Structure of the tone unit

Though intonation is a feature of the spoken language, it is present in every sentence, in written and oral speech and in inner speech as well.

Intonation implies variations of pitch, force of utterance, tempo and timbre.

Variations of pitch are produced by significant moves of the voice up and down.

The force component of intonation is measured by the degree of loudness of syllables that determines the prominence of words.

The tempo is determined by the rate of speech and the length of pauses.

Timbre is a special colouring of human voice.

The approach to study of intonation is based on two general functions:

1. The Constitutive function – to form sentences.

2. The Distinctive function – to distinguish the communicative type of a sentence, the actual meaning of a sentence, the speaker’s emotions, attitudes.

Intonation is a powerful means of human intercommunication. So the communicative function is the main function of intonation. It is realized in various ways. Intonation serves: a) to structure the information content of a textual unit so as to show which information is given (the theme) and which is new (the rheme); b) to determine the speech function of a phrase, i.e. to indicate whether it is a statement, question, command etc.; с) to convey connotational meanings of ‘attitude’ such as surprise, annoyance, involvement etc.; d) to structure a text; intonation delimitates texts into smaller units and, at the same time, it integrates these smaller constituents forming a complete text; e) to differentiate the meaning of textual units of the same grammatical structure and the same lexical composition, which is the distinctive, or phonological function of intonation; f) to characterize a particular style or variety of oral speech which may be called.

Intonation group or syntagma is a phonetically organized part of utterance or the whole utterance capable of carrying communicative meaning.

Tones are basic elements of intonation. They are divided into: 1. Static (level) tones; 2. Kinetic tones.

Kinetic tones are more significant for the utterance: they give prominence to a word and refer to the total meaning of the utterances.

Each tone group has one or more highlighted (prominent) words. The syllables where the fall or the rise occurs is tonic syllable. The word contains the tonic syllable is tonic word. The tonic word is the most significant word in a tone unit because it conveys new information:

-Can I get some cornflakes?

-Do you want a small or a large packet?

-A small one.

The tone carried the most important word, which is generally the last notional word in the intonation group, is called the nuclear tone. It is usually kinetic and terminal, since it is always the last tone in an intonation group and serves its boundary marker. The term ‘tone’ should be distinguished from the term ‘tune’. Tone is a particular pitch pattern on a syllable used to make semantic distinctions Tune is used to refer to the pitch pattern of the whole intonation group and may comprise several tones. The stressed and unstressed syllables within the tune form several component parts according to their position and function in the tune. The structure of the tone unit can be shown as:

Prehead –>Head –>Nucleus –>Tail

Prehead – unstressed or partially stressed syllables which precede the first full stress.

The head – the stretch of utterance extending from the first stressed syllable up to, but not including, the nuclear syllable.

Nucleus – the syllable bearing the nuclear (terminal) tone.

Tail – unstressed or partially stressed syllables following the nucleus.

The number of the component parts in a tune may vary. The only indispensable element of a tune is a nucleus. Pitch movements together with loudness and the tempo of speech form an intonation pattern (IP) which is the basic unit of intonation. An IP contains one nucleus and may contain other stressed or unstressed syllables normally preceding or following the nucleus.

Intonation patterns serve to actualize syntagms in oral speech.

The syntagm is a group of words which is semantically and syntactically complete. Actualized syntagms are called intonation groups.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14