Prosodic units

The syllable is widely recognized to be the smallest prosodic unit.

A rhythmic, or accentual, unit (or group) is either one stressed syllable or a stressed syllable with a number of unstressed ones grouped around it.

The intonation group is hierarchically higher than the rhythmic unit. It has also been termed "syntagm", "sense—group", "breath—group", "intonation contour", "divisible accentual unit", "tone—group", "tune", "tone—unit".

In our opinion, the term "intonation group" better reflects the essence of this unit. It shows that the intonation group is the result of the division in which not only stresses, but pitch and duration (i.e. intonation in the broad sense) play a role.

The structure of the intonation group varies depending on the number of syllables and rhythmic units in it. Minimally, an intonation group consists of one (stressed) syllable — the nucleus. Maximally, it contains the prehead, the head, the nucleus and the tail.

A higher unit in which prosodic features are actualized is the utterance.

The utterance is not the ultimate unit of prosodic analysis. In speech single utterances are not very frequent. On the contrary, they are connected and grouped into still larger units — hyperutterances, phonetic paragraphs and texts

Pitch

The pitch component of intonation, or speech melody is the variations in the pitch of the voice which take place with voiced sounds.

Acoustically, speech melody is the variations of the fundamental frequen­cy, generated by the vibrations of the vocal cords.

To describe the melody of an utterance it is necessary to determine the relevant pitch levels, pitch ranges, directions and rate of pitch movement in the terminal 2one and pre—terminal part of each of its intonation groups.

The pitch level of the whole utterance (or intonation group) is de­termined by the pitch of its highest—pitched syllable. It shows the degree of semantic importance the speaker attaches to the utterance (or intonation group) in comparison with any other utterance (or intonation group), and also the speaker's attitude and emotions.

Parenthetical phrases and other semantically less important intonation groups of an utterance are characterized by a lower pitch level than the neigh­bouring intonation groups.

The number of linguistically relevant pitch levels in English has not been definitely established yet: in the works of different phoneticians it varies from three to seven. In unemphatic speech most phoneticians distinguish 3 pitch levels: low, mid and high. These levels are relative and are produced on different registers depending on the individual peculiarities of the voice. Besides low, mid and high levels some phoneticians distinguish the emphatic (higher and lower) and the emotional (higher and lower) pitch levels.

The pitch range of an utterance is the interval between its highest—pitched syllable and its lowest—pitched syllable. According to cir­cumstances the speaker changes his voice range. It may be widened and nar­rowed to express emphasis or the speaker's attitudes and emotions.

The rate of pitch variations may be different depending on the time, during which these variations take place, and on the range of the variations. The falling tone, for instance, is steeper {the angle of the fall is obtuse) when it is pronounced within a shorter period of time, its range being the same.

Differences in the rate of pitch variations are semantically important. When the rate of the fall is fast, the falling tone sounds more categoric and def in ite than when the rate of the fall is slow.

The basic unit used to describe the pitch component is the tone. De­pend ing on whether the p itch of the vo ice var ies or rema ins unvar ied tones are subdivided into kinetic and static (or level) [90]. Static tones may have dif­ferent pitch level of the voice — the high static tone, the mid static tone, the low static tone. The differentiation of kinetic tones as high falling and low falling, high rising and tow rising, etc. is also based on the differentiation of the pitch level of their initial and final points.

As to the direction of pitch movement, kinetic tones are subdivided into simple and complex. The most important from the functional point of view is the termi­nal t o n e of an utterance. The peculiarity of the terminal tone in English is that it may occur not only on the "nucleus" but may be extended to the "tail". The pitch of the "tail" depends on the kind of terminal tone.

Significant pitch modifications can also be observed in the head, another structural element of an utterance. The head is viewed as one melodic shape, one part of the pitch contour of the utterance. It acts as a unit independent of the nucleus. The functions of the head are to express relations between its

constituent units — rhythmic groups and to convey modal—stylistic meanings.

The prehead is normally pronounced on the low or mid pitch level. If it is pronounced on a pitch somewhat higher than the normal pitch* (High Irregular Prehead) or somewhat lower (Low Irregular Prehead) the utterance acquires emphasis and emotional connotations. E.g. The Rovers,"Robert? (as­tonishment)

Rhythm

Rhythm has been defined as regularity or periodicity in the occurrence of a particular phenomenon in an utterance.

Stress—timed rhythm presupposes that utterance stress serves as a basis for the rhythmical organization of speech and that stresses segment the speech continuum into units of more or less equal length. These are accentual, or rhythmic units.

The units tend to follow one another in such a way that the lapse of time between the stressed syllables is somewhat uniform. Since the rhythmic units differ in the number of syllables they are comprised of, the syllables of the longer groups are compressed by very rapid pronunciation and those of the shorter ones are lengthened to conform to the same interval of time.

Regarding isochrony as a characteristic feature of English rhythm G. Torsuyev points out that this rhythmic tendency of the English language does not mean mechanical equality of intervals between peaks of prominence even within one and the same intonation—group

Since the approximate isochrony of intervals between stressed syllables is regarded as a measure of English rhythm, a great number of phoneticians (A.CIasse, D.Abercrombie, H.Halliday, J.Pring) define the unit of rhythm as a sequence of syllables from one stressed syllable to another.

Rhythmic units form a certain hierarchy, since stresses, on which they are based, are not equal in their prominence, position and function. The most prominent, as a rule, and functionally more important is the nuclear stress. Therefore the nuclear rhythmic unit is the most important in an utterance. A rhythmic unit formed by full stress together with partial stress can be defined as a complex rhythmic unit

On account of the prosodic characteristics of English rhythm D.Crystal distinquishes 3 pairs of contrastive rhythmic structures. These are: rhythmic/ arythmic, spiky/glissando, staccato/legato

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