Intonation. Prosodic units.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 503.

Functions of Eng word stress

English word stress can be analysed from the functional point of view, because in a language it performs 3 functions: constitutive, distinctive and identificatory. Word stress has a constitutive function because it organizes the syllables into a word forming the stress pattern, without a definite stress pattern a word stops to be a word and becomes a sequence of syllables. Word stress performs a distinctive function, because there are words in English which have the same sound structure but are differentiated in speech only by their stress patterns. There are oppositions which serve to distinguish: different lexical units: billow - below, замок – замок; grammatical classes of words and different grammatical forms: insult – insult, present – present, зимы – зимы; stylistic (poetic) variants: девица – девица. Word stress performs an identificatory function, because the stress patterns of words enable people to identify definite combinations of sounds as meaningful linguistic units. If you misplace word stresses, it produces a strange accent and prevents normal understanding. English word stress is used as a mean of word-building (habit - habitual, history - historical).

Intonation is a complex unity of non-segmental, or prosodic features of speech: melody (pitch of the voice); sentence stress; temporal characteristics (duration, tempo, pausation); rhythm; timber (voice quality). It organizes a sentence, determines communicative types of sentences and clauses, divides sentences into intonation groups, gives prominence to words and phrases, expresses contrasts and attitudes. There are two main approaches to the problem of intonation in Great Britain. One is known as a contour analysis and the other may be called grammatical. The first is represented by a large group of phoneticians. Their theory is based on the assumption that intonation consists of basic functional "blocks". They pay much attention to these "blocks" but not to the way they are connected. The most phoneticians in our country agree, that intonation express the speakers thoughts, emotions and attitude towards the hearer. Intonation is a broad phenomena, which is realized in a number of prosodic units. The main of them are: the syllable, the rhythmic unit, the utterance. The syllable is the smallest prosodic unit, which constitutes higher units. Its prosodic features depend on its position and function in a rhythmic unit. The rhythmic unit is a number of stressed and unstressed syllables. Unstressed are called clities, stressed-nucleus. The unstressed syl. preceding the nucleus are called proclitics, following-enclitics. All this proves that the r.g. is a separate prosodic unit. The i.g. Various phoneticians use dif. terms: breath g., sense g., syntagme, tone-g., etc.