Lecture 8. Speech melody. Components and functions.

Speech melody is one of the most significant components of the intonation if not to say the most important one. It is used as the intonation means of primary importance in many languages. Speech melody is universal and it may be explained by great variety of possibilities, given to this component.

Though it is one of the most properly studied phenomena, the linguists, whose studies deal with this component still may find a great number of questions to be studied and explained.

Now some words about the approaches to description of speech melody.

One of the most common approaches in the description of speech melody in intonology is a so-called contour approach (контурный подход). It was founded by the classical linguists in British school H. Sweet, D. Jones, R. Kingdon, A. Gimson, J. O’Connor). This approach unites many different national traditions of phonetics. According to this approach, any melodic configuration of a phrase is a wholesome unit, which has components that function independently in relation with linear parts of the phrase (функционируют самостоятельно, соотносясь с линейно расположенными отрезками фразы). Changes in the voice pitch are described within a speech unit – sense group, which represents by itself a unity of intonation and meaning (интонационно-смысловое единство). Viewed from the point of view of its intonation form, sense group /sintagm/ presents an intonation group /tone group in British terminology/.

Viewed from structural and functional point of view, sense group may include the following components: terminal tune (nuclear tone), scale or head, pre-head and termination.

Melodic changes in the last stressed and following unstressed syllables are called terminal tune.

Scale or head comprises tonal part of a sintagm that starts from the first stressed syllable (tact) and finishes before the last stressed syllable. Pre-head (pre-tact) consists of tonal changes in the initial unstressed or semi-stressed syllables.

According to the direction scale and tone may be rising, falling and level. In order to characterize the amplitude of the changes in voice pitch the term range (диапазон) is used. The interval between the highest and the lowest tonal points is called the range. Usually, there may be defined two or three categories of the general speech range: narrow – broad or narrow – average – broad. Within the range there may be defined several registers (pitches) /from 3 to 5/. The division into three main levels is more often used: high register, middle register and low register. The register is the vertical zone of the tonal changes.

Thus, in accordance with the contour approach, melodic diagram of a sense group has horizontal and vertical components.

The second approach is called level approach. It was developed in the American tradition of phonological and intonological analysis where the analysis of the melodic contours is held in the terms of pitch levels or to be more exact pitch phonemes. Pitch phoneme itself can’t convey any meaning. Any meaning, if it is included in the analysis at all, may be conveyed by certain sequences of the pitch phonemes. Usually they define 4 main levels: superhigh, high, middle and low.

During a great number of years (more than 40) of arguing what is more appropriate for the analysis of the intonation – contours or levels- the supporters of the level approach were strictly criticized. The enemies of the approach believed that in spite of there should be one basic level, which turned out to be very little worked out. There were rather a lot of doubts about the number of the levels. And the last and very important fact is that the character of the tonal changes in transferring from one level to the other was not taken into account. The transformation was described as a jump from one level to the other which is rather far from the phonetical reality. Thus for example Low Falling tune in the command “Do it” is realized as glide not jump. (show on the stave a glide and a dot but not a dash and a dot).

During the last years, however, there have appeared some researches that allow to develop some statements of the theory of levels. Thus the idea of “terminal level” was developed in the works of I. Lehiste and Peterson, supported and corrected in the works of Sakhbagova, Kriukova, Leontieva who managed to work out a so-called basic level. Hart was conducting experiments to prove that it was necessary to investigate exactly 4 main levels. And so on.