- •1.Peculiarities of English rhythm. Stress group.
- •2.The influence of rhythm on word- stress.
- •3.The influence of rhythm on utterance-stress.
- •4.General analysis of speech melody. Pitch-level. Pitch-change.
- •5.Static and kinetic tones. Structure of the tune.
- •6.Rising tones, their meanings and usage.
- •7.Falling tones, their meanings and usage.
- •8.Falling-Rising tones, their meanings.
- •9.Rising-Falling tones
- •10.Classification of head Types. General Principles.
- •18.Classification of basic intonation patterns.
- •19.The Rising tone- pattern, it’s contours.
- •21.The meanings of the Falling-Rising Tone-Pattern
- •22.The meanings of the Rising- Falling Tone-Pattern
1.Peculiarities of English rhythm. Stress group.
Stress group- is a group which consists of one stressed syllable and several unstressed ones. (I think /you are a beautiful/ girl).
Proclitics- these are unstressed syllables which stay before stressed ones [experience]
Enclitics- these are unstressed syllables which follow stressed ones. [butterfly]
An important future of English pronunciation is that the prominent syllables in an utterance occur at approximately equal period of time.
Principles: 1) Keeping more or less equal time interval before stresses.
2) Marking the semantic links between unstressed and stressed ones.
2.The influence of rhythm on word- stress.
Another importance of EP is 1) alternation of stress and unstressed syllables (2-words). The number of unstressed syllables between the stressed ones varies within an utterance, the rhythmic groups have uneven numbers of syllables. (Will someone pick you up at the station?)
This tendency may be accounted for by several reasons and by a high frequency of monosyllabic notional words and intervening function words.
3.The influence of rhythm on utterance-stress.
( She is a very good actress. She is a good actress.) The decisive factor for utterance stress is semantic weight of a word in the given context. In English there is the tendency to alternate strong and weak syllables for making 2
syllables prominent in many polysyllabic words. [absolutely, consideration]
Such words may lose one of the stress and then unstress become partial. (The girl looked absolutely lonely.
4.General analysis of speech melody. Pitch-level. Pitch-change.
Speech melody- is variations in the hight of the voice during speech.
Pitch level- is a certain hight within the speacker’s voice-range. It can be applied to the whole utterance and to some particular part of it. (rhythmic groups, intonation).
Pitch- change – the direction of the pitch- movement. [Good Good Good]
Functions of the pitch-level: 1) To mark a degree of semantic prominence given by the speaker to some word of phrase. [I hate you. I hate you]
2) To express modal-attitudional meaning and also give emotional colouring. [Good evening. Good evening.]
5.Static and kinetic tones. Structure of the tune.
Tone is a cooperation of a prosodic parameters such as loudness and duration.
Tune is a pitch pattern of an intonation group. Tones are divided into 2 classes: static and kinetic.
Kinetic tones are classified according to the following criteria: 1) Direction of the pitch-change 2) it’s interval 3) Relative position of the pitch change eithin the speacker’s voice-range.
Static tones give prominence to words. The tone carried by the most important word is called
the nuclear tone. Unstressed or partially stressed syllables which precede the 1st full stressed form the prehead. From the 1st stressed syllable to the nuclear syllable is head. The syllable bearing the nuclear tone is called the nucleus of the utterance. Unstressed or partially stressed syllables following the nucleus are called the tail.