Intonation.
There is wide agreement among russian linguists about the definition of intonation on the perception level. Intonation is a complex unity formed by significant variations of pitch, loudness and tempo closely related.
Pitch variations include significant moves of the voice up and down. The degree of loudness determines the force of utterance and the prominence of words. The tempo is determined by the rate of speech and the length of pauses. Some linguists also mark speech timbre as the fourth component of intonation. It definitely conveys certain shades of attitudinal or emotional meaning but there is no good reason to consider timbre alongside with three other components of intonation, because it has not been thoroughly described yet.
I would like to point out that many foreign scholars have been anxious to restrict the formal definition of intonation to pitch movement alone, though occasionally allowing in variations of loudness as well. We are firmly convinced that when the question of intonational meaning is raised it is clearly not possible to restrict the term "intonation" by the pitch parameters only because generally all the three prosodic parameters function as a whole though in many cases the priority of the pitch parameter is quite evident. Each syllable of the speech chain has a special pitch colouring. Some of the syllables have significant moves of tone up and down. Each syllable bears a definite amount of loudness. Pitch movements are inseparably connected with loudness. Together with the tempo of speech they form an intonation pattern which is the basic unit of intonation.
An intonation pattern contains one nucleus and may contain other stressed or unstressed syllables normally preceding or following the nucleus. The boundaries of an intonation pattern may be marked by stops of phonation, that is temporal pauses.
Intonation patterns serve to actualize syntagms in oral speech. It may be well to remind you here that the syntagm is a group of words which is semantically and syntactically complete. In phonetics actualized syntagms are called intonation groups or tone-groups. Each intonation group may consist of one or more potential syntagms, e.g. the sentence "I think he is coming soon" has two potential syntagms: "I think" and "he is coming soon". In oral speech it is normally actualized as one intonation group.
It is generally acknowledged that voice pitch or speech melody and sentence stress or accent are the two main components of intonation. Though these elements are very closely connected, variations in voice pitch are still most important in an intonation pattern.
Pitch Level. Each intonation group has its own pitch-and-stress pattern. Variations in voice pitch or melody occur within the normal range of the speaking voice, i.e. within the interval between its lower and upper limits. For pedagogical expediency three pitch levels are generally distinguished: high, medium, low.
Pitch Range. Pitch range is the interval between two pitch levels or two differently pitched syllables or parts of a syllable. The pitch range of a whole intonation pattern is the interval between the highest-pitched and the lowest-pitched syllables. Pitch ranges may be normal, wide and narrow.
Pitch-and-Stress Sections.Pitch-and-stress sections of an intonation pattern containing several stressed syllables are: pre-head, head, nucleus, tail.
The pre-head (includes unstressed and half-stressed syllables preceding the head);
The head (consists of the syllables beginning with the first stressed syllable up to the last stressed syllable);
The nucleus (the last stressed syllable);
The tail (the unstressed and half-stressed syllables that follow the nucleus).
The changes of pitch that take place in the nucleus are called nuclear tones. The nuclear syllable is generally the most prominent one in the intonation pattern.
The most basic distinction among English nuclear tones is that between falling and non-falling.
In a falling nuclear tone the pitch of the voice starts relatively high and then moves downwards. The starting point may be anywhere from mid to high. The endpoint is low. There may be some upward movement before the pitch moves downwards.
In a rising nuclear tone the pitch of the voice starts relatively low and then moves upwards. The starting point may be anywhere from low to mid, and the endpoint anywhere from mid to high.
Other main types of intonation include high fall, low fall, rise-fall, high rise, midlevel rise, low rise, and fall-rise. They are variations of the two basic types of intonation.
Notation.
