1. What determines the choice of the final terminal tone?
2. Explain the use of the low rising tone in the sentence:
'/Sometimes | I Vcome 'home xearly.'
What other tone can be used instead of the Low Rise?
3. Give examples to illustrate the relationship between the intonation group division and the meaning of the sentence in English and in Russian.
4. Explain the difference between the meaning of the sentences:
'I'll Vcome to your 'place toxmorrow.' 'I'll ~*come to your ,place, | toxmorrow.'
5. How can you explain the difference in meaning of the follow-
ing sentences?
'They ~*sell,gloves, | ,hats, | ^scarfs.' 'They ~* sell, gloves, | ,hats, | ,scarfs.'
6. Suppose your fellow-student pronounces both parts of the
disjunctive question with the low falling tone in all the con-
texts. Tell him how the difference in meaning of these questions brings about changes in terminal tones.
7. Tell your fellow-student how to escape the possible mistake in the pronunciation of alternative questions. Say if it is a phonetic or phonological mistake?
8. Speak on different ways of the pronunciation of imperatives including a tag question. Give examples of possible phonetic and phonological mistakes in the pronunciation of this type of questions.
9. How does the position in a sentence influence the intonation of direct address? Give examples and use them in conversational contexts.
10. Why do you think parenthetical words and phrases do not always form intonation groups at the beginning of the sentence?
11. What terminal tones can parenthetical words and phrases be
pronounced with at the beginning of the sentence? Why can they sound different?
12. Do you think the intonation of direct address and parenthetical phrases in the sentence final position is somewhat alike? Prove your answer by examples.
13. What is the difference in intonation of short and fairly long author's words at the end of the sentence?
14. What does the intonation of compound sentences depend on?
15. Mark the stresses and tunes in the following sentence; intone it:
'Students should note that spoken English presents much difficulty for foreigners.'
16. Look for a sentence with a fairly long subordinate clause in post-position. Find the best way to split it into intonation groups.
17. Find examples from any book you read illustrating the sequence of tones discussed above. Mark the stresses and tunes. Explain the intonation group division in them taking into consideration the context.
Chapter V. SENTENCE-STRESS
MANIFESTATION OF SENTENCE-STRESS
In a sentence or an intonation group some of the words are of greater importance than the others. This largely depends on the situation or context. Words which provide most of the information are brought out in speech by means of sentence-stress. Thus sentence-stress is a special prominence given to one or more words according to their relative importance in a sentence.
The main function of sentence-stress is to single out the communicative centre of the sentence which introduces new information. The prominence is realized by variations of pitch, force, length and quality. The syllables of the words marked by sentence-stress are pronounced with possible changes in pitch, greater force, greater length of vowels and their full quality, that is the stressed words are pronounced more distinctly. The most prominent part of a sentence is the last stressed word which takes the nuclear tone. It indicates the nucleus of the communicative centre. The second in weight is the first stressed word which often has the highest pitch and is fairly loud, eg:
The Vdoctor 'says it's 'not ^serious.
The adjoining unstressed words are called proclitics when they precede the stressed words and enclitics when they follow the stressed words. English unstressed syllables generally tend to be enclitics. Stressed words pronounced in one breath with proclitics £nd enclitics form rhythmic groups.
The distribution of stresses in a sentence depends on the semantic value of words and is closely connected with the lexical and grammatical structure of the sentence. The ability to move smoothly and steadily from one stress to the next and to fit in the unstressed syllables between them forms the basis of a good natural English accent. In most languages there is a natural tendency to subordinate form-words to content words in stress. This is especially the case in English.
TYPES OF SENTENCE-STRESS
We differentiate three types of sentence-stress: 1. normal (or syntactical) sentence-stress, ,2. logical sentence-stress, 3. emphatic sentence-stress.
1. Normal stress affects content words which convey the
necessary information to the listener, eg:
We have ~* plenty of xtime.
Normal sentence-stress is used to arrange words into sentences or intonation groups phonetically. Together with the lexical and grammatical means it expresses the general idea of the sentence and indicates its communicative centre. The nuclear syllable is generally associated with the last content word of the intonation group.
Sentence-stress in English is related to rhythm. It substantiates the rhythmical structure of the sentence. To make the intervals between the stressed segments regular content words often Jose their normal stresses (but never have weak forms) as a tendency to avoid two consecutively stressed syllables is found in English. For. the same reason form-words may receive stresses. This realization of normal stress is called rhythmic stress, eg:
He is Vvery well-to-xdo. He is "* quite well-to-xdo.
If ~* father is ;in | we'll xspeak to him.
' If he is ; in | we'll xspeak to him.
2. The position of the last sentence-stress determines the
place of the nucleus of the communicative centre. By shifting the
position of the last stress we can change the place of the nucleus
of the communicative centre, eg:
v Nelly 'spoke to him yesterday.
V Nelly 'spoke to vhim yesterday.
' Nelly, spoke to him yesterday.
, Nelly ,spoke to him .yesterday.
Logically different messages are expressed in the given sen-icnces. Each shifting of the stress modifies the meaning of the
sentence. The type of sentence-stress which gives special prominence to a new element in a sentence or an intonation group is called logical stress. The word which is singled out by the logical stress is the most important in the sentence. It is the communicative centre (or the logical centre) of the sentence which bears the terminal tone, cf:
I Vknew what he was 'going to ^say.
I xknew what he was .going to ,say.
The first sentence is said in an ordinary way, with the nuclear syllable on the last content word say. In, the second sentence the final stress with the terminal tone is shifted and falls on the word knew. This shifting makes the word knew stand out and sound most important. All the following words are of less importance. They are therefore left unstressed or half-stressed and are pronounced on a low level. The two principal components of intonation, stress and voice pitch are in fact very intimately connected. An increase of stress is generally accompanied by a modification in the voice-pitch.
The communicative centre of the sentence marked by logical stress introduces something new to the listener (a new object, person, idea or their new quality), while the other words of the sentence convey what is already known to him, something which has already been mentioned in the discourse or is clear from the situation. The words following the logical stress remain unstressed, eg:
They didn't want trouble, that crowd. I had their x promise, their x written promise.
(A. Cronin. "The Citadel")
The examples above show that logical stress is one of the most expressive means of oral speech.
Any word in the sentence including form-words, personal and possessive pronouns, auxiliary and modal verbs may become the nucleus of the communicative centre of the sentence and may be logically stressed as carrying new information, eg:
She said slowly: 'If vyou don't know | xnobody does.'
(J. Galsworthy. "The White Monkey")
It is ~* not a vgood ,job | but it is a *job.
(M. Schubiger)
Due to a great number of analytical forms of many grammatical categories in English logical stress on auxiliary, modal and link verbs is much more frequent than in Russian where the grammatical categories of tenses and aspect are mostly formed synthetically. Singling out the link-verb, auxiliary or modal verb conveys the idea of confirmation in statements. In questions it gives a note of curiosity or puzzled wonder, eg
VGeorge 'said that if 'anything was , broken | it ,was broken, | which re V. flection 'seemed to vcomfort him.
(Jerome K. Jerome. "Three Men in a Boat")
ROLF: You "* ought to be Just, Jill. JILL: I vam just.
(J. Galsworthy. "Plays")
The attitude of the speaker underlined by logical stress in English, is expressed witfj the help of the lexical means in Russian, namely the words òîêè, äåéñòâèòåëüíî, æå and others, cf:
For ^ give me, Hank, | but you vhave changed. Èçâèíè ìåíÿ, Õàíê, íî òû äåéñòâèòåëüíî èçìåíèëñÿ.
The logical stress very often increases the elements of con-irast in the sentence or in the situation, eg:
it isn't xmy ,shirt | — it's ,yours!
(Jerome K. Jerome. "Three Men in a Boat")
3. Most human utterances express not only the speaker's ihoughts, but also his feelings and attitudes to reality and to the < ontents of the sentence. Both normal and logical stresses can be unemphatic or emphatic. Emphatic stress increases the ef-lort of expression. It may strengthen the stressed word making it still more prominent. Emphatic stress manifests itself mainly on the High Fall or the Rise-Fall of the nuclear syllable. Emphatic stress is a powerful expressive means. It is the highest degree of logical and emotional prominence of words in a phrase, eg:
They were deMighted to ,see dear .Soames after this 'long, long vtime; and Vso this was Annette! You are vso .pretty, my dear; almost xtoo .young and .pretty for dear Soames,, aren't you?
(J. Galsworthy. "In Chancery")
In the analysis of intonation means we sometimes mention •iitence-stress being only decentralized or dispersed, when all
the content words are normally stressed, and centralized or concentrated when the utterance is marked with one reinforced sentence-stress.