Alternative questions

Introductory phrases

General questions

Standard patterns

Rising Intonation

English rising intonation is a rather complicated phenomenon. It can express various emotions, such as non-finality, incompleteness, question, surprise, doubt, hesitation, interest, request and suggestion, politeness, readiness to continue the conversation, lack of confidence, and even insecurity. Rising intonation in English is very different from rising intonation in Russian. For example, the final rise in English general questions first goes down a little and then up, but not as high as the rise in Russian questions.

Rising intonation is quite difficult to describe in words. When we speak, our voices do much more than rise or fall. The sentence may start higher or lower; stressed syllables may be stronger or weaker, higher or lower, louder or quieter, quicker or slower; the unstressed syllables may remain at the same level as the stressed syllable before them or go higher or lower. And the voices are different too. All these factors interact in intonation.

For the purpose of studying, we can say that rising intonation is used for the emotions mentioned above, but you should understand that rising intonation in different situations may sound differently. For example, a rise expressing surprise may sound a little different from a rise expressing polite interest or a rise asking to repeat. This material will help you understand what rising intonation means and where it is used, but you will need a lot of listening practice in order to master rising intonation.

Rising intonation is used in general questions, in introductory phrases (at the beginning of the sentence), in the first part of alternative questions (before "or"), in the second part of tag questions (see explanation below), in direct address, and in enumerating items in a list.

You can listen to examples of rising intonation in different types of sentences in Listening for Falling and Rising Intonation (AmE) and Listening for Intonation in Questions and Answers (AmE) in the section Phonetics.

Do you go there /OFten?

Was she glad to /SEE him?

Have you read this /BOOK?

Are you ready to /START?

Would you please pass the /PEPper?

If he /CALLS, ask him to \COME.

When I was walking in the /PARK, I saw a couple of interesting \BIRDS.

According to his /WORDS, he met that girl at the \TENnis club.

All of a /SUDden, the girl started to \CRY.

Would you like an /APple or a \PEAR?

Does he speak /ENGlish or \GERman?

Did you go to the /CINema or to the \THEater yesterday?

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