Prenucleus Patterns

Prenucleus patterns can be divided into two parts:

Heads: Begins with the stressed syllable of the first accented word and ends iwth the syllable immediately preceding the nucleus.

Pre-head: Consists of any syllables before the sressed syllable of the accented word.

Examples:

1) It was an unusually dark night.

• Prehead: It was an

• Head: unusually dark

• Nucleus: night.

2) Where's John?

• Head: Where's

• Nucleus: John?

In this case, there is no pre-head. This is because there aren't any sylalbles that appear before the head.

3) I could have kicked myself.

• Pre-head: I could have

• Nucleus: kicked

• Tail: myself.

Prenucleus Patterns are divided into patterns that pertain to the head and patterns that pertain to the pre-head.

Heads:

• The Low Head: Occurs only before the Low Rise nuclear tone. All the syllables are said on the same low pitch as the beginning of the Low Rise.

• The High Head: All syllables are said on the same high pitch.

• The Falling Head: The first syllable of the falling head is high in pitch and any following syllables will gradually make the pitch lower.

• The Rising Head: Its first syllable is low in pitch and any following syllbles gradually bring the pitch higher.

Preheads:

• The Low Pre-head: All the syllables in the low pre-head are said on the same pitch.

• The High Pre-head: All the syllables said on the same relatively high pitch.