In English orthography, a
continuing prosodic boundary may be marked with a comma (assuming the writer is using commas to represent prosody rather than grammatical structure), while
final prosodic boundaries may be marked with a full stop (period). The
International Phonetic Alphabet has symbols (single and double pipes) for "minor" and "major" prosodic breaks. Since there are more than two levels of prosodic units, the use of these symbols depends on the structure of the language and which information the transcriber is attempting to capture. Very often, each prosodic unit will be placed in a separate line of the transcription. Using the single and double pipes to mark continuing and final prosodic boundaries, we might have American English, :
Jack, :
preparing the way, :
went on. : or French, :
Jacques, :
préparant le sol, :
tomba. : The last syllable with a full vowel in a
French prosodic unit is stressed, and the last stressed syllable in an
English prosodic unit has
primary stress. This shows that stress is not
phonemic in French, and that the difference between primary and secondary stress is not phonemic in English; they are both elements of prosody rather than inherent in the words. The pipe symbolsthe
vertical bars and used above are phonetic, and so will often disagree with English punctuation, which only partially correlates with prosody. However, the pipes may also be used for
metrical breaksa single pipe being used to mark metrical feet, and a double pipe to mark both continuing and final prosody, as their alternate IPA descriptions "foot group" and "intonation group" suggest. In such usage, each foot group would include one and only one
heavy syllable. In English, this would mean one and only one stressed syllable: :
Jack, :
preparing the way, :
went on. : In many tone languages with
downdrift, such as
Hausa, the single pipe may be used to represent a minor prosodic break that does not interrupt the overall decline in pitch of the utterance, while marks either continuing or final prosody that creates a
pitch reset. In such cases, some linguists use only the single pipe, with continuing and final prosody marked by a comma and period (full stop), respectively. The major break mark may also be doubled, , for the most salient (full stop) breaks. In transcriptions of non-tonal languages, the three symbolspipe, comma, and periodmay also be used, with the pipe representing a break more minor than the comma, the so-called
list prosody often used to separate items when reading lists, spelling words, or giving out telephone numbers. In Eastern European tradition, the non-IPA dotted line may be used for list prosody, and the non-IPA wavy line for an unexpected interruption or breaking off of speech, which is indicated with a final hyphen when common punctuation is used. ==Cognitive implications==