Chapter V INTONATION STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 1058.

The above-given illustrations show how important it is in teaching practice to make the students realize that the accentual structure of words is conditioned by the semantic interrelation of their elements. The teacher should attract the students' attention to the correlation between the accentual and semantic structures of words which will save the students many mistakes. The regulation of the accentuation in the Russian language is too complicated and is practically unpredictable. The stress may fall on the same morpheme in the derivatives where word-forma­tion is performed by the grammatical means alone, e.g. кожа — кожи — кожей — кожу; год — годы — годом. In another group of words the stress may effect different morphemes of the word par­ticipating in the word-formation alongside with the grammatical means, e.g. сад — сады — садами — садом; пар — пары — пара­ми — паром; but: пара — пары — парами — парам. R. I. Avanesov considers the variability in the placement of the Russian word stress an individual sign of every particular word which presents a difficulty for foreign learners and some­times for the natives (1). It is interesting to note that Russian word stress may have stylistic distinction and poetic usage, cf. молоде́ц — мо́лодец, деви́ца — де́вица, ше́лковый — шелко́вый. The complicated system of the accentual structure of English words makes teacher trainees be very attentive to the subject. The typical mistakes of Russian learners in the sphere of word stress are the mispronunciation of: 1) words with the main and secondary stresses (ˌconver'sational); 2) words with two equal stresses in connected speech ( 'up'stairs, 're'organize); 3) words with the full vowel in the unstressed syllable ('architect). The instability of English accentual structure of words presents much difficulty for Russian learners. Students' attention should be attracted to English multisyllabic words the accentual structure of which is regulated by the rhythmical tendency and the use of the secondary stress in those words, as it has no anal­ogy in the Russian language, compare: 'transpor'tation — транс­портиро́вка, deˌmocrati'zation — демократизация. Another group of words presenting difficulty for Russian learn­ers is large group of compounds which are marked either by two equal stresses (compound adjectives) or by one stress (compound nouns). The semantic factor in defining the accentual structure of compounds should be most decisive, as it has been illustrated above. One more group of words requires learners' attention, the group which forms accentual oppositions of different parts of speech by way of conversion accompanied by the shifting of stress, e.g. 'combine (n) — com'bine (v), 'insult (n) — in'sult (v). In case of doubt it is advisable to consult a pronouncing dictionary. The accentual structure of English words in speech continu­um is inseparably connected with the rhythmic organization of speech chain which will be thoroughly discussed in Chapter V.  

After considering the system of English segmental phonemes, the syllabic structure and the accentual structure of English words we are to focus on the topic of particular theoretical and practical interest, i.e. intonation.

In this chapter our general aims will be: first, to present a con­cise, simple, yet adequate definition of intonation; second, to de­scribe the main structural components of the intonation pattern; third, to present methods for transcribing intonation, that is a suit­able way of notation; and fourth, to explore the function of into­nation in various textual units, looking particularly at examples in which intonation resolves grammatical and lexical ambiguity.

Intonation is a language universal. There are no languages which are spoken as a monotone, i.e. without any change of prosodic parameters. But intonation functions in various lan­guages in a different way.

What is the role intonation plays in the language?

The further our interests move towards some notion of com­municative competence and away from the lesser ability to pro­duce and understand grammatical sentences, the greater is the pressure one feels to take proper account of how intonation con­tributes to the communicative value of the act of speech.

We are beginning to realize more and more that engagement with intonation is not merely a "cosmetic" or "decorative" exer­cise, comparatively unimportant, but that in fact it leads one to a consideration of some quite fundamental aspects of the commu­nicative process. Unfortunately many teachers have preferred to concentrate their attention upon the study of sounds with the re­sult that the study of intonation is tended to lag behind. One rea­son for this state of affairs is that a very special skill is required in the recognition of intonation variations. This skill is more diffi­cult to acquire than the ability to recognize strange sounds for

two reasons. Intonation is used by native speakers even more unconsciously than are sounds, and — apart from an occasional random hint thrown out by a punctuation mark or by italics — no attempt is made in print to convey intonation, whereas even in a language so abominably spelt as English the orthography continually reminds the reader of the sounds he must produce. The second reason is that we have at our disposal a far more de­tailed analysis of the sounds of English than of its intonation.

It happened so because early phoneticians were preoccupied with segmental phonemes rather more than with intonation.

We would like to start with the description of intonation on the auditory and acoustic levels and then pass over to its linguis­tic function.

It is quite impossible to describe intonation in a word or two. Sometimes the ups and downs of pitch and loudness are com­pared to the waves of the ocean. "The surface of the ocean re­sponds to the forces that act upon it in movements resembling the ups and downs of the human voice" (47, p. 19).

There is wide agreement among Soviet linguists that on per­ception level intonation is a complex, a whole, formed by signifi­cant variations of pitch, loudnessand tempo(i.e. the rate of speech and pausation) closely related. Some Soviet linguists re­gard speech timbre as the fourth component of intonation. As a matter of fact, up to now timbre has not been sufficiently investi­gated yet. Neither its material form nor its linguistic function have been thoroughly described. Though speech timbre definitely con­veys certain shades of attitudinal or emotional meaning there is no good reason to consider it alongside with the three prosodic components of intonation, i.e. pitch, loudness and tempo.

Nowadays there is another term "prosody"which embraces the three prosodic components and substitutes the term "intona­tion". It is widely used in linguistic literature, it causes no misun­derstanding and, consequently, it is more adequate. We feel strongly that this term would be more suitable for our book too, but, unfortunately, it has not been accepted in the teaching process yet.

We would like to point out that many foreign scholars have been anxious to restrict the formal definition of intonation to pitch movement alone, though occasionally allowing in varia­tions of loudness as well (57; 66). We are firmly convinced that when the question of intonational meaning is raised it is clearly

not possible to restrict the term "intonation" by the pitch param­eters only because generally all the three prosodic parameters function as a whole though in many cases the priority of the pitch parameter is quite evident. Giving priority to pitch changes we are not going to adopt a narrow definition of intonation and simplify the formal description of it at the expense of the seman­tic one and will allow intonation a wider definition trying to do justice to the semantic value of all the three prosodic compo­nents.

It is necessary to point out here that on the acousticlevel pitch correlates with the fundamental frequency of the vibration of the vocal cords; loudness correlates with the amplitude of vibrations; tempo is a correlate of time during which a speech unit lasts.

Further on we shall describe intonation in the terms of audi­tory level which are more suitable for the aims of teaching. The acoustic level of prosodic parameters presents special interest for those carrying out experimental research work in the field of the­oretical phonetics. With the developing of cybernetics and the constructing of teaching machines the importance of the acoustic aspect of intonation study will definitely grow.

We are going now to. concentrate on the three prosodic com­ponents of intonation, that is pitch, loudness and tempo and on the way they are realized in speech.

Each syllable of the speech chain has a special pitch colour­ing. Some of the syllables have significant moves of tone up and down. Each syllable bears a definite amount of loudness. Pitch movements are inseparably connected with loudness. Together with the tempo of speech they form an intonation patternwhich is the basic unit of intonation.

An intonation pattern contains one nucleus and may contain other stressed or unstressed syllables normally preceding or fol­lowing the nucleus. The boundaries of an intonation pattern may be marked by stops of phonation, that is temporal pauses.

Intonation patterns serve to actualize syntagms in oral speech. It may be well to remind you here that the syntagm is a group of words which is semantically and syntactically com­plete. In phonetics actualized syntagms are called intonation groups¹.Each intonation group may consist of one or more po­tential syntagms, e.g. the sentence "I think he is coming soon"

¹ The other terms used in linguistics are "sense-groups", "tone-groups", etc.

has two potential syntagms: "I think" and "he is coming soon". In oral speech it is normally actualized as one intonation group.

The intonation group is a stretch of speech which may have the length of the whole phrase¹. But the phrase often contains more than one intonation group. The number of intonation groups depends on the length of the phrase and the degree of se­mantic importance or emphasis given to various parts of it, cf.:

This ^↘bed was 'not 'slept ˎin. — ˌThis bed ⌇was ^↘not 'slept ˎin.

An additional terminal tone on "this bed" expresses an em­phasis on "this bed" in contrast to other beds. Another example:

^→Last ˌsummer | we ^↘went to 'stay with my 'sister in the Criˎmea. || — ^→Last ˌsummer | we ^↘went to 'stay with my ˌsister | in the Criˎmea. ||

The phrases above might be pronounced with either two or three intonation groups which obviously affects the meaning.

Now we shall dwell on each of the prosodic constituents of intonation and see how they actualize such language units as syntagms, sentences, syntactic wholes. Among the pitchparam­eters we shall concentrate on the three of them, i.e. the distinct variationsin the direction of pitch, pitch leveland pitch range.Though pitch changes are of primary linguistic significance they should be viewed together with the variations of loudness,the second component of intonation, since it is clearly not possible to separate pitch and loudness in creating the effect of accentua­tion. That is why our first task is to discuss the anatomy of pitch-and-stressstructure of the intonation pattern.

Not all stressed syllables are of equal importance. One of the syllables has the greater prominence than the others and forms the nucleus, or focal pointof an intonation pattern. Formally the nucleus may be described as a strongly stressed syllable which is generally the last strongly accented syllable of an intonation pat­tern and which marks a significant change of pitch direction, that is where the pitch goes distinctly up or down. The nuclear tone is the most important part of the intonation pattern without which the latter cannot exist at all. On the other hand an intona­tion pattern may consist of one syllable which is its nucleus.

¹ By "phrase" here we mean a sentence actualized in oral speech.

According to R. Kingdon (66) the most important nuclear tones in English and the only ones we need to distinguish in teaching are:

Low Fall — ˎNo.

High Fall — ˋNo.

Low Rise — ˊNo.

High Rise — ˏNo.

Fall-Rise — _vNo.

The meanings of the nuclear tones are difficult to specify in general terms. Roughly speaking the falling tone of any level and range expresses "certainty", "completeness", "independence". Thus a straight-forward statement normally ends with a falling tone since it asserts a fact of which the speaker is certain. It has an air of finality, e.g.

Where's John? — He ^→hasn't ˎcome yet. What's the time? — It's ^↘nearly 'five o'ˎclock.

A rising tone of any level and range on the contrary express­es "uncertainty", "incompleteness" or "dependence". A general question, for instance, has a rising tone, as the speaker is uncer­tain of the truth of what he is asking about, e.g.

I think I'll go now. — ^→Are you ˌready?

Michael is coming to London. — ^↘Is he 'coming ˌsoon?

Parenthetical and subsidiary information in a statement is also often spoken with a rising tone, or a mid-level tone, because this information is incomplete, being dependent for its full under­standing on the main assertion, e.g.

I'm not sure I can join you now. — If you > like ⌇ we can ^↘go to the 'picnic ˎlater.

Encouraging or polite denials, commands, invitations, greetings, farewells, etc. are generally spoken with a rising tone.

What shall I do now? — ^→Do go ˌon. Could you join us? — ^→Not ˌnow.

A falling-rising tone may combine the falling tone's meaning of "assertion", "certainty" with the rising tone's meaning of de­pendence, incompleteness. At the end of a phrase it often conveys

a feeling of reservation; that is, it asserts something and at the same time suggests that there is something else to be said, e.g.

Do you like pop-music? — ˎSome ˌtimes. (but not in general)

At the beginning or in the middle of a phrase it is a more forceful alternative to the rising tone, expressing the assertion of one point, together with the implication that another point is to follow:

^↘Those who 'work in the _voffices | ^↘ought to take 'plenty of ˎexercise.

The falling-rising tone, as its name suggests, consists of a fall in pitch followed by a rise. If the nucleus is the last syllable of the intonation group the fall and rise both take place on one syl­lable — the nuclear syllable. Otherwise the rise occurs in the re­mainder of the tone unit, cf.:

Do you agree with him? — _vYes.

What can I do to mend matters? — You could apˎologize , to her.

Where the Rise of the. Fall-Rise extends to a stressed syllable after the nucleus we signal the falling-rising tone by placing the fall on the nucleus and a rise on the later stressed syllable. This will make it easier for you and your pupils to follow the intona­tion contour in the text.

You may know that in English there is often clear evidence of an intonation-group boundary, but no audible nuclear tone movement preceding. In such a circumstance two courses are open: either one may classify the phenomenon as a further kind of head or one may consider it to be the level nuclear tone. The weight of evidence seems to force the second solution, for the following reasons:

1. The final level tone is always more prominent than the others, e.g.

I'm afraid I can't manage it. — In ^↘view of 'all the > circumstances | ^↘why not 'try aˎgain?

Also the syllable on which it occurs is lengthened substan­tially, and there is a clear rhythmic break between what pre­cedes and what follows.

2. This tone nearly always occurs on the last lexical item (which is not obligatory in spontaneous speech) before a phonetic boundary and this is distributionally similar to a nuclear tone.

3. In subordinate structures this tone may be replaced by a rising-type tone.

4. In non-subordinate structures this tone has a particular range of meaning (boredom, sarcasm, etc.) which is very similar in force to other nuclear semantic functions.

Low-Level toneis very characteristic of reading poetry. Though occasionally heard in reading Mid-Level toneis particu­larly common in spontaneous speech functionally replacing the rising tone. That is why it should be by no means ignored in teaching.

There are two more nuclear tones in English: Rise-Fall and Rise-Fall-Rise. But adding refinement to speech they are not ab­solutely essential tones for the foreign learner to acquire; and as they complicate the learning of the tones it is advisable not to teach them at any rate until the student is well advanced in his mastery of intonation. Rise-Fall can always be replaced by High Fall and Rise-Fall-Rise by Fall-Rise without making nonsense of the utterance in the way in which a foreign or other unsuitable intonation does.

The tone of a nucleus determines the pitch of the rest of the intonation pattern following it which is called the tail, as you probably remember. Thus after a falling tone, the rest of the into­nation pattern is at a low pitch. After a rising tone the rest of the intonation pattern moves in an upward pitch direction, cf.:

ˎNo, Mary. — Well, Mary.

The nucleus and the tail form what is calledterminal tone.

As you know, we hope, the two other sections of the intona­tion pattern are the headand the pre-headwhich form the pre-nuclear part of the intonation pattern and, like the tail, they may be looked upon as optional elements, e.g.

^→Lake .District | is one of the ^↘loveliest 'parts of ˎBritain.

The pre-nuclear part can take a variety of pitch patterns. Variation within the pre-nucleus does not usually affect the grammatical meaning of the utterance, though it often conveys meanings associated with attitude or phonetic styles. There are three common types of pre-nucleus: a descending type in which the pitch gradually descends (often in "steps") to the nucleus; an ascending type in which the syllables form an ascending se­quence and a level type when all the syllables stay more or less on the same level:

Descending type

Ascending type Level type

For example:

^↘Why are you 'making such a ˎmess of it?

.Why are you 'making such a ˋmess of it?

→Why are you 'making such a ˎmess of it?

As the examples show, the different types of pre-nucleus do not affect the grammatical meaning of the sentence but they can convey something of the speaker's attitude.

Generalizing we may say that minimally an intonation pat­tern consists of one syllable, which is its nucleus, and in this syl­lable there is a melodical glide of a particular sound. Maximally it consists of three other segments: the head, the pre-head and the tail.

Two more pitch parameters which can considerably modify the pitch contour of the pitch-and-stress structure are pitch rang­esand pitch levelsof the whole intonation pattern or of each of its sections.

Variations in pitch range occur within the normal range of the human voice, i.e. within its upper and lower limits. For peda­gogical expediency three pitch ranges are generally distin­guished: normal, wide, narrow: