III. Rhythm.

Prosodic components (pitch, loudness, and tempo) and speech rhythm work independently. But rhythm seems to be a kind of framework of speech organization. Linguists sometimes consider rhythm as one component of intonation. According to the general term for “rhythm” it is understood as periodicity in time and space. Rhythm as a linguistic notion is realized in lexical, syntactical and prosodic means and mostly in their combinations. For instance, such figures of speech as sound or word repetition, syntactical parallelism, intensification and others are perceived as rhythmical on the lexical, syntactical and prosodic levels.

Speech production is naturally closely connected with the process of breathing which is also characterized by rhythmical organization. In speech, the type of rhythm depends on the language. Germanic languages English and German, as well as Russian and Ukrainian, refer to syllable-timed languages where the speaker gives an approximately equal amount of time to each syllable, whether the syllable is stressed or unstressed and this produces the effect of even rather staccato rhythm. In these languages the rhythm is based on a larger unit than syllable. Though the amount of time given on each syllable varies considerably, the total time of uttering each rhythmic unit is practically unchanged. The stressed syllables of a rhythmic unit form peaks of prominence. They tend to be pronounced at regular intervals no matter how many unstressed syllables are located between every two stressed ones. Thus the distribution of time within the rhythmic unit is unequal. The regularity is provided by strong “beats”.

Speech rhythm has the immediate influence on vowel reduction and elision. Form words such as prepositions, conjunctions as well as auxiliary and modal verbs, personal and possessive pronounce are usually unstressed and pronounced in their weak forms with reduced or even elided vowels to secure intervals between the stressed syllables.

The markedly regular stress-timed pulses of speech seem to create the strict, abrupt and spiky effect of English rhythm. Speech rhythm is traditionally defined as recurrence of stressed syllables at more or less equal intervals of time in a speech continuum. We can also find a more detailed definition of speech rhythm as the regular alternation of acceleration and slowing down, of relaxation and intensification, of length and brevity, of similar and dissimilar elements within a speech event.

It seems that the enclitic tendency (the initial unstressed syllables follow the nucleus) is more typical of English, though in speech flow it is sometimes difficult to define the borders of rhythmic groups, e.g.

Everest | is known | as the highest | peak | in the world. (the semantic / proclitic tendency is more typical for accurate and more explicit speech)

Everest is | known as the | highest | peak in the | world.( the enclitic tendency is more typical for informal speech)

The rhythm-unit break is indeterminate. It may well be said that the speech tempo and style often regulate the division into rhythmic groups. The more organized the speech is the more rhythmical it appears, poetry being the most extreme example of this. Prose read aloud or delivered in the form of a lecture is more rhythmic than colloquial speech. On the other hand rhythm is also individual – a fluent speaker may sound more rhythmical than a person searching for the right word and refining the structure of his phrase while actually pronouncing it.

However, it is fair to mention that regularity in a speech chain is not realized in its exact isochronous form. Absolutely regular speech produces the effect of monotony. That is the intervals between the stressed syllables are physically equal. Some “strokes” may often be missing or mistimed. Whenever short rhythmic groups are mixed with longer ones the speaker minimizes the differences by means of changes in his rate of delivery. Thus the length of the intervals is perceived by theу listener as equal despite the changing number of unstressed syllables between the peaks of the rhythmic groups. The listener tends to equalize the groups he perceives.

The term “rhythmic group” used by most of the linguists* (Lehiste I. Rhythmic Units in Production and Perception. – Oxford, 1973.; Gimson A.C. An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English. – London, 1981.; Антипова А.М. Ритмическая система английской речи. – M., 1984.) implies more than a stressed group or breath group (a group of words that can be uttered within a single breath). I.V.Zlatousova *(Златоусова Л.В. О ритмических структурах в поэтических и прозаических текстах // Звуковой строй языка. – М.,1979) terms it “rhythmic structure”. Most rhythmic groups are simultaneously sense units. A rhythmic group may comprise a whole phrase, like “They mustn’t do that” or just onу word: “Naturally…” or even a one-syllable word: “Well…”. So a syllable is sometimes taken for a minimal rhythmic unit when it comes into play. Thus the rhythmic tendency of accentuation in polysyllabic words helps to secure periodicity of dynamic peaks in an utterance, “waves” (K.Pike Practical Phonetics of Rhythm Waves. – Michigan, 1962.)

The investigation of the spoken text as a linguistic unit has contributed a lot to the treatment of rhythm since the text as a whole grew the object of analysts’ attention. In the present-day linguistics rhythm is analyzed as a system of similar adequate elements. A.M.Antipova (А.М. Ритмическая система английской речи. – M., 1984.) defines rhythm as a complex language system which is formed by the interrelation of lexical, syntactic and prosodic means. Prosody creates similarity and isochrony of speech elements. The rhythmic effect of the text units is obtained by the prosodic parameters, the pitch of the voice, loudness, duration. In fact not only the actual pitch of the voice but its level and range, pausation and other phenomena of a stretch of speech form rhythmic constituents. A.M.Antipova comes to the conclusion that the rhythmic structure of speech continuum is a hierarchy of rhythmical units of different levels. Each text unit is capable of fulfilling the rhythmical function. The notion of prosodic similarity is very flexible. The rhythm constituents vary not only in different rhythm units but also in different speech realizations, different linguistic activities.

The prosodic parameters are practically the same in every rhythmic unit but each time they come into play on a larger scale and in a new variety of interrelationship. In prose an intonation group, a phrase (a line in poetry) and a phonopassage seem to have similar prosodic organization:

1. the beginning of a rhythmic unit is characterized by the tone and intensity maximum, the slowing of the tempo;

2. the end of the rhythmic unit is marked by a pause of different length, the tone and intensity minimum, slowing of the tempo, generally sloping descending terminal tones;

3. the most common pre-nuclear pattern of a rhythmic unit is usually the High (Medium) Level Head.

The prosodic markers of rhythmic units differ in number. The intonation group has the maximum of the prosodic features constituting its rhythm. The phonopassage and the rhythmic group are characterized by the minimum of prosodic features, being mostly marked by the temporal similarity.

It should be noted that there are many factors which can disrupt the potential rhythm of a phrase. The speaker may pause at some points in the utterance, he may be interrupted, he may make false starts, repeat a word, correct himself and allow other hesitation phenomena.

Spontaneous dialogic discourse reveals a rich variety of rhythm organization and the change of rhythmic patterns within a single stretch of speech. The most stable regularity is observed on the level of rhythmic and intonation groups. They often coincide and tend to be short. The brevity of remarks in spontaneous speech explains the most common use of level heads of all ranges, abrupt terminal tones of both directions. The falling terminal tone seems to be the main factor of rhythmicality in spontaneous speech. Longer intonation groups display a great variety of intonation patterns including all kinds of heads and terminal tones. The choice of intonation pattern depends on their relationship to each other, the subject matter they are discussing, the emotional state of the participants and other situational factors. As a result informal spontaneous conversation sounds very lively and lacks monotony.

Rhythmically organized speech is easily perceived. From the psycholinguistic point of view the accuracy of the temporal similarity in rhythm has a definite effect on the human being. The regularity in rhythm seems to be harmony with his biological rhythms. This is by far more important the emotional effect of rhythm especially of poetic rhythm on a human being is very strong; its aesthetic significance is great. Rhythm in itself is functioning as a framework of speech organization and is a very effective means of speech expressiveness.