies in that area and 

evaluated EFL learners‟ success of English stress patterns. Therefore, there is a 

considerable lack of research related to teaching of English supra-segmental 

features especially in Turkish EFL context. This is one of the main reasons of 

conducting this research study. 

To state the relationship between grammar and intonation, Halliday (1967, p.10) 

stated the sentences below; 

 “It is not enough to treat intonation systems as if they merely carried a set of emotional 

nuances … English intonation contrasts are grammatical”  

Halliday (1985) described 5 simple 2 compound primary tones in English as being 

falling, high rising, low rising, falling-rising, rising-falling, falling plus low rising, 

rising-falling plus low rising and explained the relation  between tone and meaning. 

About the relationship between grammar teaching and intonation teaching, 

Larsen-Freeman and Celce-Murcia (1998) gave detailed descriptions of 

connectors of all types in English like causality, comparison or time in grammatical 

perspective for ESL/EFL teachers. They also give some possible intentions of 

speakers when main clause precedes the dependent clause or vice versa in these 

complex sentences but they did not provide the intonation knowledge of these 

connectors. Biber et al. (2002) gave very long and detailed information about 



16 

English adverbials of all types including the time adverbials. They also gave 

semantic and syntactic descriptions of the positions of these adverbials but once 

more, they did not give any information about the intonation patterns of adverbial 

clauses.  

Kroeger (2005) mentioned grammatical rules about complex time adverbial 

clauses in English and he drew tree diagrams to show the syntactic rules of these 

clauses but he didn‟t provide the intonation rules. Vince (2008) also explained all 

the grammatical and punctuation rules of adverbial clauses in English with giving 

reference to semantic usages as well but no information was provided about the 

intonation usages. The same issue of providing the grammatical structure of time 

adverbials in most cases together with the knowledge of punctuation in complex 

sentences but providing no information about the intonation usage and its effects 

are available in many grammar books, as well (Azar, 1989; Azar & Hagen, 2006; 

Coe, Harrison, & Paterson, 2006; Murphy, 2013; Willis, 2011). Also, in some 

pronunciation teaching books (Hancock, 2006), basic sentence stress patterns, 

falling and rising tones in questions and in simple sentences are introduced but the 

intonation patterns in complex sentences are again disregarded.  

There is a research gap about the teaching of intonation in the world as mentioned 

by Lantolf (1976). He focused on the issue that there is a gap between the 

intonation research and “the implementation of sound pedagogical materials 

based on this research” (Lantolf, 1976, p. 267). Recently, the fact that not enough 

amount of attention is paid to the teaching of English intonation in language 

classrooms has been acknowledged in ELT area. About the reasons of not giving 

much attention to the teaching of intonation in language classrooms, Kelly (2012) 

points out that students experience difficulty with intonation because much 

attention is given to the teaching of grammar and vocabulary. Additionally, Kelly 

(2012) states that while using correct intonation patterns, some unconscious 

process goes on in the mind of the speaker. It may be because of that 

unconscious nature of intonation that it is found to be harder to learn and also to 

teach. From that point of view, if the teaching of intonation is considered 

specifically, the language teachers should bring this unconscious process of the 

mind of learners to conscious level in the language classroom, which is not an 

easy task to do.  



17 

Intonation teaching parts have taken some place in the books recently. For 

instance, there are some books in which there are sections about pronunciation 

and intonation teaching but in a limited number such as “Teaching pronunciation: 

A reference for teachers of English to speakers of other languages” (Celce-Murcia 

M., Brinton, M. D., & Goodwin, M. J., 2010), “How to teach pronunciation” (Kelly, 

2012). Studies about intonation teaching in EFL contexts have begun to be 

conducted more often in recent years. Yangklang (2013) conducted a research 

study to improve first year university students‟ English stress and intonation 

abilities and used a pre-test post-test experimental research design. 

The lack of knowledge about intonation teaching in language teacher education 

programs is one of the main concerns of this study. Johns (1980) pointed out that 

although intonation has a long relationship with ELT, the integrating of intonation in 

a language syllabus has been kept at a minimum degree. In few ELT course 

books, intonation is seen as the integral part of the syllabus. So, as mentioned 

earlier, it is a neglected part compared with the other branches of language like 

grammar, vocabulary etc.  

The lack of importance attached to the teaching of intonation component in 

English pronunciation teaching was acknowledged by Taylor (1993). He 

established a relationship between the issue of neglecting intonation teaching with 

the fact that the rules of English intonation are rather complicated and they are not 

available to most English teachers. Therefore, teachers don‟t have the necessary 

intonation knowledge to be able to teach it. The lack of incorporating the research 

results into language teaching area was also mentioned by Levis (1999). It is 

mentioned by Jenkins (2005) that English pronunciation teaching has the main 

obstacle in recent years because of the failure to educate English teachers. 

However, recently, there has been some importance attached to increasing 

teachers‟ English intonation knowledge by making them aware of broad 

dimensions of intonation and incorporating English intonation instruction into 

teacher training curricula (Jeidani, 2014, p. 746). 

The lack of knowledge of pronunciation and intonation in English teachers in 

Turkey has been a great concern for Turkish teachers of English. Especially in 

teacher training programs, it is an important field of study. Demirezen (2005) 

stated that there is a lack of pronunciation teaching methodology in the teacher 



18 

trainees and the foreign language teachers working in the teaching field. To cure 

the pronunciation and intonation errors of prospective English teachers and to 

provide them with the methodology to teach correct pronunciation and intonation 

patterns in English, Audio Articulation Model developed by Demirezen (2003, 

2004) was used and tested in many research studies. This pronunciation and 

intonation rehabilitation model was used with prospective English teachers 

studying in teacher training programs in Turkey to cure their pronunciation 

difficulties related to some sounds of English like the /v/ and /w/ sounds 

(Demirezen, 2005), the /t/ and /d/ sounds in American English (Demirezen, 2006), 

the /æ/ and /Ɛ/ sounds (Demirezen, 2006), the /æ/ and /Ə/ sounds (Demirezen, 

2007), the /ŋ/ and /ŋk/ sounds (Demirezen, 2007), the /æ/and /ʌ/ sounds 

(Demirezen, 2008), and the /r/ sound (Demirezen, 2013). These research studies 

are concerned with segmental phonemes in English.  Here, it is appropriate to 

show the relations in the table below; 

Table 2.2: Segmental and Supra-segmental Phonemes in English 

Applied Phonology 

                  ↓                                                                                               ↓ 

Applied Phonetics         Applied Phonemics 

 

Consonants 

Vowels 

Semi-vowels 

Approximants 

        Stress phoneme 

        Juncture phoneme 

        Pitch phoneme 

        Tempo 

        Rhythm 

        Melody 

        Prosody 

 

Supra-segmental and segmental errors can be corrected if non-native English 

teachers and students are made aware of these errors in their intonation 

(Demirezen, 2009). For this reason, the Audio Articulation Model used in this 

research study was specifically designed with the purpose of remedial 

pronunciation teaching. It can be adapted to use for intonation teaching purposes, 

as well. The model was used in the present study for providing a remedial 

intonation instruction for prospective English teachers and it was originally 

designed to cure the fossilized pronunciation errors of students studying at teacher 

education departments (Demirezen, 2010; HiĢmanoğlu, 2007).  



19 

In Turkish context, the importance of using correct intonation contours in 

grammatical structures was investigated by a few researchers. For instance, in his 

recent research study, Demirezen (2014) looked at the usages of intonation 

patterns in English tag questions by MA English language teaching department 

students and stated that the total failure of the participants shows that intonation 

teaching should be a must in English teacher training departments in the 

universities in Turkey. This is a very important conclusion about the necessity to 

educate prospective EFL teachers about English intonation teaching, which is one 

of the main concerns of this study. 

Since complex sentences in English time adverbials are investigated in this study, 

explaining sentence types in English is considered as necessary. A subject and a 

main verb comprise a sentence or a clause and a sentence can contain one or 

more clauses. A sentence that contains only one clause is a simple sentence. If a 

sentence comprises two or more clauses which are combined by a coordinating 

conjunction is named as a compound sentence. Additionally, a complex sentence 

consists of at least two clauses: a main clause and a dependent clause. The 

dependent clause is a subpart of the main clause and adds information to it 

(Altenberg & Vago, 2010). To make a connection with this grammatical 

terminology and intonation, Crystal (1969) stated a gap between the 

comprehension and the teaching of sentence intonation in English. He explains 

the reason as analyzing the sentences just as the main clause and not analyzing 

complex sentences in connected speech.  

If English adverbial clauses in English, which are the main topic of this study, are 

categorized, the basic categories are as follows: time, contrast, place, cause, 

result, purpose, conditional, and manner (DeCapua, 2008). The type or category 

of an adverbial clause is determined by its subordinator. For example, the 

subordinators “after” and “when” introduce adverbial time clauses. DeCapua 

(2008) provides information about different kinds of adverbial clauses and their 

position. To give an example, main clause could come after the subordinate 

clause and vice versa. DeCapua (2008) looks at the issue from the grammatical 

perspective and does not provide any information about the intonation patterns of 

those clauses. Therefore, it can be stated that there is not a detailed description of 



20 

the intonation patterns of English time adverbial clauses in anywhere, and 

therefore, this study has an importance to provide that knowledge to ELT field. 

2.3. The Definition and Scope of Intonation and Other Related Prosodic 

Features 

In this part, detailed definitions of the term intonation and the other related features 

are provided to shed light on the components of English intonation that are 

investigated in this study. In ELT field, there are various definitions of the term 

intonation. Providing these definitions can be more helpful to grasp the importance 

of it in the language learning and teaching process. Initially, O‟ Connor and Arnold 

(1961) explained intonation as the expression of speaker‟s attitude in speech and 

they attached importance to the attitudinal function of intonation. So, they 

accepted that there are some different functions of intonation. Halliday (1970) on 

the other hand, did not accept a multifunctional approach to the intonation and 

defined intonation as a set of grammatical options. According to Giegerich (1992), 

“the intonation of an utterance is the pitch contour associated with it and to 

determine these pitch contours, grammatical, semantic, situational and context 

factors should be taken into account” (p. 251). Additionally, Trask (1996, p. 184) 

mentioned it as “the use of pitch, and possibly of additional prosodic phenomena 

such as loudness, tempo and pauses, over a stretch of utterance generally longer 

than a single word for the purpose of conveying meaning.  Coming to more 

recently provided definitions of intonation, Crystal (2008) defined intonation as “a 

term used in the study of supra-segmental phonology, referring to the distinctive 

use of patterns of pitch, or melody” (p. 252). Celce-Murcia et al. (2010) refer 

intonation as a feature of pronunciation that reveals speaker‟s intention. They 

regard intonation as a subcomponent of pronunciation.  

Kelly (2012) on the other hand, looks at the issue from a more mechanic 

perspective and defines intonation as “the way the voice goes up and down in 

pitch when we are speaking” (p. 86). Zsiga (2013) defined the term as using 

supra-segmental features to convey discourse level meaning. This recent 

definition of intonation is important because it reveals the fact that intonation is 

used to transfer information bigger than word or sentence level. Therefore, 

intonation patterns have communicative functions in speech. Lastly, Ladd (2014) 



21 

defined intonation as “the use of supra-segmental phonetic features to convey 

sentence level pragmatic meanings in a linguistically structured way” (p. 6).  

Especially in the recent definitions of intonation, the importance of communicative 

function of intonation and the concept of intelligibility have become more and more 

important. The concepts of intelligibility and accuracy are important to comprehend 

the importance of intonation in English. Intelligibility is mostly related to being 

understood by the other speaker in a conversation. On the other hand; accuracy is 

more concerned with using the correct grammatical patterns in speech.  

As it can be grasped from all the definitions above, to understand how English 

intonation works, some other terms related to intonation should also be provided. 

Intonation is related to supra-segmental features of English but segmental features 

should also be explained to make the difference between the two terms clear. 

Rischel (2009) described the segmental units as vowels and consonants in a 

language and prosodic or supra-segmental features as stress, pause etc. 

Explaining these supra-segmental features is crucial for this study to make the 

importance of using correct intonation patterns in English clear. Here it can be 

stated that there are different levels of information in speech as follows: linguistic 

as the meaning of the utterance, paralinguistic as showing the attitude and 

nonlinguistic as indicating the health or emotional state of the speaker. Both 

segmental and supra-segmental features are related to these levels of information 

provided in speech.  

To describe the relation between segments and supra-segmental features, Ashby 

(2011) mentions intonation as contributing to all sorts of tiny details of speech not 

conveyed by segments. These can comprise the information about focus, 

grammar or about the speaker‟s attitude. So, it can be mentioned that intonation is 

used almost in all the languages to convey feelings like anger, happiness and 

attitudes like being polite etc. This is one of the most important strengths of using 

correct intonation patterns especially in the foreign language to make oneself more 

clear about his/her speech intention and to avoid misunderstandings. About the 

relationship among different supra-segmental or prosodic features, Pike (1945) 

mentioned the interdependence of intonation, stress, quantity, tempo, and rhythm 

and voice quality. Crystal (1969) proposed a description of prosodic systems, 



22 

which was more comprehensive and broad with the addition of voice quality, 

tempo, and continuity and duration. 

Intonation is one of the supra-segmental or prosodic features of English as 

mentioned earlier and prosodic features have great importance for the 

communicative value of what is said. It means that the way one person says 

something becomes more important than what s/he says (Crystal, 1969). Crystal 

(1969) argued that segmental features can be more easily defined than supra-

segmental features in English. He also stated that these features are very 

important because omission of them would create linguistically problematic 

utterances which could be judged as problematic by the native speakers.  

Prosody is a term used in supra-segmental phonetics and phonology referring to 

changes in pitch, loudness, tempo and rhythm (Crystal, 2008). Prosody is 

described by Mannell, Cox and Harrington (2014) as the study of how the rhythm 

of speech affects the meaning of the utterance. In these definitions, it can be 

stated that prosody is a more comprehensive concept than intonation. The study 

of prosody is the study of supra-segmental features of speech. In the Table 2.3, a 

more detailed description of prosody in different approaches is provided. 

Table 2.3: The Description of Prosody in Different Approaches 

Discourse approaches look prosody from the perspective of creating fluent 
interactions 

Functionalist approaches 

 

are more concerned with its strength in conveying the 
intended meaning in social interactions 

Pragmatics tries to find out the literal meaning of a sentence and 
the speakers‟ intentions of uttering it 

To give more detailed definitions of supra-segmental features, juncture refers to 

the phonetic boundary features distinguishing grammatical units like morpheme, 

word or clause (Crystal, 2008). As another supra-segmental feature, pitch is 

described as the frequency of sound (Trask, 1996).  Demirezen (1986) described 

pitch as “the frequency of vibrations of human voice heard in highness and 

lowness of tones during the act of speech” (p. 116).  In addition, rhythm as a term 

refers to “the perceived regularity of prominent units in speech.” (Crystal, 2008, p. 

417). 

The definitions of both segmental and supra-segmental phonology should also be 

provided. Segmental phonology analyses speech into different segments, like 



23 

phonemes. On the other hand; supra-segmental phonology analyses those 

features extending over more than one segment, such as intonation contours that 

are described above (Crystal, 2008). 

Phoneme is “the minimal unit in the sound system of a language” (Crystal, 2008, 

p. 361). Allophones are the different realizations of phonemes (Crystal, 2008). 

Table 2.4: The Supra-segmental Phonemes in Intonation 

Stress phonemes  Primary stress phoneme 

 Secondary stress phoneme 

 Tertiary stress phoneme 

 Weak stress phoneme 

Pitch phonemes  /4/: Extra high pitch phoneme 

/3/: High pitch phoneme 

/2/: Normal pitch phoneme 

/1/: Low pitch phoneme 

Juncture phonemes Internal juncture phonemes;  

 internal open juncture phoneme  

 internal close juncture phoneme 

 

External juncture phonemes; 

 Falling juncture phoneme 

 Rising juncture phoneme 

 Sustained juncture phoneme 

 Rise-fall juncture phoneme 

 Fall-rise juncture phoneme 

In this research, 4 pitch phonemes of English are taken into consideration; 

/4/: Extra high pitch phoneme 

/3/: High pitch phoneme 

/2/: Normal pitch phoneme 

/1/: Low pitch phoneme 

The following are the pitch patterns in English (Demirezen, 2009); 

 /231/: statement or declarative attitude 

/233/: question pitch forms (yes-no, interrogative) 

/232/: incompleteness, doubt, or uncertainty pitch 

/223, or 332/: pitch for calling 

/234/: the shouting pitch 

/221/: the neutral pitch 



24 

Stress, as one of the components of English intonation that is investigated in this 

study, is described by Ashby (2011) as a composition which proceeds from 

intensity (how loud the syllable is with regard to circumjacent syllables), duration 

(the time span of syllable lasting with regard to circumjacent syllables), and 

frequency (the pitch transmitted to the listener). YavaĢ (2011, p. 156) gives a 

definition of stress as being “a cover term for the prosodic features of duration, 

intensity, and pitch. Stress is described by Demirezen (1986) as “an articulatory 

term of description, is also known as accent, is the embodiment of the 

accumulation of energy imposed upon a sound on a sound group in the process of 

speech” (p. 108). Accent is described by Trask (1996) as a special way of 

pronouncing a language, as typical of an individual, a geographical region or a 

social group. 

About the effects of stress on English sentences, Bolinger (1965) stated that 

somewhat uncertain nature of syntax might be more comprehensible and certain 

and added that speakers put the accents on a part of the sentence that they think 

is important. Again about the stress and pause placement in English sentences 

Adams (1979) found out the effect of L1 influence on foreign language sentence 

intonation learning. According to Giegerich (1983) word stress functions as an 

input for differentiating sentence stress. Putting primary stress in an English 

complex sentence is very important to create intelligibility. Anderson (1993) also 

reached the similar results about the effects of stress placement in English 

sentences among the nonnative speakers of English and their intelligibility to 

native speakers. Listeners hear some accented words as prominent with the help 

of intonation usage of the speaker. Additionally, Jenkins (2005) mentioned that the 

most errors related to comprehensibility of the speech occur at the word stress 

level and then rhythm and intonation levels especially for nonnative speakers of 

English. 

In addition, it was stated by Demirezen (2012) that primary stress is generally 

misused by nonnative speakers of English. On that matter, Hahn (2004) 

investigated the native English speakers‟ reactions of nonnative usage of primary 

stress in spoken language and found out the increasing comprehensibility of the 

speech with correct primary stress placement. From the results of that study, it can 

be concluded that the correct usage of primary stress while articulating the 



25 

sentences in English could be an enhancer point regarding the intelligibility of 

nonnative speech. Considering EFL settings like Turkey, this aspect should take 

more of the attention of both language researchers and learners.  

In this research, 4 stress phonemes are taken into consideration; 

/' /: Primary stress. Eg. /ˈdɒktər/ 

/,/: Secondary stress. Eg. /ˌɪnfərˈmeɪʃən/ 

/ \ /: Tertiary stress. Eg. Partnership: “part” syllable takes the primary stress, “ship” 

takes the secondary stress and “ner” takes the tertiary stress. 

/v/: Weak stress. Schwa takes the weak stress in English.  

Another issue related to stress is that there can be lexical category differences in 

English according to use of word stress, for this reason; it can be defined as lexical 

stress. Ashby (2011) gives the example of English noun “import” and verb ”to 

import”. In the first one the primary stress is on the first syllable but in the latter 

one, it is on the second syllable. Here in these examples, stressed syllable is 

named as the nucleus (Wells, 2014).  

Coming to a bigger unit, sentence stress is described as ”the name given to the 

pattern of rhythmic beats contained within an intonational phrase” (Ashby, 2011, p. 

168). As being a stress language, sentence stress involves a choice of word 

stresses from a possible syntactic group. On that issue, Ashby (2011) mentions 

three levels of word stress, nucleus as the most prominent type, unstressed 

syllable as the less prominent and between the two the rhythmic beats. A primary 

stress of a speech unit is caused by a pitch change according to Gussenhoven 

and Jacobs (2012). 

Loudness, rhythm and pitch are the levels of prosody (Mannell, Cox, & Harrington, 

2014) and they are related to stress. One of the most important concepts here for 

English speakers is pitch. In English, pitch is dynamic not static. This pitch change 

in English is described as accent, a stress type in an intonation language like 

English by Ashby (2011). On a recent study, Mannell, Cox and Harrington (2014) 

have stated that a speaker uses a pitch accent together with the vowel of the 

primary stressed syllable of each word accented. As a different concept, tone is 

generally used to refer to the lexical use of pitch to distinguish among meanings. 



26 

In a tone language, a tone in a word or morpheme can change the meaning or the 

grammatical category of a word. Pitch is also used to differentiate words. In 

intonation language, pitch is not used to distinguish words (Hayes, 2009). In 

addition, pitch variation is used in languages to express discourse meaning and to 

mark phrases. Therefore, it can be stated that there are two structures in an 

intonation contour; one of them being morphological and one of them being 

phonological (Gussenhoven, 2004).  

In this research following juncture phonemes are handled: 

 

Figure 2.1. Types of Junctures in English 

Adapted from Demirezen (2013: 207) 

As another prosodic feature, pause or juncture can be analyzed by two aspects as 

being formal and functional and the first aspect is generally neglected (Crystal, 

1969). In a time clause for example, the speakers need to pause when the 

independent clause precedes the dependent clause for clear intelligibility, which is 

related to one of the research questions of the present study. Therefore, juncture 

is used to organize main and subordinate clauses in a whole sentence. Namely, it 

is used to divide the whole sentence into different groups.  For the intonation, the 

place of pause has a very important function (Pickering, 2002). There is a strong 

relationship between the usage of correct pause in the speech and intelligibility of 

the speech (Paterno, 2003). So, artificial usage of pauses can decrease the 

intelligibility of the speech.  

Jenkins (2005, p. 45) states that; 

“Students have problems in dividing the stream of speech into word groups ….. Failure to 

divide the speech stream into these units can result in grammatical ambiguity and 

misinterpretation.”  



27 

In this way, the speech can sound unnatural and non-native. One other aspect 

related to juncture is that the perception and production of juncture phoneme in 

teacher education have never received serious recognition in the departments of 

English language education at the Faculty of Education in Turkey (Demirezen, 

2009). The absence of juncture exercises on course books is also acknowledged 

as a handicap on the acquisition of English intonation by the non-native English 

teachers. As indicated by Demirezen (2009, p. 2780) 

 “An adequate analysis and practice of English intonation in relation to stress, pitch, and especially 

to juncture is needed in teacher training curricula of Turkish teacher education programs in 

Turkey.”  

Since the place of a juncture in a sentence can indicate perceptual differences, 

English learners and teachers should be aware of such differences and use them 

in their speech. For this reason, the intonation of many non-native teachers in 

Turkey sound unnatural and accentuated as acknowledged by Demirezen (2013).  

Other than Audio-articulation Model, there are a few pronunciation teaching 

models. There are intuitive-imitative approach and analytical-linguistic approach 

(Celce-Murcia, Brinton & Goodwin, 2010) for pronunciation teaching. Intuitive-

imitative Approach depends on the learners‟ ability to listen and to imitate the 

rhythm and sounds of the target language without providing any explicit 

information. So, students only imitate the native speaker model. Analytic-linguistic 

Approach, on the other hand, uses such tools as a phonetic alphabet, articulatory 

descriptions etc. to help listening, imitation, and production. It uses contrastive 

minimal pair drills and focuses on the problem-causing sounds of the target 

language to the learners. The model called the Audio-Articulaton, in principle, is 

based on the Analytic-linguistic Approach (Demirezen, 2010). For this reason, in 

this study, the principles of Analytic-linguistic Approach are used while preparing 

English intonation teaching exercises for remedial teaching lessons. 

In the present study, the intonation of complex adverbial clauses in English was 

chosen to be investigated. One of the most important reasons of this choice is that 

even the simple sentence structures can cause problems for Turkish university 

students (Demirezen, 2012). For this reason; complex sentences can be much 

more problematic to learn and use correctly. In this sense, providing a brief 

historical knowledge on the issue is necessary. Church (1967) proposed a “stress 



28 

terminal pattern” (p. 427), a primary stress preceding a terminal juncture and 

requires punctuation mostly. The goal is to punctuate sentence with the correct 

intonation pattern according to semantic meaning. Being directly related to the 

present study, Hartvigson (1969) defined the intonation patterns of English 

adverbial clauses and stated that in natural speech there is a syntactic boundary 

between the adverbial clause and the main clause in relation to their position. To 

describe adverbials, Hartvigson (1969) proposed four different intonation patterns 

as dependent, independent, emphatic and tail intonation.  

Lastly, covering different models for phonological analysis can be helpful. Initially, 

Optimality Theory is important to explain the grammar phonology relationship. 

Barlow and Gierut (1999) regarded Optimality Theory as “a new view of generative 

phonology” (p. 1483). In this view, there are constraints not rules. It is different 

from other approaches to phonological analysis like Auto-segmental phonology 

and linear phonology which use rules rather than constraints. So, a child acquiring 

the phonology of English should learn the lexicon and the universal constraints 

according to Optimality Theory.  

The lack of research studies conducted in the English intonation field in general 

and about the intonation patterns of time adverbials in English was acknowledged 

beforehand. One last issue to be mentioned is that considering the intonation 

teaching of time adverbials, there is almost no thesis study conducted.  

There are detailed intonation descriptions of the 48 sentences in the data 

collection corpus below. This intonation analysis incorporates the information 

about sentence stress, pitch and juncture rules of these sentences. It must be 

noted that sentence stress in English dependent on intonation since sentence 

stress is the rhythm of the language and eases for the speakers to understand the 

language. For this reason, putting the stress in to correct words while speaking the 

language has a crucial importance to prevent the possible misunderstandings or 

miscommunications between the speakers. It should be bear in mind that 

changing the stressed word in a sentence in English can change the meaning of 

the sentence totally. In English, content words in a sentence are stressed and 

function words do not normally take the primary stress. This is a basic rule of 

thumb in English sentence stress patterns. Content words comprise verbs, nouns, 

adjectives, adverbs, negative auxiliaries and interrogatives.  



29 

Here is an example: 

I like BÓOKs. (I only like books, not magazines.) 

I LÍKE books. (I liked them; I do not hate them.) 

Í like books. (I, not anybody else like books.) 

 On the other hand; structure or function words are prepositions, auxiliary verbs, 

conjunctions, articles and pronouns. While speaking, which words should take the 

primary stress in a sentence is very important. The other components of English 

intonation dealt with in this study are pitch and juncture as it can be seen in the 

intonation analysis of the sentences below. The intonational analysis of the sample 

sentences that were used as a corpus in this study can be described as follows: 

Group 1: before, after, when, while, since 

Sentence 1 

Before I could say ÁNYthing more, Holmes had RÚSHed off towards the station.  

Stress phoneme 

2Before I could say 3anything more2, 2Holmes had 3rushed off towards the 

station1Pitch phonemes 

Before I could say anything more → Holmes had rushed off towards the station ↓   

Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2Before I could say 3ÁNYthing more2→ 2Holmes had 3RÚSHed off 

towards the station1↓ /  

Sentence 2 

She wanted to FÍnish cleaning her room before she went out.   Stress phoneme 

2She wanted to3 finish cleaning her room before she went out1 Pitch phonemes 

She wanted to finish cleaning her room before she went out ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2She wanted to3 FÍnish cleaning her room before she went out1↓/ 

Sentence 3 

You have to PÁSS a test before you can get a license. Stress phoneme 

2You have to3 pass a test before you can get a license.1 Pitch phonemes 



30 

You have to pass a test before you can get a license ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: / 2You have to3 PÁSS a test before you can get a license1↓/ 

Sentence 4 

After you had called the poLÍCE, what did you do?   Stress phoneme 

2After you had called the 2police, what did you do 3 Pitch phonemes 

After you had called the police → what did you do? ↑Juncture phonemes 

INTONATION: /2After you had called the 2poLÍCE →what did you do 3 ↑ / 

Sentence 5 

Zimmerman changed his NÁme after he left Germany. Stress phoneme 

2Zimmerman changed his 3 name after he left Germany 1 Pitch phonemes 

Zimmerman changed his name after he left Germany ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: / 2Zimmerman changed his 3 NÁme after he left Germany 1 ↓/ 

Sentence 6 

I will do the SHÓPping after I finish work.   Stress phoneme 

2I will do the 3shopping after I finish work1 Pitch phonemes 

I will do the shopping after I finish work↓   Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2I will do the 3SHÓPping after I finish work1↓/  

Sentence 7 

He is going to get a JÓB when he leaves university. Stress phoneme 

2He is going to get a 3job when he leaves university 1 Pitch phonemes 

He is going to get a job when he leaves university ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: / 2He is going to get a 3 JÓB when he leaves university 1↓/  

Sentence 8 

Leonard was NÍNE when his father died.  Stress phoneme 

2Leonard was 3nine when his father died1 Pitch phonemes 

Leonard was nine when his father died ↓ Juncture phoneme 



31 

INTONATION: /2Leonard was 3 NÍNE when his father died1↓/ 

Sentence 9 

When you get to the ÓFfice, you will see a TÁLL man named Sean. Stress 

phonemes 

2When you get to the 3office2, 2you will see a 3tall man named Sean1 Pitch phonemes  

When you get to the office → you will see a tall man named Sean ↓ Juncture 

phonemes 

INTONATION: /2When you get to the 3 ÓFfice 2 →2you will see a 3 TÁLL man 

named Sean1 ↓/ 

Sentence 10 

While she was aSLÉEP, thieves BRÓKE in and stole her bag. Stress phonemes 

2While she was 3asleep2, 2thieves 3broke in and stole her bag1 Pitch phonemes 

While she was asleep → thieves broke in and stole her bag ↓ Juncture 

phonemes 

INTONATION: /2While she was 3 aSLÉEP 2→ 2thieves 3 BRÓKE in and stole her 

bag1 ↓/ 

Sentence 11 

They arRÍved while we were having dinner. Stress phoneme 

2They 3arrived while we were having dinner1 Pitch phonemes 

They arrived while we were having dinner ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2They 3 arRÍved while we were having dinner1↓/ 

Sentence 12 

What did you DÓ while you were there? Stress phoneme 

2What did you 3 do while you were there3 Pitch phonemes 

What did you do while you were there ↑ Juncture Phoneme 

INTONATION: /2What did you 3 DÓ while you were there3↑/ 

 



32 

Sentence 13 

I haven‟t played RÚGBY since I left university. Stress phoneme 

2I haven‟t played 3rugby since I left university 1 Pitch phonemes 

I haven‟t played rugby since I left university ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2I haven‟t played 3 RÚGBY since I left university 1↓/ 

Sentence 14 

She has lived in LÓNdon since she was twenty. Stress phoneme 

2She has lived in 3London since she was twenty1 Pitch phonemes 

She has lived in London since she was twenty ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2She has lived in 3LÓNdon since she was twenty1↓/ 

Sentence 15 

Since we MÓVED here, it has been one PRÓBlem after another. Stress 

phonemes 

2Since we 3moved here2, 2it has been one 3 problem after another1 Pitch phonemes 

Since we moved here → it has been one problem after another ↓ Juncture 

phonemes 

INTONATION: /2Since we 3 MÓVED here2 → 2it has been one 3 PRÓBlem after 

another1↓/ 

Group 2: once, every time, whenever, by the time 

Sentence 1 

Once I get him a JÓB, he will be FÍNE. Stress phonemes 

2Once I get him a 3job2, 2he will be 3fine1 Pitch phonemes 

Once I get him a job→ he will be fine ↓ Juncture phonemes 

INTONATION: /2Once I get him a 3 JÓB 2→ 2he will be 3 FÍNE1↓/ 

Sentence 2 

I will send you my new adRἙSS once I have found somewhere to live. Stress 

phoneme 



33 

2I will send you my new3 adress once I have found somewhere to live 1 Pitch 

phonemes 

I will send you my new adress once I have found somewhere to live ↓ Juncture 

phoneme 

INTONATION: /2I will send you my new3 adRἘSS once I have found somewhere 

to live 1↓/ 

Sentence 3 

We'll send your TÍCkets once we've RECEÍVED your cheque. Stress phoneme 

2We'll send your 3tickets once we've received your cheque 1 Pitch phonemes 

We'll send your tickets once we've received your cheque ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION:/ 2We'll send your 3TÍCkets once we've RECEÍVED your cheque 1↓/ 

Sentence 4 

The roof LÉAKs every time it rains. Stress phoneme 

2The roof 3leaks every time it rains 1 Pitch phonemes 

The roof leaks every time it rains ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2The roof 3 LÉAKS every time it rains 1↓/ 

Sentence 5 

I feel very exCÍted every time I see him. Stress phoneme 

2I feel very 3excited every time I see him1 Pitch phonemes 

 I feel very excited every time I see him↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2I feel very 3 exCÍted every time I see him1↓/ 

Sentence 6 

Every time we get together with old FRIÉNDS, we spend great TÍME together. 

Stress phonemes 

2Every time we get together with old 3 friends2, 2we spend great 3time together1 Pitch 

phonemes 

Every time we get together with old friends→ we spend great time together ↓ 

Juncture phonemes  

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/send
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/your
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/ticket
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/receive
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/your
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/cheque
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/send
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/your
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/ticket
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/receive
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/your
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/cheque
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/send
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/your
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/ticket
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/receive
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/your
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/cheque
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/send
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/your
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/ticket
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/receive
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/your
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/cheque


34 

INTONATION: /2Every time we get together with old 3 FRIÉNDS 2→2we spend 

great 3 TÍME together1↓/ 

Sentence 7 

Larry always BLÁMES me whenever anything goes wrong. Stress phoneme 

2Larry always 3blames me whenever anything goes wrong1 Pitch phonemes 

Larry always blames me whenever anything goes wrong ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2Larry always 3 BLÁMES me whenever anything goes wrong 1↓/ 

Sentence 8 

Whenever I hear that TÚNE, it MÁKES me think of you. Stress phonemes 

2Whenever I hear that 3tune2, 2it 3makes me think of you1 Pitch phonemes 

Whenever I hear that tune → it makes me think of you ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2Whenever I hear that 3 TÚNE 2→  2it 3 MÁKES me think of you1↓/ 

Sentence 9 

You can CÓME and visit me whenever you want. Stress phoneme 

2You can 3come and visit me whenever you want 1 Pitch phonemes 

You can come and visit me whenever you want ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2You can 3 CÓME and visit me whenever you want 1↓/ 

Sentence 10 

The phone was RÍNGing but by the time she got inDÓORs, it had STÓPped.  

Stress phonemes 

2The phone was 3ringing2 but 2by the time she got 3indoors2, 2it had 3stopped 1 Pitch 

phonemes 

The phone was ringing→ but by the time she got indoors → it had stopped ↓ 

Juncture phonemes 

INTONATION: /2The phone was 3RÍNGing2 → but 2by the time she got 

3inDÓORs2→2it had 3 STÓPped 1↓ / 

 



35 

Sentence 11 

The rain had already STÓPped by the time we came home. Stress phoneme 

2The rain had already 3stopped by the time we came home 1 Pitch phonemes 

The rain had already stopped by the time we came home ↓ Juncture phoneme 

 INTONATION: /2The rain had already 3 STÓPped by the time we came home 1↓/ 

Sentence 12 

By the time I arRÍved at the cafe, all of my friends were WÁITing for me. Stress 

phonemes 

2By the time I 3arrived at the cafe2, 2all of my friends were 3waiting for me 1 Pitch 

phonemes
 

By the time I arrived at the cafe → all of my friends were waiting for me ↓ 

Juncture phonemes 

INTONATION: /2By the time I 3arRÍved at the cafe2→ 2all of my friends were 3 

WÁITing for me1↓/ 

Group 3: as, until, till, now that, soon after, as long as, as soon as 

Sentence 1 

I saw PÉter as I was getting off the bus. Stress phoneme 

2I saw 3Peter as I was getting off the bus 1 Pitch phonemes 

I saw Peter as I was getting off the bus ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2I saw 3 PÉter as I was getting off the bus 1↓/ 

Sentence 2 

As time PÁSSed, things seemed to get WÓRSE.  Stress phonemes 

2As time 3passed2, 2things seemed to get 3 worse 1 Pitch phonemes 

As time passed → things seemed to get worse ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2As time 3 PÁSSed 2→ 2things seemed to get 3 WÓRSE 1↓/ 

 



36 

Sentence 3 

I THÍNK your opinions CHÁNGE as you get ÓLDER. Stress phonemes 

2I3 think2 your opinions 3change as you get older1 Pitch phonemes 

I think→ your opinions change as you get older ↓ Juncture phonemes 

INTONATION: /2I 3THÍNK→2 your opinions 3CHÁNGE as you get ÓLDER1↓/ 

Sentence 4 

We take care of the KÍDS until mom gets home. Stress phoneme 

2We take care of the3 kids until mom gets home1 Pitch phonemes 

We take care of the kids until mom gets home ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2We take care of the3 KÍDS until mom gets home1↓/ 

Sentence 5 

She couldn‟t drive away until ÉRIC got into the car. Stress phoneme 

2She couldn‟t drive away until 3Eric got into the car 1 Pitch phonemes 

She couldn‟t drive away until Eric got into the car ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2She couldn‟t drive away until 3 ÉRIC got into the car 1↓/ 

Sentence 6 

Until my FÁther came home, we didn‟t have DÍNner. Stress phonemes 

2Until my 3father came home2, 2we didn‟t have 3dinner1 Pitch phonemes 

Until my father came home → we didn‟t have dinner ↓ Juncture phonemes 

INTONATION: /2Until my 3FÁther came home2→ 2we didn‟t have 3 DÍNner 1↓/ 

Sentence 7 

I didn‟t have a BÓYfriend till I was seventeen. Stress phoneme 

2I didn‟t have a 3boyfriend till I was seventeen1 Pitch phonemes 

I didn‟t have a boyfriend till I was seventeen ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2I didn‟t have a 3 BÓYfriend till I was seventeen1↓/ 

 

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/think_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/your
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/opinion
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/change_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/old
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/think_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/your
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/opinion
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/change_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/old
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/think_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/your
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/opinion
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/change_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/old
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/think_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/your
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/opinion
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/change_1
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/turkish/old


37 

Sentence 8 

I LÍVED with my PÁrents till I was twenty. Stress phonemes 

2I lived with my 3parents till I was twenty 1 Pitch phonemes 

I lived with my parents till I was twenty ↓ Juncture phoneme 

INTONATION: /2I LÍVED with my 3 PÁrents till I was twenty 1↓/ 

Sentence 9 

Till you CÓME home, I will WÁIT for you. Stress phonemes 

2Till you 3come home2, 2I will 3wait for you 1 Pitch phonemes 

Till you come home → I will wait for you ↓ Juncture phonemes 

INTONATION: /2Till you 3 CÓME home2→ 2I will 3WÁIT for you 1↓/ 

Sentence 10 

Until we know each other a little BÉTter, we may not get along FÍNE. Stress 

phonemes 

2Until we know each other a little 3better2, 2we may not get along 3fine1Pitch 

phonemes 

Until we know each other a little better → we may not get along fine ↓ Juncture 

phonemes 

INTONATION: /2Until we know each othe