Seventeenth Century Intonation

C URRENT opinion as to the forms and functions of English intonation is well summarized by Daniel Jones in his Outline of English Phonetics,' in a chapter largely based on the findings of Armstrong and Ward, Klinghardt, Palmer, and other very recent investigators. There Jones lists six general rules for the use of two tune patterns. Armstrong and Ward do not differ in any important way; nor does Klinghardt. Palmer's more elaborate differentiation of patterns and of semantic functions falls into the same scheme. It might be interesting to note that most of the significant uses of these tunes were pointed out by Charles Butler in the early part of the seventeenth century. Butler had done an edition of the widely used Rhetoric of Peter Ramus or Audomarus Talaeus in 1597, or earlier.2 The next year he republished this in a somewhat modified form and with a title page that did not mention either Ramus or Talaeus.3 By 1612 'Master Butlars Rhetoricke, of Magdalens in Oxford,' presumably the edition of 16oo, was said to be better than Talaeus, 'most plaine and farre more easie to be learned of Schollars, and also supplying very many things wanting in Talaeus.'4 There were many editions during the seventeenth century, each with alterations and additions.5 One of the additions made between 16oo and 16296 was the insertion in the second book of a new chapter on intonation, to

Intonation (linguistics · Linguistics · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Linguistics and language evolution · History · Philosophy

• History of Linguistics 1999 (review)

  Open Access•Jan Holeš•Language•2004

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