Intonation Structure of English sentences

The definition of Intonation. The Main Components of

Intonation: melody, pitch, tempo, rhythm and pausation

The Sentence streess

The Functions of Intonation structure: constitutive, distrinctive

and recognitive functions
In linguistics, intonation is the variation of
pitch when speaking.
Intonation and stress are two main
elements of linguistic prosody
(suprasegmental level of phonetics).
Intonation is a part of suprasegmental
phonology.
Intonation helps to recognize the language
that you hear in the same way as the
melody of a song helps to recognize the
song that you hear.
 The main functions of intonation
• the constitutive – intonation forms
sentences
• the distinctive – intonation serves to
distinguish the communicative types of
sentences, the actual meaning of a sentence,
the speaker’s emotions and attitudes.
 Functions of intonation
(according to D. Crystal )
1. • Emotional - expresses attitudinal meaning -sarcasm,
surprise, reserve, impatience, delight, shock, anger,
interest, and thousands of other semantic nuances.
2. • Grammatical - helps to identify grammatical structure
in speech, performing a role similar to punctuation.
3. • Informational - helps draw attention to what meaning
is given and what is new in an utterance (the word
carrying the most prominent tone presents new
information).
4. • Textual - helps larger units than the sentence to contrast and cohere. In
radio news-reading, paragraphs of information can be shaped through
the use of pitch. In sports commentary, changes in prosody reflect the
progress of the action.

5. • Psychological - helps us to organize speech into units that are easier to

perceive and memorize. Most people would find a sequence of
numbers, for example, difficult to recall. The task is made easier by
using intonation to chunk the sequence into two units.

6. • Indexical - an important marker of personal or social identity. Lawyers,

preachers, newscasters, sports commentators, army sergeants, and
several other occupations are readily identified through their
distinctive prosody.

No matter how many functions are named, all of them perform the function
of communication.
2. Components of intonation and
the structure of English tone-
group
 Pitch level and pitch range
Each intonation group has its own pitch and stress
pattern. Variations in voice pitch occur within the
normal range of the speaking voice within the interval
between its lower and upper limits.
Three pitch levels are generally distinguished:
high, medium, low.
Pitch range is an interval between two pitch levels.
It can be: normal, wide or narrow.
 An intonation pattern is the basic unit of
intonation
It can consist of the following parts:
• the pre-head (unstressed and half-stressed syllables
preceding the head)
• the head (the syllables beginning with the first stressed
syllable up to the last stressed syllable)
• the nucleus (the last stressed syllable)
• the tail (the unstressed and half stressed syllables that
follow the nucleus)
Pre-heads can be: rising, mid and low
Scales can be: descending, ascending and level.
Descending and ascending heads can be:
stepping, sliding and scandent.
The change of pitch within the last stressed
syllable of the tone-group is called a nuclear
tone.
The number of tonal types given by different
scholars is different.

According to R. Kingdon the most important

nuclear tones in English are: Low Fall, High
Fall, Low Rise, High Rise, and Fall-Rise.
The meanings of the nuclear tones
The falling tone of any level and range expresses certainty,
completeness, and independence.
A rising tone expresses uncertainty, incompleteness or
dependence.
A falling-rising tone may combine the falling tone's meaning
of assertion, certainty with the rising tone's meaning of
dependence, incompleteness. At the end of a phrase it
often conveys a feeling of reservation, i.e. it asserts
something and at the same time suggests that there is
something else to be said.
 Sentence Stress
is a special prominence given to one or more
words according to their importance in the
sentence. The main function of sentence
stress is to single out the communicative
centre of the sentence which introduces new
information.
 Types of sentence stress
1. Normal (syntactical) - is used to arrange words into
sentences or intonation groups phonetically; it expresses
the general idea of the sentence and indicates its
communicative centre; it is related to rhythm.
2. Logical - special prominence is given to a new element in
a sentence or an intonation group.
3. Emphatic – increases the effort of expression; both
normal and logical stresses can be emphatic, it is the
highest degree of logical and emotional prominence of
words in a phrase.
 Rhythm
is the regular alternation of stressed and unstressed
syllables.
Unstressed syllables have a tendency to cling to the
preceding stressed syllables – enclitics, or to the
following stressed syllables – proclitics.
In English, as a rule, only initial unstressed syllables cling to
the following stressed syllables, non-initial stressed
syllables are usually enclitics. Proclitics are pronounced
faster than enclitics.
Loudness is used in a variety of ways. Gross differences
of meaning (such as anger, menace, and excitement)
can be conveyed by using an overall loudness level.
The tempo of speech is the third component of
intonation. The term tempo implies the rate of the
utterance and pausation. The rate of speech can be
normal, slow and fast. The parts of the utterance
which are particularly important sound slower.
Unimportant parts are commonly pronounced at a
greater speed than normal.
 Pausation
Any stretch of speech can be split into smaller portions, i.e.
phonetic wholes, phrases, intonation groups by means
of pauses. By 'pause' here we mean a complete stop of
phonation. We may distinguish the following three kinds
of pauses:
• 1. Short pauses which may be used to separate
intonation groups within a phrase.
• 2. Longer pauses which normally manifest the end of the
phrase.
• 3. Very long pauses, which are approximately twice as
long as the first type, are used to separate phonetic
wholes.
Functionally, there may be distinguished syntactic,
emphatic and hesitation pauses.
Syntactic pauses separate phonopassages, phrases,
and intonation groups.

Emphatic pauses serve to make especially prominent

certain parts of the utterance.

Hesitation pauses are mainly used in spontaneous

speech to gain some time to think over what to say
next. They may be silent or filled.
 Timbre
is special coloring of the speaker’s voice. It is
used to express various emotions and
moods, such as joy, anger, sadness,
indignation, etc.
It depends on the physiological properties
and psychological peculiarities of a person.
It is little studied.