Informative function.

According to the traditional points of view in the phonetic literature, the melodic component plays the leading part in the realization of the informative structure of the utterance. Exactly:

1. in the intonation group “there’s a \man in the room” the speaker single out one “piece” of information, in the phrase “there’s a \man in the \room” there are two; but in the phrase “there’s a \man in the /room” one may observe the combination of them and the second is subordinated to the first

2. the position of the nuclear points out the centre of the utterance:

\I saw Mary at the concert yesterday and I saw \Mary at the concert yesterday

3. through the opposition of high and low levels the difference between the new and the given maybe observed as well as division of the parts of the utterance according to the degree of importance. Usually only important parts of the sentence get the difference in the level.

Communicative function.

Communicative function of the melodic component is realized in its ability to differentiate communicative types of the utterances. An utterance may be defined as a certain minimal communicative unit aimed to a certain realized goal. Example of the communicative function of the speech melody are in the following oppositions:

1. question – answer:: You like \apples : : You like /apples

2. order – request: Go \ahead : : Go /ahead

3. statement – challenge: I’m \waiting : : I’m ˇwaiting

The results of the recent researches of intonation show that there’s no direct relation between the melodic contour and the communicative meaning it may convey. There are cases when the communicative meaning is given to the melody because there are no other means of expressing it. What mean will be clear from the following examples.

The statement CAREFUL, pronounced with any terminal tune will have the communicative meaning of the warning.

In conveying the communicative function it is not only the configuration that is important but also the pitch level and range and related to them timbre should be count.

1. What about your father? He disapproves of me, doesn’t he?

2. Oh, no, whatever makes you think like that.

The second utterance will sound as a questions if it is pronounced with high level scale in combination High Falling or low falling tune. In case with falling scale of wide range in combination with low fall or low level scale with low fall there will be the meaning of approach.

From this we may say that emotional and modal are passing to the communicative and vice versa.

But of course this interrelation doesn’t exclude the communicative function of intonation. More than that, in spite of the lexico-syntactical expression of the communicative type of the utterance (like in the example wit careful) the role of the melodic component remains rather important. It helps the listener to limit the amount of interpretations of the utterance.

Emotional and modal function.

All the researchers are rather like-minded in relation to this function. They all agree that the melody may express emotions and attitudes.

In examining the ways of expressing emotions and attitudes there are two main approaches.

The first one claims that there are direct acoustic correlates to the expressed emotions and attitudes. The researchers, belonging to this approach tend to examine the statements that are emotionally coloured. They are trying to correlate acoustic parameters and the emotions expressed in the sentence.

The followers of the second approach believe that intonation is organized in the same way as other units of the language, i.e. words it has the list of certain units, that posses forms and functions. According to this approach, all the determined units are able to convey emotions only contextually.

Neither the first nor the second approach managed fully and completely describe the emotive and modal function of intonation. And it is natural. As in many other different cases we may say that the truth is somewhere in the middle.