Pitch-level – certain height within the speaker’s voice-range.

TONES

Pitch-level – certain height within the speaker’s voice-range.

The speaker’s voice range (pitch-level): high, mid, low.

Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning.

Two main type: static, kinetic.

Kinetic tones are classified according to the following criteria: 1) direction of the pitch change; 2) width of the pitch-change; 3) relative position of the pitch change within the speaker’s voice range.

Static tones give prominence to words. Kinetic tones are more significant to the utterance.

Nuclear tone – tone carried by the most important word.

Tune – pitch pattern of the whole intonation-group.

Prehead is formed by the unstressed or partially stressed syllables which precede the first full stress.

Two structural varieties of the rising type of the pitch-change: 1) the rise of the voice takes place on the stressed syllable; 2) the rise is carried by the unstressed syllables following the stressed one while the latter is pronounced on a steady pitch.

RISING TONES:

The Mid Wide Rise, The Low Wide Rise - incompleteness

The High Narrow Rise – surprise, incredulity (interrogative repetitions)

The Low Narrow Rise – non-assertiveness, lack of interest (casual remarks, afterthoughts)

FALLING TONES:

The Mid Wide Fall – finality, completeness (unemotional speech)

The High Wide Fall – insistence, protest, personal concern, involvement

The High Narrow Fall – agreement (direct address)

The Low Narrow Fall – phlegmatic, calm

The Fall-Rise is a bi-directional tone which means that there is a change in the direction of the pitch movement associated with one stressed syllable. From the semantic point of view the Fall-Rise has an implicatory meaning. The implication expressed in an utterance may be that of emphasis, contrast, contradiction, correction, hesitation, doubt, uncertainty, warning, apology etc.

The Rise-Fall is a bi-directional, or complex, tone because it comprises two elements – a rise and a fall – which can be combined within one syllable. It can be compared with the Fall-Rise both in form and in function. Functional characteristic might be called implicatory.

The implications of the 2 tones are of a different kind: in the F-R it is basically a continuation of the information already contained in the utterance, in the R-F the implication is basically of a modal-attitudinal kind: the R-F often gives the impression that what the speaker admits or denies is in conflict with his own opinion.

HEADS

Classification:

The head of an inton. group stretches from the first fully stressed syllable and extends up to the nucleus. The head is relevant for expressing the modal-attitudinal meaning and the emotional colouring of and utterance.

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

I. the general contour of pitch movement over the head;

II. the pitch movement within each stress-group;

III. the distribution of relative prominence among the semantic items in the prenuclear part.

According to the gen. cont. of pitch-movem. over the head (I) patterns are classified into 3 major types:

1. Descending – the 1^st fully stressed syl. is said on a high pitch; each following f.s.s. always begins lower than the preceding stressed syl.

2. Ascending – the 1^st f.s.s. is said on a low pitch; each foll-ing f.s.s. always begins higher than the preceding one.

3. Level – thare are no perceptible contrasts in the initial pitch-height of the successive stressed syllables.

According to the principle being discussed heads are clasisified into 3 types:

1. stepping (characterized by an even, unchanging pitch-level over each of the stress-groups);

2. sliding (characterized by a downward pitch movement over the stress-groups);

3. scandent/climbing (upward pitch movement over the stress-groups);

Stepping heads:

1. The Stepping (Gradually Descending Stepping) Head – each f.s.s. beginning with the 2^nd is lower in pitch than the preceding one. Use: reading aloud, formal conversation, lecturing etc.

2. The High Head – all the syl. are said on the same rather high pitch. Use: conversation, where it occurs more frequently than the Stepping Head.

3. The Broken Descending Stepping Head = making an upward break somewhere in the middle of the Grad. Desc. Step. head, after which a downward movement of the pitch is resumed. The upward break is usually made on words of sufficient semantic importance.

4. The Ascending Stepping Head – each of the s.s. takes a static tone pitched higher than the preceding one. Expresses impatience, surprise, protest, disbelief or, vice versa, a note of enthusiastic approval and support.

5. The Low Head – all the syl. – stressed and unstr. – are pronounced in the low pitch zone. Expresses cool, detached, phlegmatic, disinterested or disapproving attitude

The Sliding Head – head formed by a sequence of slides, i.e. downward pitch movements, associated with each f.s.s. of the head. It has a jumpy, wave-like character. Use: lively, expressive conversation, reading emotionally coloured texts.

The Scandent Head – head formed by a sequence of climbs, i.e. upward pitch-changes associated with each of the s.s. Sounds lively, expressive. Expresses surprise, incredulity (combined with the High Rise), reassuring, encouraging meaning, used in speaking to children (combined with the Low Rise), the speaker’s irritation, or, vice versa, cheerfulness and interest (before a falling nuclear tone).

INTONATION GROUPS

Reasons for dividing a sentence into intonation groups:

1. physiological convenience

2. complexity of information being conveyed

3. the syntactic structure of an utterance

PROSODIC RELATIONS

a) equality (co-ordination) – implies a relatively equal degree of semantic importance of the adjacent parts;

b) inequality (subordination) – means a kind of relations wherein one of the 2 parts is semantically dependent (can be preposed or postposed);

c) mutual dependence – both groups are equally important.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04