новая папка / Components of intonation

7.Components of intonation

*Intonation is a complex unity of sentence stress, rhythm, tempo, pauses, speech-melody and voice tamber.**

**The functions of intonation** are: to constitute a sentence out of words; to distinguish the communicative type of the sentence (statements, questions, imperatives, exclamations); to divide a sentence into sense-groups; to make words prominent according to their semantic importance; to form the rhythmical basis of the sentence; to express the speaker's emotions and attitude.

**A sense-group** is the shortest unit of speech from the point of view of meaning, grammatical structure and intonation.

**A pause is a moment of silence in the flow of speech.** Pauses are used at the end of the sentence and within it to separate sense-groups. A long pause is used at the end of the sentence, shorter pauses are used inside it. A potential pause is extremely short; delimitation is shown by pitch change.

**Sentence-stress is greater prominence given to one or more words.** Prominence is achieved by greater force of articulation, change of pitch, full pronunciation and greater length.

There are three degrees of sentence-stress:

1. **Accented** – prominent due to all means.

2. **Stressed** – prominent due to force, quality and quantity, but pitch doesn't change.

3. **Unstressed** – not made prominent.

**The communicative centre** is the most important piece of information.

**Rhythm** is the regularity of stressed syllables in time. In English stressed syllables tend to occur at equal intervals.

**Tempo** is the rate of speech. In English we utter 300 syllables per minute in fast normal speech.

**Speech-melody** is the variation of the pitch of the voice. It includes pitch levels, pitch ranges, scales and tones.

**Voice tamber** is the emotional colouring of the speaker's voice. It serves to express the speaker's emotions.