A). Consonants. 3 страница

In unemphatic speech there is a certain uniformity in the distribution of sentence-stress in a syntagm. Of course, these principles vary in different languages. In an English syntagm, stress mostly marks groups of words and less frequently – words. These so called “stress groups” give to an English syntagm, and, consequently, to English speech in general, a peculiar rhythmical pattern. Thus, an English syntagm consists of a number of “stress-groups”; a “stress-group”, in its turn, consists of a number of unstressed syllables which are grouped around a stressed one.

It is possible to formulate general rules for the distribution of stress in unemphatic English sentences. The stressed elements are those which are more essential in rendering the meaning, namely: the nouns, adjectives, notional verbs, auxiliary and modal verbs in negative contracted forms, when introducing a question, substituting a notional verb; adverbs, numerals, demonstrative, negative, reciprocal, interrogative and emphasizing pronouns, indefinite pronouns somebody, someone, something, anybody, anyone, anything, used as subject; possessive pronouns in absolute form; interjections, two-word prepositions and conjunctions, particles only, also, too, even, just.

The following words are usually not stressed in unemphatic sentences: articles, one-word prepositions and conjunctions, personal, relative, reflexive pronouns, indefinite pronouns somebody, someone, something, anybody, anyone, anything, usedas object, possessive pronouns in the conjoint form, particles there, to, auxiliary, semi-auxiliary and modal verbs. Their number in English is great and they form clusters, grouping themselves around the stressed notional words in a syntagm.A word that has just been used is not stressed. In exclamatory sentences such words as what, how, etc. are not stressed, if an “emphatic” word follows. (Ex. What 'crowds of people! How 'beautiful!).

42. Rhythm is a very general term. 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 in time and space, or tendency towards proportion and symmetry. We find it everywhere in life. In nature rhythm is observed in the successions of seasons, days and nights, the changes of the moon phases, high and low tide. The work of all kinds of machinery is rhythmical. We very well feel and appreciate the artistic rhythm in music, dance and other fields of art. Rhythm as a linguistic notion is realized in lexical, syntactical and prosodic means and mostly in their combinations. For instance, sound or word repetition, syntactical parallelism, intensification and others are perceived as rhythmical on the lexical, syntactical and prosodic levels. Most of human activities appear to be rhythmical - swimming, running, skiing, knitting and other muscular movements. The most evident illustration of rhythm in the physiology of living beings is the heart beating and breathing. 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. A more detailed definition of speech rhythm is “the regular alternation of acceleration and slowing down, of relaxation and intensification, of length and brevity, of similar and dissimilar elements within a speech event”.

The basic unit of the rhythmical structure of an utterance is called stress group, accentual group, pause group, breath group or rhythmic group. The term “pause group” underlines that this unit contains a group of words between two pauses. The term “breath group” emphasizes the physiological factors that this unit can be uttered within a single breath. The term “rhythmic group” is used by most of the linguists as it implies more than a stressed group or breath group. It is a speech segment which contains a stressed syllable with or without unstressed syllables attached to it. The most frequent type of a rhythmic group includes 2-4 syllables, one of them stressed, others unstressed. Most rhythmic groups are simultaneously sense units. 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.

The stressed syllable is the prosodic nucleus or peak of prominence. The initial unstressed syllables preceding the nucleus of the rhythmic group are called proclitics, those following it 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. 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. The enclitic tendency is more typical of the English language, where, as a rule, only initial unstressed syllables cling to the following stressed syllable; non-initial unstressed syllables cling to the preceding stressed syllables, though in the speech flow it is sometimes difficult to define the borders of rhythmic groups. The speech tempo and style often regulate the division into rhythmic groups. The enclitic tendency is more characteristic of informal speech whereas the semantic tendency prevails in accurate, more explicit speech.

The more organized the speech is the more rhythmical it appears, poetry being the most extreme example of this. Prose read aloud or delivered in the form of a lecture is more rhythmic than colloquial speech. On the other hand rhythm is also individual - a fluent speaker may sound more rhythmical than a person searching for the right word and refining the structure of his phrase while actually pronouncing it. There are some obvious differences between the rhythmic patterns of various speech realizations. For instance, rhythm organization of a dispassionate monologue will vary greatly from that of a familiar conversation.

But regularity in a speech chain is not realized in its exact isochronous form. Absolutely regular speech produces the effect of monotony. It means that the intervals between the stressed syllables are not physically equal. Some “strokes” may often be missing or mistimed. Whenever short rhythmic groups are mixed with longer ones the speaker minimizes the differences by means of changes in his rate of delivery. Any number of unstressed syllables occurring between the stressed ones are actually compressed to allow the next stressed syllable to come on the regular beat. In other words the length of the intervals is perceived by the listener as equal despite the changing number of unstressed syllables between the peaks of the rhythmic groups.

Linguists divide languages into two groups: syllable-timed languages like French, Spanish, and stress-timed languages, such as English, German, 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 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 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 unequal. The regularity is provided by the strong “beats”.

The markedly regular stress-timed pulses of speech seem to create strict, abrupt and spiky effect of English rhythm. Russian rhythm is perceived as more flexible, liquid and smooth. The analytical character of English explains the presence of a considerable number of monosyllabic form words which are normally unstressed in a stretch of English speech. To bring the meaning of the utterance to the listener the stressed syllables of the notional words are given more prominence by the speaker and unstressed monosyllabic form words are left very weak. Speech rhythm has the immediate influence on vowel reduction and elision. Prepositions, conjunctions as well as auxiliary and modal verbs, personal and possessive pronouns are usually unstressed and pronounced with reduced or even elided vowels to secure equal intervals between the stressed syllables. Under the influence of rhythm words which are normally pronounced with two equally strong stresses may lose one of them, or may have their word stress realized differently.

The sphere of rhythm functioning is actually very wide. Rhythm is complicated language system, comprising well-organized elements of different sizes in which smaller rhythmic units are joined into more complex ones: a rhythmical group ® an intonation group ® a phrase (a line in poetry) ® a phonopassage. Thus, the rhythmic structure of speech continuum is a hierarchy of rhythmical units of different levels. The regular recurrence of the stressed syllables at relatively isochronous intervals is perceived as rhythmicality. Rhythmic groups blend together into syntagms which reveal the similarity of a number of prosodic features. Thus, a syntagm includes from 1 to 4 stressed syllables and usually lasts 1-2 seconds. The tone and loudness vary from maximum at the beginning of a syntagm to minimum at the end. A syntagm is characterized by the lengthening of the first rhythmic group and of the last rhythmic group in comparison with other ones, the descending character of the melody and a short pause after it. The similarity of the prosodic organization of the syntagm makes it a rhythmic unit. A phrase often coincides either with a syntagm or even with the phonopassage. In both those cases a phrase is perceived as a rhythmic unit having all the parameters of either a syntagm, or a phonopassage. The recurrence of similar and equal text segments makes them rhythmic units. So that rhythmicality marks every text segment. The rhythmic effect of the text units is obtained by the prosodic parameters, the pitch of the voice, its level and range, loudness, duration, pausation and other phenomena of a stretch of speech. The rhythm constituents vary not only in different rhythm units but also in different speech realizations, different linguistic activities.Rhythmically organized speech is easily perceived. From the psycholinguistic point of view the accuracy of the temporal similarity in rhythm has a definite effect on the human being. The regularity in rhythm seems to be in harmony with his biological rhythms.

Rhythm serves to connect elements in speech: smaller units are organized into larger ones, larger units include smaller ones. So rhythm unites text segments into a whole and at the same time cuts the discourse into elements. This integrative and delimitative function of rhythm illustrates the dialectical unity of the contrary manifestations of rhythm.Besides, rhythm is a very effective means of speech expressiveness, conveying different degrees of emotional effect on the listener (Ex. 'Will you 'stop that 'dreadful 'noise.).

43. Functional characteristics of intonation.

Intonation is a powerful means of human intercommunication. One of the aims of communication is the exchange of information between people. The meaning of an English utterance, i.e. the information it conveys to a listener, derives not only from the grammatical structure, the lexical composition and the sound pattern. It also derives from variations of intonation, i.e. of its prosodic parameters.

There is no general agreement about either the number or the headings of the functions of intonation. No matter how many functions are named, all of them may be summed up under a more general heading, that is the function of communication, although each individual component of intonation performs this function in its own way.

The communicative function of intonation is realized in various ways.

The chain of words is not regarded as speech unless it is pronounced with a definite intonation pattern. At the same time, an isolated word cannot acquire communicative value without a special intonation, as for instance an answer to a question (Merry.); as a question (Merry?); as an exclamation (Merry!) or as some other communicative unit with a definite linguistic function.

Intonation serves to organize connected speech phonetically, thus making it intelligible. On the one hand, intonation performs delimiting function by breaking speech continuum into smaller units, i.e. phonetic passages, phrases and syntagms, on the other hand, it performs integrating function by uniting these smaller constituents into a complete text. Tying the parts of utterance together, intonation also establishes relations between them by showing what things belong more closely together than others, where the divisions come, what is subordinate to what. Having organized syntagms within a sentence or a whole sentence, intonation simultaneously distinguishes them from other syntagms or sentences embodied in different intonation-patterns.

Intonation serves to endow phrases or their significant segments with declarative, interrogative, imperative or exclamatory meanings, or with shades of these meanings. In other words, it determines the types of sentences, which are differentiated in speech according to the aim of utterance from the point of view of communication.

Intonation serves to structure the content information of a textual unit into new and given. Given information is something which the speaker assumes the hearer possesses or is able to acquire from the context. New information is something which the speaker does not assume the hearer knows about already. It is obviously what is most important in a message, it receives the information focus in the nucleus, whereas given information does not.

Ex. We 'went to the cinema yesterday. (the new information is the place of the yesterday’s visit).

We 'went to the 'cinema yesterday. (the new information is the time of the visit to the cinema).

By putting the stress on one particular word, the speaker shows, first, that he is treating that word as the carrier of new information, and, second, that the information of the other, non-emphasized, words in the syntagm, is not new but can be retrieved from the verbal context (something that has already been mentioned), as well as from the situational context (something given by the situation outside language or some aspect of shared knowledge which the addressee is thought to be aware of). For example, if a few different persons are expected to come, the phrase “ The doctor has come ” is pronounced with the nucleus on the word “ doctor ” though no speech context preceded it.

The decision as to whether some information is retrievable or not has to be made by the speaker on the basis of what he thinks the addressee can take for granted from the situation. The speaker must, in framing the utterance, make many assumptions, and he does this rapidly and to a large degree unconsciously. He then arranges his syntagms and assigns nuclear stresses accordingly. But in any particular situation, the speaker’s assumptions run the risk of being wrong; what he takes to be retrievable information may not in fact be retrievable for the addressee. In this case there is a breakdown of communication, and the listener will probably seek clarification.

Ex. (A. and B. are passing the tennis courts)

A. There isn’t anyone playing.

B. Who said there was?

A. Nobody.

Degrees of information are relevant not only to the position of sentence stress but also to the choice of the nuclear tone. We tend to use a falling tone of wide range of pitch combined with a greater degree of loudness, that is emphatic stress, to give emphasis to the main information in a phrase. To give subsidiary or less important information, i.e. information which is more predictable from the context or situation, the rising or level nuclear tone is used.

Intonation serves to convey the speaker’s feelings, emotions and attitude to the situation he is placed in and he often uses it to influence the attitudes and behaviour of the listener. The speaker must be particularly careful about the attitudes and emotions he expresses since the listener is frequently more interested in the speaker’s attitude or feeling than in his words - that is whether he speaks nicely or nastily. The special question “ Why? ”, for instance, pronounced with the low-falling tone sounds rather detached, sometimes even hostile. When pronounced with the low-rising tone it is sympathetic, friendly, interested. It is not only the type of the nucleus that is important for expressing feelings and emotions, but also the pitch of the utterance preceding the nucleus: prehead and head. For example, being pronounced with the high pre-head, “ Hello! ” sounds more friendly than when pronounced with the low pre-head.

Emotive meanings are intended, over and above the meanings conveyed by the lexical items and the grammatical structure. The meaning of what we say depends more on intonation than on the words we use. Most phrases and parts of them may be pronounced with several different intonation patterns according to the situation, according to the speaker’s momentary feeling or attitude to the subject matter. For example, the sentence: “ Thanks for helping me last night! ” can be given more than one meaning. The difference between a sincere intention and a sarcastic one would be conveyed by the intonation.Any sentence in various contexts may receive any of a dozen other patterns, conveying various modal meanings. Even the simplest word, such as “ yes ” for instance, can render different attitudes if intoned differently, such as “ That is so. ”, “ Of course it is so. ”, “ Is it really so? ”, “ That may be so. ” The expression “ All right ” may mean consent and threat, depending upon the intonation used in it.

It is still impossible to classify, in any practical analysis of intonation, all the fine shades of feeling and attitude which can be conveyed by slight changes in pitch, by lengthening or shortening tones, by increasing or decreasing the loudness of the voice, by changing its quality, and in various other ways. On the other hand it is quite possible to make a broad classification of intonation patterns which are so different in their nature that they materially change the meaning of utterance to which they are applied, and to make different pitches and degrees of loudness in each of them.

Intonation serves to differentiate the meaning of syntagms and sentences of the same grammatical structure and the same lexical composition, which is the distinctive or phonological function of intonation. Distinctive function of intonation is realized in the opposition of the same word sequences which differ in certain parameters of their intonation pattern. Thus, in the following example the intonation patterns of the first syntagms are opposed.

If 'Mary comes ï'let me 'know at once. (No one else but Mary is expected to come)

If Mary comes ï 'let me 'know at once. (A few people are expected to come, but it is Mary who interests the speaker)

The most powerful phonological unit is the tone. The opposition of types (or directions) of tone and/or their distribution together with syntagmatic division of the utterance, distinguishes communicative types of sentences, syntactic units, the attitudes and emotions expressed by the speaker and even the actual meaning of the same sequence of words.

Ex. Isn’t she pretty? (a question) Isn’t she pretty? (an exclamation)

Ex. 'This is my 'niece, 'Lucy. ( Apposition)

'This is my niece, Lucy. (Direct address)

If the phrase “ I don't want you to read anything ” has the low-falling terminal tone on the word “ anything ”, it means that for this or other reason the person should avoid reading. If the same word sequence is pronounced with the falling-rising tone on the same word, the phrase means that the person must have a careful choice in reading.

Have you seen him?

'Not once. (= never, not a single time).

'Not once (= many a time).

The sentence “ My sister who lives in the South has just arrived ” may mean two different things. In writing the difference may be marked by punctuation. In oral speech it is marked by syntagmatic division. The division into three intonation groups means that one of my sisters, who lives in the South has just arrived. The division into three intonation groups means that my only sister who lives in the South has just arrived.

One of the travellers, ï says Mr. Michael Collins, ï was calm, ï almost indifferent, throughout. ïï (One of the travellers states that Mr. Collins was quite self-possessed throughout the accident)

One of the travellers says, ï Mr. Michael Collins was calm, ï almost indifferent, throughout. ïï (Mr. Collins States that one of the travellers was quite self-possessed throughout the accident)

Why! ïI should like to see her! ïï (The speaker is eager to see smb.)

Why I should like to see her?! ïï (The speaker doesn’t want to see smb.)

Have you got brothers ïor sisters? (an alternative question) Have you got 'brothers or sisters? (a general question)

Intonation serves to perform neutralizing or compensative function. Usually the speaker’s intonation is in balance with the words and structures he chooses. If he says something nice, his intonation usually reflects the same characteristic. However, there are cases when intonation is in contradiction with the syntactic structure or the lexical content of the utterance neutralizing and compensating them, as it happens, for instance, in the phrase “ Will you be quiet! ” whose imperative structure is neutralized by a rising tone, or in the phrase “ Phone him at, once, please! ”, where the politeness, conveyed by the word “please”, is neutralized by imperative intonation.

Lack of balance between intonation and word content, or intonation and the grammatical structure of the utterance may serve special speech effects. A highly forceful or exciting statement said with a very matter-of-fact intonation may, by its lack of balance, produce a type of irony; if one says something very complimentary, but with an intonation of contempt, the result is an insult.

Intonation serves to characterize a particular style or variety of oral speech which may be called the stylistic function.

Mistakes in the use of intonation are very similar to those in the use of phonemes and their allophones and may be of two kinds: tonemic and non-tonemic, or allotonic. A tonemic mistake consists in the use of a tone which isused in the language in question, but in different circumstances. This may lead to misunderstandings and possible embarrassment. For example, “ Thank you ”maybe said in English with a falling tone, which makes it sound genuinely grateful, and with a rising tone, which makes it sound rather casual. A non-tonemic, or allotonic, mistake consists in the use of a tone which is non-existent in the language in question. An example is the use of the Russian rising tone instead of the English rise which produces a foreign accent and may make understanding difficult. In the case of tonemic mistakes the distinctive function of intonation is violated, whereas non-tonemic, or allotonic, mistakes violate the recognitive function of intonation, but mistakes of both types give rise to difficulties in communication.

44. Unemphatic and emphatic intonation.

Intonation can be emphatic and unemphatic. Unemphatic speech in English is characterized by the following principal peculiarities:

a) sentence-stress is distributed equally among the notional words in a syntagm; the stressed syllables occur at more or less regular intervals of time, while the unstressed ones are uttered in the remaining intervals;

b) a pitch distribution in a syntagm forms a regular descending scale, that is to say, all the stressed syllables are pronounced in such a way that the first one is the highest, while each successive syllable is lower in pitch than the preceding one; each of them is pronounced on the same level without any pitch variations;

c) the pitch of the initial unstressed syllables is lower than that of the first stressed syllable; it may either be level or slightly rising; all the other unstressed syllables are usually a little lower than the preceding stressed syllable and are either level or, more often, gradually descending to the pitch of the next stressed syllable;

d) the last stressed syllable (and the unstressed ones that follow it) have one of the two principal intonation contours (low-rising or low falling). These comprise the minimum of English intonation; theoretically, it is possible to use no emphasis and yet make oneself understood.

Emphasis may be defined as a special increase of effort on the part of the speaker. Cases of emphasis are classified under two general headings: emphasis for intensity and emphasis for contrast. Intensity emphasis is very often connected with the usage of words expressing measurable qualities, such as adjectives (ex. huge, enormous, lovely, tremendous, wonderful, marvellous, appalling, awful, tiny, absurd, killing, brilliant, deafening etc,), adverbs (ex. particularly, extremely, hopelessly etc.), plural nouns (ex. quantities, masses, heaps, tons, hundreds etc.), verbs (ex. rush, squeeze, hate etc.). Other words of this type can be intensified by other methods; for instance, by using the adverb very. (Ex. How 'very ri'diculous.)

Emphasis for contrast is not connected with the use of special words; any word may be emphasized. (Ex. " You must do it your " self! This sentence, with intensification, means: “ No one is going to do it for you. ”)

Emphasis manifest itself in a more energetic articulation of sounds; in the use of the strong forms of words instead of the weak forms; in an increase of sentence-stress; in various pitch-patterns. Emphasis may be of different degrees. A slight intensification of meaning may be produced by the modifications in the sphere of sentence-stress, but in more emphatic forms of speech special modifications of melody are involved.

Emphatic speech has the following important features:

a) the descending scale may be either completely absent or it may be partially destroyed;

b) the characteristic tones are not necessarily confined to the end of the syntagm;

c) the tones themselves differ from the unemphatic ones; there is a greater variety of pitch variations. Among them are the use of a falling instead of a rising tone, the use of the high falling or the fall-rising pitch-pattern;

Дата добавления: 2015-05-31