Parallel structures

As we saw in

, the items in a list are sometimes separated by intonation breaks, sometimes not. This applies more generally to parallel grammatical structures, including (i) parallel words or phrases, whether or not coordinated, and (ii) strings of letters or numbers.

With parallel words or phrases, there is likely to be an intonation break after each component if there are more than two components or if the components are heavy:

If the parallel words or phrases are placed in contrast by the speaker, then they too are likely to be separated by an intonation break:

The speaker has discretion to omit the intonation breaks, for example when speaking fast:

Some coordinate structure are potentially ambiguous, and can optionally be disambiguated by the insertion of intonation break. For example the phrase old men and women may be analyzed either as (old)(men and woman), or alternatively as (old men) and (women). The issue is whether old applies to both nouns, or just the one that immediately follows it. The phrase would usually be said without an internal intonation break, in which case it remains ambiguous. If, however, it is said as old | men and women, the hearer is forced towards the first interpretation. If it is said as old men | and women, the hearer is forced towards the second.

With a string of letters or numbers there are equally two possibilities. If we think they will be familiar to the hearer, or if there is no need to be particularly explicit, we run them together in the same IP. If we think they may be unfamiliar to the hearer or need to be made especially clear, we can make the message easier to the hearer to process by placing an intonation break after each item:

Longer strings typically get broken up into manageable chunks: