e.g. On Saturday | Mr. White is at home after 6 . (an adverbial)

As you come into the room | you notice a piano. (a complex sentence)

Phonetically each sense-group is characterized by a certain intonation pattern (especially a nuclear tone) and a pause. The length and number of sensegroups in a sentence may vary. The length of pauses varies, as well, and depends on the degree of semantic importance, completeness and connection of the sensegroup with the following one. The more important the sense-group is, the longer the pause after it. The length of pause also depends on the rate of speech. Sometimes pauses may even disappear in fast speech and the delimiting function is performed by the nuclear tone alone.

The communicative types of sentences are differentiated in speech according to the aim of utterance from the point of view of communication. There are four communicative types of sentences:

Statements, e.g. I like music.

Questions, e.g. Can you prove it? I did the right thing, didn’t I? Will you go to the concert or to the pictures? Why haven’t you come?

Imperative sentences or commands, e.g. Try it again. Exclamations, e.g. Right you are! Thank you. Nonsense!

The intonation pattern of the non-final intonation group, mainly its nuclear tone, is determined by the semantic value of the intonation group and by its connection with the following one.

The falling nuclear tone shows that the non-final intonation group is complete, important by itself and is not so closely connected with the following intonation group, e.g. I’ll tell him all, when he comes.

The rising nuclear tone shows that the non-final intonation group is closely connected in meaning with the following intonation group, is not important by itself and implies continuation,

e.g. Generally speaking, I prefer tennis.

QUESTIONS AND TASKS

Questions:

1.What are the basic components of intonation? Give definition to each of them.

2.What are the main functions of intonation?

3.What does the length of a pause depend on?

4.Give the definition of the notion “an intonation group”.

5.What are the communicative types of sentences?

6.What are the methods of indicating intonation?

7.What does the falling nuclear tone generally show?

8.What does the rising nuclear tone generally show?

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INTONATION STRUCTURE

Each intonation group is characterized by a certain intonation pattern, i.e. each syllable of an intonation group has a certain pitch and bears a larger or smaller degree of prominence. Intonation patterns consist of one or more syllables. Intonation patterns containing a number of syllables consist of the following parts: the pre-head, the head, the nucleus and the tail.

The pre-head includes unstressed and half-stressed syllables preceding the first stressed syllable. There are several types of the pre-head: low, high and rising.

The head includes stressed and unstressed syllables beginning with the first stressed syllable up to the last stressed syllable.

The last stressed syllable is called the nucleus.

The unstressed and half-stressed syllables that follow the nucleus are called the tail.

E.g. I’ve 'lost the key, mother.

I've... - the pre-head.

...lost the ... - the head.

...key.... - the nucleus

...mother. - the tail.

The rises and falls that take place in the nucleus or start with it are called nuclear tones.

The nucleus is the most important part of the intonation pattern as it defines the communicative type of the sentence, determines the semantic value of the intonation group, indicates the communicative centre of the intonation group.

The communicative centre is associated with the most important word or words of the intonation group or of the sentence.

Questions:

1.Speak on the structure of the intonation pattern.

2.What part of the intonation pattern has the greatest functional value? Why?

3.Which parts of it are optional?

4.What’s the difference between a nucleus and a communicative centre of an intonation group?

5.What are the most commonly used nuclear tones? Indicate them on the staves and in the text.

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SENTENCE - STRESS

Sentence stress is the greater prominence which is given to one or more words in a sentence compared with the other words in the same sentence. In English it is mostly notional words (nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, numerals, etc.) that are stressed in speech. Form-words, such as articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, modal and auxiliary verbs are usually unstressed.

For practical purposes it is necessary to distinguish between three main functional types of sentence-stress: syntagmatic, syntactic and logical.

Syntagmatic stress together with one of the main tones singles out the semantic centre of the sentence (or of the sense-group). The syntagmatic stress is usually realised in the last stressed word.

Syntactic stress marks the other important words within the utterance. These words are mostly pronounced on level pitches.

e.g. I'd 'like to'buy two tickets for the theatre.

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syntactic syntagmatic stress stress

Logical stress is shifting the syntagmatic stress from its normal place on the last stressed syllable to one of the preceding words:

e.g. 'This is my 'father's study. This is my father's study. 'This is my father's study.

QUESTIONS AND TASKS

Questions:

1.What is sentence stress?

2.Which words are generally stressed in English and which are not?

3.What functional types of sentence stress are distinguished in English? Give their definition.

4.What is the main function of logical stress? Why is it important to observe the correct sentence stress?

5.What is the most prominent word in a sentence?

Tasks:

1.Mark stressed words and the communicative centre in the following sentences; what types of sentence stress are used in them?

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