27. Logic and emphatic stress in English

Types of sentence stress

1. Normal is used to arrange the sentence phonetically, to single a nuclear of the centre of the utterance – I want a blue dress

2. Logical 3. Emphatic

2. The type of sentence-stress which gives special prominence to a new element in a sentence or an intonation group is called LOGICAL STRESS. The word which is singled out by the logical stress is the most important in the sentence. It is the communicative centre (or the logical centre) of the sentence

Ex, She spoke to him ‘yesterday. She spoke to ‘him yesterday

The com. centre of the sentence marked by logical stress introduces something new to the listener (a new object, person, idea or their new quality), while the other words of the sentence convey what is already known to him, something which has already been mentioned in the discourse or is clear from the situation.

ANY WORD IN THE SENTENCE including form-words, personal and possessive pronouns, auxiliary and modal verbs MAY BECOME THE NUCLEUS of the com. centre of the sen-ce and may be logically stressed.

The attitude of the speaker underlined by logical stress in English, is expressed WITH THE HELP OF THE WORDS ДЕЙСТВИТЕЛЬНО, ЖЕ and others, ex: Forgive me, John | but you ‘have changed. Извини меня, но ты действительно изменился.

3. Most human utterances express not only the speaker's thoughts, but 'also his feelings and attitudes to reality and to the contents of the sentence. BOTH NORMAL AND LOGICAL STRESSES CAN BE UNEMPHATIC OR EMPHATIC. Emphatic stress increases the effort of expression. It may strengthen the stressed word making it more prominent. Emphatic stress manifests itself mainly on the High Fall or the Rise-Fall of the nuclear syllable. Emphatic stress is a powerful expressive means. It is the highest degree of logical and emotional prominence of words in a phrase

28. Intonation in English

Intonation is a complex unity of variations of pitch, stress, tempo, timbre and rhythm. It serves:

- to form sen-ces, int. groups or sense groups,

- to define the communicative type,

- to express the speaker’s thoughts,

- to convey the attitudinal meaning.

Int. cares important information that can not be rended (разорвана) by any other meanings.

Int. possesses definite phonetic features, which are closely connected with the meaning of the utterance. These features are:

1. Pauses between sen-ces and between sense group

2. Fluctuations of pitch of the voice. They are called speech melody (falls and rises)

3. Stress, the word that is most important in the sen-ce is usually stressed. It is also emphasized by a special moving tone – the pitch (falls and rises, or changes its movement first in one direction then in another one (fall rise, rise fall)

4. Other words are also stressed but the pitch of these words remains unchanged (static tones)

5. Structural words are usually unstressed and pronounced in the weak forms

6. Connected English speech comes as a series of closely-knit groups of words, each group containing only one stressed syllable. The stressed syllables occur at approximately equal intervals of time. The result of this interrelationship is a peculiar rhythm.

7. The rate of the speech is not constant. It is made to suit the semantic importance of each sen-ce of sense group of the utterance.

8. The timbre of the voice changes in accordance with the emotions of the speaker.

Conclusion: the most imp. features are speech melody, sen-ce stress and melody.

The communicative function is the main function of intonation. One of the aims of communication is the exchange of information between people.