1. Peculiarities of the English Rhythm.

An essential feature of connected speech is that the peaks of prominence – i.e. that is stressed syllables – are inseparably connected with non-prominent syllables.

Thus an utterance is split into stress groups. Each stress group is a semantic unit. Within a stress group the unstressed syllables may join the stressed one either as proclitics (preceding it) or enclitics (following it). Experiments showed that proclitics are faster in pronunciation than enclitics.

An important feature of English pronunciation is that the prominent syllables occur at approximately equal periods of time. This isochronisms is relative not absolute (this actual duration of stress groups is really equal, but on the perceptible stresses appear to occur more or less regularly). The stress in English provides the basis for the rhythmic structure of the language. The notion of rhythm implies a certain periodicity of phonological events. Thus stress groups may also be called rhythmic groups. Dividing the utterance into rhythmic groups the speaker should take into consideration 2 principles:

• Keeping more or less regular time intervals between stresses;

• Marking the semantic links between stressed and unstressed syllables.

2. The influence of Rhythm on Utterance Stress and Word Stress.

An important feature of English rhythm is alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. This happens because of high frequency of monosyllabic notional words and intervening functional words. This alternation is rarely of an ideal pattern but in majority of cases the number of unstressed syllables between the stressed ones varies within an utterance, i.e. the rhythmic groups have uneven numbers of syllables.

There is a tendency to avoid stressing adjacent words, both when they are monosyllabic and polysyllabic. As a result the normal stressing of words in an utterance can be modified: some notional words are deprived of prominence (lose their stress) in an utterance if both the immediately preceding words are stressed. The phenomenon is known as the influence of rhythm on utterance stress. The decisive factor for utterance stress is the semantic weight of a word in the given context.

Double stressed words usually lose one of the stresses for its made partial, polysyllabic derivative words are more stable in the stressed pattern.

3. Speech Melody and its analysis

Speech melody is variations in the height of the voice during speech. It is described in terms of pitch changes and pitch levels.

A pitch level is a certain height within the speaker’s voice range. In more general sense it is the average height of the voice during the pronunciation of the given utterance. In a narrower sense it is a pitch level of particular point in an utterance.

A pitch change is a glide in the height of the voice or the result of a pitch contrast. Depending on the direction of the voice the pitch change may be falling or rising, or when changing in 2 directions rising-falling or falling-rising, or even changing in 3 directions rising-falling-rising.

Pitch levels correspond to 3 zones within the speaker’s voice range: high, mid, low; which can be subdivided into:

• Very high-fairly high

• Mid high – mid low

• Fairly low – very low

Pitch level is very important for marking the degree of semantic prominence of pronunciation units in an utterance and for conveying different shades of modal-attitudional meanings and emotional colouring.

It was very boring. (Categoric)

It was very boring. (Calm)

4. Static Tones

Tone is a basic element of English intonation. The speaker marks the tone within an utterance with the help of increasing force of articulation, or loudness, and increasing duration. There are 2 classes of tone:

• Static (level) tones

• Kinetic (dynamic) tones

The criterion for the classification of the static tones is the actual height within the speaker’s voice range. Static tones may be high, mid and low. Their function is to give prominence to words.

5. Kinetic Tones

Tone is a basic element of English intonation. The speaker marks the tone within an utterance with the help of increasing force of articulation, or loudness, and increasing duration. There are 2 classes of tone:

• Static (level) tones

• Kinetic (dynamic) tones

The criteria for the classification of the kinetic tones are:

• Direction of the pitch change (Falling, Rising, Falling-Rising, Rising-Falling)

• Width of the pitch change (wide, narrow)

• Relative position of the pitch change within the speaker’s voice range (high, mid, low)

The functions of the kinetic tones are:

• To give prominence to words

• To indicate the communicative type of an utterance

• To express the speaker’s attitude

• To single out the center of new information in an utterance or the point of greater semantic importance

6. Anatomy of the tune

The tune is a pitch pattern of the whole intonation group. It includes:

• The prehead ( unstressed or partially stressed syllables which precede the first full stress)

• The head (the portion of the tune extending from the first stressed syllable up to, but not including, the nuclear syllable.

• The nucleus (the syllable bearing the nuclear tone, it’s an indispensable element of a tune)

• The tail (unstressed or partially stressed syllables which follow the nucleus)

7. Basic Nuclear Tones: Rising Tones

There are 2 variants of the rising tone:

• The rise on the first syllable when there is no tail in the tune

• The rise carried by the unstressed syllable following the stressed one

Variant	Meaning	Usage	Example
The low wide rise (from the bottom of the voice range to the middle)	Incompleteness, indicates the speaker’s interest in the situation and in the listener’s response, sounds warm, friendly	Unfinished parts of sentences, reported phrases, adverbial clauses	Once upon a time there was a dragon
The mid wide rise (from a mid low to a high level pitch)	Incompleteness, interrogative force, uncertainty, sounds neutral	General, disjunctive, alternative questions	Do you speak French?
The full wide rise (covers the whole of the voice range)	Surprise, enthusiasm	Emotionally colored speech	Are you sure?
The low narrow rise (from very low to mid low)	Non-assertiveness, sounds uninterested, cool	Casual remarks, afterthoughts	Have you seen much of him lately? No.
The high narrow rise (from a mid high to very high)	Interrogative force, surprise, incredulity	Interrogative repetitions, echo-questions	Pardon?