Classification of Head Types. General Principles.

The head of an intonation group stretches the 1^st fully stressed syllable(including it) and

extends(Длится) up to the nucleus. The 1^st fully stressed syllable with which the head begins is often referred to as the onset.

The head plays an important part in conveying the speaker’s attitude and feelings towards the listener, the subject-matter and the situation.

Descriptions and classifications of heads are based on the following major criteria:

a) The general contour(линия) of pitch movement over the head;

b) The pitch movement within each stress-group;

c) The description of relative prominence among the semantic items in the prenuclear part of an utterance.

According to the 1^st criterion head patterns in English are classified into three major types:

1. Descending(нисходящий) – the 1^st fully stressed syllable is said on a high pitch (it also can be mid-high or very high); each following fully stressed syllable always begins lower than the preceding stressed syllable.

2. Ascending(восходящая) – the 1^st fully stressed syllable is said on a law pitch; each following fully stressed syllable always begins higher than the preceding one.

3. Level(нисход на одном уровне) – there are no perceptible contrasts in the initial pitch-heigt og the successive stressed syllables. According to the actual pitch of the syllables the Level head may be of high, mid and low varieries.

Heads are classified into 3 types:

STEPPING, characterized by an even, unchanging pitch-level over each of the stress-groups;

--Stepping Descending.

--St Ascending;

--St Level;

SLIDING, characterized by a downward pitch movement over the stress-group.

--Sliding Descending;

--Sl Ascending;

--Sl Level;

CLIMBING or SCANDENT, with an upward pitch movement over the stress-group.

--Scandent Descending;

--Sc Ascending;

--Sc Level;

According to the 3^rd criterion, that of relative prominence distribution, heads can be subdivided in the

following way:

1. The onset of the head bears a full stress and all the other semantically important words are given partial stress to show their smaller prominence, or they may be left altogether unstressed. – ONE PEAK or COMPACT head.

2. All the semantically important words are given full stressed by the speaker and made equally prominent to the listener. The overall prominence of the utterance increases as a result, and so does the weight of each of the words. The simplest form of this head-type is a double-peak head. More complicated patterns could be called diffuse heads.

There are doth full and partial stresses in the head. In this MIXED TYPE of head semantic prominence is neither compressed (1) nor distributed evenly (2); it is focused on several peaks which may occupy any position within the head.

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