Intonation is a complex unity of four components, formed by
communicatively relevant variations in:
1.
voice pitch, or speech melody;
2.
the prominence of words, or their
accent;
3.
the tempo (rate), rhythm and
pausation of the utterance;
4.
voice-timbre, this complex unity
serving to express adequately, on the basic of the proper grammatical structure
and lexical composition of sentence, the speaker’s or writer’s thoughts,
volition, emotions, feelings and attitudes towards reality and the content of
the sentence.
Speech melody is the variations in
the pitch of the voice which take place when voiced sounds, especially vowels
and sonorants, are pronounced in connected speech. The speech melody is
produced by the vibrations of the vocal cords.
Stress in speech (loudness) is the greater prominence which is given to
one or more words of the same sentence. In English this greater prominence is
achieved by uttering the stressed words with greater force of exhalation and
muscular tension than the unstressed words, as well as by a change in pitch and
an increase in the length of stressed syllables of words in the sentence.
The
voice quality (timbre) is a special colouring of the voice in pronouncing
sentences and shows the speaker’s emotions, such as joy, sadness, irony, anger,
etc.
The
tempo of speech is the speed with which sentences or their parts are
pronounced. It is determined by the rate at which speech sounds are uttered and
by the number and length of pauses. Closely connected with the tempo of speech
is rhythm: the recurrence of stressed syllables at more or less equal intervals
of time. Therefore, the tempo and rhythm of speech may be said to constitutive
the temporal component of intonation. Each syllable of the speech chain has a
special pitch colouring and bears a definite amount of loudness. Pitch
movements are inseparably connected with loudness. Together with the tempo of
speech they form an intonation pattern which is the basic unit of intonation.
Jones
D. writes: “Intonation may be defined as the variations which take place in the
pitch of the voice in connected speech, i.e. variations in the pitch of the
musical note produced by the vibration of the vocal cords”. [Jones, 29]
Armstrong
L. and Ward I. define intonation as follows: “By intonation, we mean the rise
and fall of the pitch of the voice when we speak”. [Armstrong, 19]
As
far as the intonational aspect of pronunciation is concerned a special
attention must be drawn to the fact that every English expression should be
pronounced with an appropriate kind of intonation in the sense that
intonational contour should serve, first and foremost a particular syntactic
purpose. In other words it should express either finality or non-finality in
full accordance with the context.
Intonation
has the following functions: [Dickushina, 134]
1.
Semantic function, for it determines
the communicative type of sentences,
2.
Grammatical function, for it
determines the grammatical type of a sentence or a clause,
3.
Intonation enables us to express our
emotions or our attitude to persons and things,
4.
Segmentational function, for it marks
out syntagms (sense-groups) thus making
our speech intelligible.
It
goes without saying that intelligibility is the most vital requirement in so
far as human communication by means of language is concerned. “In phonetics
intelligibility is a measure of how comprehendible speech is, or the degree to
which speech can be understood. It is affected by spoken clarity, explicitness,
lucidity, comprehensibility, perspicuity and precision”.
(http//en.wikipedia.org/intelligibility)
It
is common knowledge that speech is always split up into parts or segments. Here
the segmentational function of intonation plays an important role.
Utterances
are units of communication. It is therefore indispensable that the natural
interruption in the flow of speech should occur at the end of sense-groups to
bring out the purport of the utterance.
Hence
we deal with the problem of juncture. Phonetically juncture is the cessation of
voice enhanced by the prolongation of the preceding sound or sounds accompanied
by a change in the intonational contour. Syntactically it is a kind of
rhythmic-melodic cadence whose function consists in segmenting speech into
sense-groups. A sense-group marked off by a juncture is called a Syntagm. The
latter is coterminous with the breath-groups, being singled out in the flow of
speech by pauses and other intonational means. e.g.
But still, | the two unprotected ones
must be sheltered from him.
(“The
Lost Girl” by D.H. Lawrence, Chapter 1, p. 14)
The
syntagm has very important functions in a language and is an indispensable
feature of intonation. Syntagms are distinguished in connected speech by
significant pitch-patterns, at the same time, they are bearers of intonation.
No pitch-patterns are possible without syntagms and no syntagms exist without
pitch-patterns.
Incorrect
syntagmatic division sometimes helps the speaker to understand the important
role of pitch-patterns and syntagms. Thus, the syntagms play a very important
role in a language, they are responsible for the syntactic structure of the
sentence, as well as for the meaning they carry. [Dickushina, 140]
Speech is organized by rhythm. Rhythm seems to be a kind
of framework of speech organization. Linguists sometimes consider rhythm as one
of the components of intonation. D. Crystal (D.Crystal “Prosodic Systems and
Intonation in English”, Cambridge, 1969) for instance, views rhythmically as
one of the constituents of prosodic systems. Rhythm as a linguistic notion is
realized, in lexical, syntactical and mostly in their combinations. For
instance, such figures of speech as sound or word repetition, syntactical parallelism,
intensification and others are perceived as rhythmical on the lexical,
syntactical and prosodic levels, e.g.
“But the winter has chilled my veins, and the frost has nipped my buds, and the
storm has broken my branches, and I shall have no roses at all this year” (O. Wilde “The Nightingale and the Rose” 1891
). In this example the syntactical parallelism of the homogeneous clauses is
correlated with the identical prosodic contour of the intonation groups in
phrase and is strengthened by the repetition of the conjunction “and”.
Speech production is naturally closely connected with
the process of breathing. So speech activity as well as any other human
activity is conditioned by physiological factors among others and is
characterized by rhythm. From the materialistic point of view rhythm is one of
the means of matter organization. The rhythmical arrangement of different
phenomena of objective reality is presented in the form of periodicity, or
tendency towards proportion and symmetry.
In speech, the type of rhythm depends on the language.
Linguists divide languages into two groups: syllable-timed like French, and
German, as well as Russian. In a syllable- timed language the speaker gives an
approximately equal amount of time to each syllable, whether the syllable is
stressed or unstressed and this produces the effect of even rather staccato
rhythm.
In a stress-timed language, of which English is good
example, the rhythm is based on a larger unit than syllable. Though the amount
of time given on each syllable varies considerably, the total time of uttering
each rhythmic unit is practically unchanged. The stressed syllables of a
rhythmic unit are practically unchanged. The stressed syllables of a rhythmic
unit form peaks of prominence. They tend to be pronounced at regular intervals
no matter how many unstressed syllables are located between every two stressed
ones. Thus the distribution of time within the rhythmic unit is equal.
Speech rhythm has the immediate influence on vowel
reduction and elision. Form words such as prepositions, conjunctions as well as
auxiliary and modal verbs, personal and possessive pronouns are usually
unstressed and pronounced in their weak forms with reduced or even elided
vowels to secure equal intervals between the stressed syllables, e.g.
Come and 'see me toˎmorrow.
None
of them was 'any ˎgood.
Speech rhythm is traditionally defined as recurrence
of stressed syllables at more or less equal intervals of time in a speech
continuum. The unstressed syllables time between the stressed syllables. The
greater is the number of unstressed syllables the quicker they are pronounced,
e.g.
'Jhon 'went
'back to London.
'Jhon has
'gone 'back to London.
'Jhon
should have 'gone 'back to London.
These three sentences, each containing the same number
of stressed, but a different number of unstressed syllables, are pronounced in
the same period of time, although in the first sentence there is one unstressed
syllable between the first two stressed syllables while in the last the same
stressed syllables are separated by three unstressed syllables. A stressed
syllable pronounced together with the unstressed syllables forms a rhythmic
group. The stressed syllable is the prosodic nucleus of the rhythmic group. The
initial unstressed syllables preceding the nucleus are called proclitics, those
following the nucleus are called enclitics. In qualifying the unstressed
syllables located between the stressed ones there are two main alternative
views among the phoneticians. According to the so-called semantic viewpoint the
unstressed syllables tend to be drawn towards the stressed syllable of the same
word or to the lexical unit according to their semantic connection, concord
with other words, e.g.
Negro Harlem │ became│ the largest│colony│of coloured people.
According to the other viewpoint the unstressed
syllables in between the stressed ones tend to join the preceding stressed
syllable. It is the so called enclitic tendency. Then the above-mentioned
phrase will be divided into rhythmical groups as follows, e.g.
Negro Harlem │ became│ the largest│colony of │coloured people.
It seems that the
enclitic tendency is more typical of the English language, though in the speech
flow it sometimes difficult to define the borders of rhythmic groups. So the
division into rhythmic groups is no easy matter. The rhythm-unit break is often
indeterminate. It may well be said that the speech tempo and style often
regulate the division into rhythmic groups. The enclitic tendency is more
typical for informal speech whereas the semantic tendency prevails in accurate,
more explicit speech. The most frequent type of rhythmic group includes 2-4
syllables, one of them stressed, others unstressed. In phonetic literature
there is a great variety of terms defining the basic rhythmic unit, such as an
accentual group or a stress group which is a speech segment including a
stressed syllable with or without unstressed syllables attaches to it; a pause
group- a group of words between two pauses, or breath group- which can be
uttered within a single breath. The term “rhythmic group” used by most of the
linguists implies more than a stressed group or breath group. A rhythmic group
may comprise a whole phrase, like “I can’t do it” or just one word:
“Unfortunately…” or even a one-syllable word: “Well…”; “Now…”. So a syllable is
sometimes taken for a minimal rhythmic unit when it comes into play.
Rhythmicality marks every text segment: rhythmic groups, intonation groups,
phrases and phonopassages. The rhythmic effect of the text units is obtained by
the prosodic parameters, the pitch of the voice, loudness, duration. In fact
not only the actual pitch of the voice but its level and range, pausation and
other phenomenal of a stretch of speech form rhythm constituents. The rhythm
constituents vary not only in different rhythm units but also in different
speech realizations, different linguistic activities.
