Course paper on theoretical phonetics the theme: modifications of the syllabic structure of speech

CHAPTER I. MAIN GROUPS OF INTONATION AND RHYTHM

1.1. The structure of the intonation group (tone group) in English.
An intonation group is a word or a group of words characterized by a certain intonation pattern and is generally complete from the point of view of meaning.

The intonation pattern consists of one or more syllables of various pitch levels and bearing a larger or smaller degree of prominence. Those intonation patterns that contain a number of syllables consist of the following parts:

The pre-head (includes unstressed and half-stressed syllables preceding the head);

The head (consists of the syllables beginning with the first stressed ¹syllable up to the last stressed syllable);

The nucleus (the last stressed syllable);

The tail (the unstressed and half-stressed syllables that follow the nucleus).

Intonational units represent functional (meaningful) oppositions. The criteria of determining intonational units are not distinct enough¹ and there are quite a number of terms in phonetic used to describe the minimal intonation units conveying linguistics meanings, such as 'an intonation type', 'an intonation group', 'an intonation model', 'an intoneme', 'an intonation position', 'an intonation contour', 'a nuclear tone', 'a main tone', 'a tone group',' a tone unit', 'a breath group', 'a thought group', 'a syntagm', 'a sense group', etc. The notion of 'a syntagm' as a phonetic unit, expressing one united meaning in the process of 'speech -thought' is widely used in Russian literature. In the process of speech, syntagms are brought together and form hierarchically higher language units, known as utterances, which, in their turn, can form paragraphs and whole texts2 V.A. Vassilyev (1970) calls a syntagm, as an intonationally and meaningfully organized unit, 'an intonation group'. This term has been accepted in modern intonology. The intonation group has a definite formal structure based on the character of its accentual and tonal contour. There were several attempts to give a description of the intonational contour of an utterance, even in the earliest works on English phonetics in the terms of the direction and register of the tonal movement at the beginning of the contour (high key or low key) and at the end of it (primary 'forms' or 'inflections'; of intonation: level, rising, falling).

grammatical meaning of the utterance, though it often conveys meanings associated with attitude or phonetic styles. There are three common types of prе-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.

The meaning of the intonation group is the combination of the «meaning» of the terminal tone and the pre-nuclear part combined with the «meaning» of pitch range and pitch level. The parts of the intonation pattern can be combined in various ways manifesting changes in meaning, cf.: the High Head combined with Low Fall, High Fall, Low Rise, High Rise, Fall-Rise in the phrase Not at all.
—>Not at all (reserved, calm).
—>Not at all) (surprised, concerned).
—>Not at all (encouraging, friendly).
—> Not at all (questioning).
—> Not at all (intensely encouraging, protesting).
The more the height of the pitch contrasts within the intonation pattern the more emphatic the intonation group sounds, cf.:
He's won. Fan tastic.
Fan tastic.
The changes of pitch, loudness and tempo are not haphazard variations. The rules of change are highly organized. No matter how variable the individual variations of these prosodic components are they tend to become formalized or standardized, so that all speakers of the language use them in similar ways under similar circumstances. These abstracted characteristics of intonation structures may be called intonation patterns which form the prosodic system of English.
Some intonation patterns may be completely colourless in meaning: they give to the listener no implication of the speaker's attitude or feeling. They serve a mechanical function — they provide a mold into which all sentences may be poured so that they achieve utterance. Such intonation patterns represent the intonational minimum of speech. The number of possible combinations is more than a hundred but not all of them ate equally important. Some of them do not differ much in meaning, others are very rarely used. That is why in teaching it is necessary to deal only with a very limited number of intonation patterns, which are the result of a careful choice.