INTONATION

Intonation is a complex unity of melody, stress, rhythm, tempo and timbre.

The main components are melody, stress and rhythm.

Melody is the change in the pitch of voice in connected speech.

Sentence stress, or accent, is the greater prominence of one or more words in the same sentence.

Rhythm is the recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables. Stressed syllables, occur at
approximately equal periods of time independent of the number of unstressed syllables between
them. Rhythm is the most characteristic feature of the English intonation.

Tempo is the speed with which sentences are pronounced.

Speech timbre is a special colouring of voice which shows the speaker’s emotions.

SYNTAGM

Long sentences are subdivided into sense – groups or syntagms.

A syntagm is a sentence or part of a sentence which has a certain syntactical unity and intonation.

e.g. In June, | July and August | children don’t go to school.

THE COMMUNICATIVE TYPES OF SENTENCES

There are four communicative types of sentences:

1. Statements
2. Questions
3. Imperative Sentences
4. Exclamations

INTONATION PATTERNS

Each sense-group (syntagm) has a certain intonation pattern; i.e. each syllable of a sense-group has a
certain pitch (level) and a certain degree of prominence. Pitch levels are connected with stress.
Intonation patterns have one or more syllables. Intonation patterns that have a number of syllables
consist of the following parts: the pre-head, the head, the body, the nucleus and the tail.

The pre-head is the unstressed and half-stressed syllables that come before the first stressed syllable.

The head is the first stressed syllable.

The body is the stressed and unstressed syllables up to the last stressed syllable.
The nucleus is the last stressed syllable. It is the most important part of the intonation pattern. The
communicative type of the sentence and its meaning depend on it.

The tail is the unstressed and half-stressed syllables that come after the nucleus.

e.g. Doctor Sand-ford has a small cottage.

(pre-head) (head) (nucleus) (tail)

NUCLEUS TONES OF ENGLISH

The nucleus of each syntagm may be pronounced with the falling or rising tones, which are called
nuclear tones. They are the main tones. The nuclear tone depends on the communicative type of the
sentence.

THE TWO MAIN TONES

The two main tones are Low Fall and the Low Rise.

The Low Fall shows that the sense-group is complete and important. It expresses the completeness of
thought. It is used in statements, special questions, commands and exclamations.

e.g. 1) Dr. Sandford is still in the hospital. (statement)

2) Whose children are they? (special question)

3) Read Text 8. (command)

4) That’s too bad. (exclamation)

In Russian the fall is not so deep as in English.

The Low Rise shows that the sense-group is not complete, it may be continued. It expresses the
incompleteness of thought.

It is used in general questions an requests.

e.g. 1) ‘Shall I ’write it in Transcription?

2) ‘Is ’lunch ‘ready yet?

3) ‘Will you ‘listen to the ‘new text?

4) ‘Open the books.

 THE DESCENDING SCALE

The Low Falling Tone represents a gradually descending scale of stressed and unstressed syllables.
The first stressed syllable is pronounced on the highest level. The initial unstressed syllables (the pre-
head) are pronounced on the low level of the end of the nucleus.

The nucleus in the Low Rising Tone is pronounced on the lowest level and the rise begins on the tail.
If there is no tail, the last stressed syllable is pronounced with a rise.

WORD STRESS

In a word consisting of two or more syllables one or two are usually stressed. Stress is a greater force
of articulation as compared to other elements. Stress is indicated by a vertical mark placed just above
or below the stressed syllables. Stress may be primary and secondary.

For example, numerals from 13 to 19 have two primary stresses: ‘nine’teen, ‘fif’teen.

INTONATION OF ALTERNATIVE QUESTIONS

Alternative questions consist of two sense-groups. The first sense-group is pronounced with the Low-
Rising Tone, and the second sense-group is pronounced with the Low-Falling Tone.

e.g. ‘Do you study French or English?

Is Dr. Sandford ’ s house large or small?

INTONATION OF DISJUNCTIVE QUESTIONS

Disjunctive questions consist of two sense-groups. The first part is a statement and is pronounced
with the Low-Fall. The second part is a question and it may be said a rise or with a fall. It is said with
the Low-Rise if the speaker expresses a doubt, if he expects some kind of answer.

e.g. You are busy today, aren’t you? – Of course not.

The second part may be also said with the Low-Fall when the speaker is quite certain of what he
stated before and he doesn’t expect any answer.

e.g. That’s a silly question, isn’t it?

SENTENCE-STRESS

Not all words in the sentence in English are stressed. Only notional words are stressed: nouns,
adjectives, notional verbs, numerals, adverbs, interrogative and negative pronouns.
Build-words are usually unstressed: prepositions, articles, conjunctions, auxiliary, verbs, modal
verbs, personal and possessive pronouns.

In Russian almost all the words are stressed except the prepositions.

e.g. You are on duty today.

That is the main difficulty for the Russians to learn not to stress build-words.

LOGICAL STRESS

Logical stress is a kind of sentence-stress. Logical stress makes certain words in a sentence
prominent.

e.g. ‘This is a lesson.

This is the sixth lesson.

Sometimes even build-words may become prominent:

e.g. This is my book.

You are on duty.

REDUCTION

Reduction is a historical process of weakening, shortening and disappearance of vowel sounds in

unstressed position.

Reduction is realized in:

1) Unstressed syllables of polysyllabic words; [dɪmᴐnstrətɪv]

2) In unstressed build-words (articles, particles, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs,
modal verbs, personal and possessive pronouns within a sense-group).
[‘wᴐt; dju’; ‘Ɵɪŋk; ju’; kən; du’]

There are three types of reduction:

- Quantitative reduction is the shortening of a vowel in a non-stressed position;

[…ju’…] […hɪ’…] […mɪ’…] […ʃɪ’…]

- Qualitative reduction is the change of the unstressed vowel usually into a neutral one;
I am [aɪ əm]
He can [hɪ’ kən]
Them [ðəm]

- Zero reduction is the elision of the unstressed vowel.

Do not – don’t
Have not – haven’t
Would not – wouldn’t
She has – she’s