A: Let’s have another drink.You want to decide on an appropriate intonation pattern for what B says. You apply the rules: locate the nucleus on the last new lexical item, unless there is a reason such as contrastive focus for it to go somewhere else.
B: Now there’s a thought!
You conclude that the nucleus should go on thought, which is actually the only lexical item available. You come up with
B: Now there’s a \thought.Moreover, you might logically expect there’s to be weakened, and say
B: (ˈ)naʊ ðəz ə \θɔːtUnfortunately, any native speaker will be able to tell you that this pattern is impossible in this context (or at best highly unlikely). What we would actually get in real life is
B: naʊ \ðeəz ə θɔːtor possibly, though in my view less probably,
B: naʊ \ðeəz | ə /θɔːtA nuclear accent goes on the demonstrative there’s. (The meaning of the whole is also idiomatic: something like “What a good idea!”.)
Cases such as this, where the typical NS pattern doesn’t result from the intonation rules we teach NNS learners, are in my analysis intonational idioms. I am always interested in collecting instances of such idioms. In my book (English Intonation, CUP 2006, page 172, or in the Japanese translation page 256) I give a number of examples similar to this one, with a nucleus idiomatically placed on a demonstrative (that or there).
What’s ˈthat supposed to mean?
You can say \that again!
\There’s a clever dog!
It explains nothing simply to claim that the speaker chooses to emphasize the demonstrative, treating the deixis as especially important (or some such wording).
My ideal is to supply EFL learners with an algorithm that enables them to predict with confidence an appropriate spoken intonation pattern for any written fragment of dialogue. Where I fail in this ambition, I may need to refine my rules. Failing that, I call the pattern idiomatic.