Intonation.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 632.

Word stressand intonationcan be treated together under the heading suprasegmentalor prosodic componentbecause these effects are superimposed on the segmental chain of sounds and carry the information which the sounds do not contain.

Now a brief overview of each of the above given components should be given.

The segmental/phonemic component.First of all, a spoken message/an utterance can be thought as a succession of the smallest, further indivisible segmentswhich are easily singled out in the flow of speech as separate discrete elements. They are called sounds of a languageor speech sounds.Definite sequences of speech sounds constitute the material forms of morphemes, words and utterances.

Sounds function as phonemes,i.e. linguistically distinctive, relevant units capable of differentiating the meanings of morphemes, words, sentences. Phonemes are abstract representations of those speech sounds which can differentiate the meaning – i.e. 'sounds in the mind' (the term suggested by Peter Roach). Each language has its own set of phonemes – the ABC (alphabet) of speech sounds. Realizations of a definite phoneme in definite positions in words are called allophones/variants,i.e. 'sounds in the mouth' (the term suggested by Peter Roach).

The sounds of the language constitute its segmental/phonemic(сегментний/фонемний) component – the first and basic component of the phonic substance of language.

The segmental/phonemic component has a systemic character [Vassilyev 1970: 30]. It is manifested in the following ways:

1. It can be reflected in various classifications of its phonemes in which the latter are divided first into two fundamental sound types - vowels(V) and consonants(C) with further subdivision of each type.

2. Each segmental phoneme of a language has a definite number of allophoneswhich occur in definite positions in words. The occurrence of the allophones of a phoneme іn different positions in a word is called their distribution. Typical combinations or sequences of sounds are governed by certain regulations and occur in definite positions.

3. The articulations of allophones within words and at the junctions of the words in the flow of speech merge and interpenetrate each other. Thus there are specific rules for joining the sounds together in every language. These rules affect articulatory V+C, C+C, and V+V transitions.

So the segmental componentof language phonic structure can be studied and described as:

1. a system of phonemes;

2. certain patterns of allophonesand their distribution;

3. a set of methods of joining speech sounds/allophones together in words and at their junctions – coarticulatory/adjustment phenomena.

The syllabic structure.A unit of spoken message larger than a single sound and

smaller than a word is a syllable.

Articulatorilya word may be pronounced “syllable at a time”, e.g. tun-der-‘stand; so the syllable is the smallest further indivisible unit of speech production.

Auditorilythe syllable is the smallest unit of perception: the listener identifies the whole of the syllable and only after that the sounds contained. The notion of syllable is very real to native speakers, and is used in everyday conversation.

Thus the second component of the phonic structure of language is the syllabic structureof its words both in citation forms and in utterances. The syllabic structure of words has two inseparable aspects:

1. syllable formation(складоутворення);

2. syllable division/separation(складоподіл).

Both aspects are sometimes covered by the term syllabification.The study and description of how syllables are formed and separated is part of the description of phonic substance of a language.

Word/lexical stress.The amount of effort or energy expended in producing a syllable is called STRESS. For the hearer, stress is manifested as perceptual PROMINENCE, or strength. In other words, a stressed syllable seems more prominent or stronger than the other syllables in a word: it stands out [Pennington 1996:129].

Stress is a cover term for three main features, any of which may result when extra effort is expended in producing a syllable and any of which may give an impression of perceptual prominence. These are: duration,or length; intensity,or loudness; and pitch,or fundamental frequency. The English stressed syllable – especially its vocalic nucleus – tends to have a greater degree of length, loudness and pitch associated with it than the unstressed syllable.

Traditionally, the word ‘stress'denotes prominence referring to die syllables in words as items of vocabulary, i.e. pronounced in isolation, but not in phrases and sentences – word stress/lexical stresswhich constitutes the third component of phonic structure of language.

The problem of word stresshas three aspects:

- the physical nature of word stress;

- the position of the word stress in disyllabic and polysyllabic words;

- the degrees of word stress.

Languages differ in all these aspects of word/lexical stress.

Supra-segmental/prosodic features/intonation.Words in speech are not used in isolation but in phrases and sentences where they are organized according to grammar rules, get different degrees of prominence,each syllable of a word is pronounced with a different degree of pitchand loudnessof the voice, and tempo/speedof utterance. Variations in pitch, prominence/stress, and tempo are considered to be supra-segmentalor prosodic.They are traditionally termed intonation.

The most important intonation/supra-segmental effectsin a language are provided by:

1. the linguistic use of pitch,or speech melody(мелодика мовлення). Different levels of pitch (tones)are used in particular sequences (contours)to express a wide range of meanings. For example, all languages seem to differentiate between a falling and a rising pitch pattern. This distinction is used to express a contrast between ‘stating' and ‘questioning';

2. the linguistic use of utterance-level /sentence stress(фразовий наголос). It is the amount of perceptual prominence given to particular words or syllables in an utterance/sentence because of the particular meaning the speaker wishes to convey in a particular situation. That perceptual prominence is principally achieved by pitch change accompanied by greater loudness, duration and more clearly defined vowel qualities. It is also termed accent by some phoneticians. The speakers choose to accentcertain words (or to de-accentothers) in an utterance and this accentuation (or de-accentuation) is defined by the meaning of the utterance.

3. the linguistic use of speech tempo(темп мовлення). It is possible to speed up or slow down the ratewith which syllables, words, and sentences are produced to convey several kinds of meaning. In many languages, a sentence spoken with extra speed conveys urgency. Rapidly pronounced, clipped syllables may convey irritation; slowly uttered ones – greater personal involvement, etc.

Pitch, loudness/prominence and tempo together create the rhythmof a language, loudness is the basis of rhythmical effects in English [Crystal 1997]. In other languages, such as oriental ones, pitch height (high vs. low) is a central feature of rhythm.

Languages also vary in the way in which rhythmical contrasts are made. English rhythmis believed to preserve roughly equal intervals of time between stressed syllables irrespective of the number of unstressed syllables that come between them [Roach 2000:41]. This is defined as a ‘stress-timed/based'(or isochronous)rhythm [Crystal 1997] or a stress/based rhythm[Laver 1995]. According to Peter Roach, if the following sentence is said with isochronous stresses, the four syllables Both of them are would take the same amount of time as new and here: Both of them are new here [ibid. :41]. However, experimental research suggests that isochrony (i.e. the property of being equally spaced in time) is rarely found in natural speech. It is more likely that the brain judges sequences of stresses to be more nearly isochronous than they really are. Still traditionally regarded as stress-timed language, English reveals an important feature: there is a tendency for unstressed syllables to become weak, and to contain short, centralized/reduced vowels.

In this respect, it differs from Ukrainian or Russian as well as other languages (Spanish, French, and Japanese, etc.) which are described as ‘syllable-timed'.Such languages depend on the principle that all syllables are of equal values and they follow each other in a steady flow without a strong contrast of stress (a ‘machine-run' effect). Unstressed vowels tend to retain the quality and quantity found in their stressed counterparts. The above mentioned distinctions of the nature of English rhythm should be taken into account by EFL learners.

In sum, a detailed description of phonic/sound substance of a language will consist of the study of

1. its segmental subsystem,

2. the combinatory possibilities of the sounds – syllable structureand

3. the prosody of the language (the supra-segmental subsystem),i.e. how features of pitch, loudness and tempo work to produce stress/accent, intonation and rhythm.