> Aren't tones in West Germanic dialects mostly related
> to semantics and syntax (and emotional expression) rather
> than being peculiarities of individual words? Besides,
> the tones of the North Germanic dialects are much more
> pleasing to the ear, in my opinion.
Personally, I like the Liverpool dialect. Very musical.
Now of course I have no intuition in the area, but
is there any other way of pronouncing eg. American
Southern 'Hot damn!' than with rising - falling
(or 'Damn!' with falling tone)?
Torsten
___________
I can't speak for southern Americans, but when I pronounce "Hot damn!" or "Damn!" in my own regional variety, the only pronunciation that sounds natural is with rising-falling for the first and falling for the second. I tried to imagine situations where one would pronounce them with different intonation, but so far have been unable to come up with plausible alternate intonations.
If you're interested, I have always found it funny how my Trinidadian relatives, when summoning me, say "Andrew!" with low tone on the first syllable and high tone on the second, while Canadians always make the first syllable higher. Many Caribbean varieties also have a semi-musical intonation (at least among conservative speakers), and some have likened them to the intonation of Welsh.
Andrew_,_.___
.
