16. Intonation of Short Questions and Short Answers.

True short questions consist of auxiliary verb and pronoun and in these questions we have HWR/ LWR on pronoun. Sometimes the short answer answers a question, sometimes it agrees with a comment, and sometimes it disagrees with a comment. We have fall on the auxiliary verb. It may be MF, HF (energetic) or LF (reserved). We often add Yes or No. There are two sharp falls there. If the question about the subject we should put fall on pronoun or noun in our short answer. When we want to comment smth through short answer you should use FRD. And there is only one more important kind of short answer and that is Contradiction, in other words direct disagreement. And in these case we should use HF+LWR.

17. Intonation of Too, Only, Either, Just and Even.

In sentences with too we use HF+MF/LF. If the idea is negative, too changes to either, but we have the same intonation pattern. In sentences with only we haven’t the stress on only, but emphasize the most important word by falling tone. We often use just in the same sense as only. When we have even in our sentence we put High Prehead on it and then falling tone on the most important word. And sometimes even stands at the beginning of the sentence.

18. Intonation of Alternative Questions and Enumerations.

There is a series of questions all of the same form. The 1^st one MWR and the others HF. But even in these cases the rising intonation is often used for every question. It doesn’t really matter. If you have series of questions and don’t need the Head in your sentence you should use HF. If you count something then we should use LR on all subject except the last on which we should use HF.

19. Intonation of Disjunctive Questions and Suggestions with Tags.

When we are sure that we are right we should use HF+ LF/MF. And in this sentences we see comma, when it is written down but we don’t here it. When we express orders or warnings by sentences with question-tags we should use HF+LF/MF. The same falling intonation is used on won’t you and will you as reassuring fraise after orders and warnings. Tags very often rise, too. There is in tag-questions expressing uncertainty. In such cases we use HF+HWR/LWR (for friends). All the tags so far have been negative-positive or positive-negative. But although negative-negative never occurs, we do find positive-positive tags. Positive-Positive are always rise (HWR/LWR). This kind of kind of tags shows great interest and sometimes little irony. The other common types of rising tag are fraises with Let’s+shall and offers and suggestions. Don’t confuse question tags with true short questions which are used with HWR/LWR on the pronoun.

20. Types and Degrees of Utterance-Stress. Peculiarities of English Utterance-Stress.

The actual semantic weight of individual words depends on the novelty of information and on the importance attached by the speaker to the particular element of information, both the aspects being determined by the communicative situation or the context. In other words, it is necessary to distinguish between types and degrees of utterance-stress. There is the position of nuclear and non-nuclear (pre-n or post-n) types of stress. Nuclear stress is the only obligatory stress in an intonation-group and signals the central point information. The specific structural features of nuclear stress are connected with its location in an intonation group:

Final pitch change: there are no other significant pitch changes following it;

Fixed position: in the absence of any disturbing contextual factors it falls on the last semantic item.

There are no strict limitations for the location of nuclear stress.

Nuclear stress can subdivided into full and partial.

The peculiarity of full stress is that it occurs only in the head of an intonation group .. partial stress occurs, besides the head, also in the prehead and toil.

Partial stresses can be high and low.

--High partial stress normally occurs in the head of rising or falling-rising tune while in the prehead it may be used but occasionally.

--Law partial stress is used in the tail after a falling or rising-falling nuclear tone and in the prehead, where it is indentified as such due to the pitch contrast with the onset syllable (the 1^st fully stressed syll. marking the beginning of the head).

Partial stress is generally given to notional words whose informative value is reduced either because they are repeated from a previous context or because they denote ideas of smaller importamce in comparison with the other words in the same utterance. Partially stressed monosyllabic words retain the full quality of the vowel.

A peculiarity of English is a great number of form-words and their very high frequency in speech. Form-words include articles, prepositions, conjunctions, some pronouns, auxiliary and modal verbs. They are usually unstressed. Monosyllabic form-words, when unstressed, most commonly have a weakened vowel. The use of a full quality vowel in this position leads to a foreign accent.

According to their pronunciation in an unstressed position, form-word can b divided into two groups.

The 1^st group includes functional words that are never used in their strong form in an unstressed position in an utterance. The strong form of these words is used when the word is said in isolation or with emphasis.

The 2^nd group includes auxiliary and modal verbs and prepositions which are reduced when unstressed at the beginning or in the middle of an utterance, but retain their strong form when unstressed at the end of an utterance.