Speech melody as a subsystem of intonation. Functions of its components. Nuclear tones in the system of English intonation

Speech melody is the changes in the pitch of the voice in connected speech. It makes the pitch component of intonation. The most important suprasegmental effects in a l-ge are provided by it. It makes the core of the intonation system.

The pitch parameters consist of the distinct variations in:

-the direction of the pitch

-the pitch level

-the pitch range

THE PITCH DIRECTION. Not all the stressed syllables are of equal importance. One of the syllables has a greater prominence than the others and forms the nucleus or focal point of an intonation pattern. Formally the nucleus may be described as a strongly stressed syllable which is generally the last stressed syllable of an intonation pattern which marks a significant change of the pitch direction, i.e. where the pitch goes distinctly up or down.

The nuclear tone is obligatory and the most important part of the intonation pattern without which it cannot exist. Tone is a pitch contour that begins on an accented syllable and continues to the end of a tone group: that is, up to but not including the next stressed syllable. Simple tones move only in one direction: fall or rise. The number of nuclear tones varies from 2 to 16. According to R.Kingdon the most important nuclear tones are:

Low Fall, High Fall, Low Rise, High Rise, Fall-Rise.

Roughly speaking the falling tone of any level and range expresses ‘certainty’, ‘completeness’, ‘independence’, it has an air of finality. A rising tone expresses ‘uncertainty’, ‘incompleteness’, ‘dependence’. A general question, for example, has a rising tone. Parenthetical and subsidiary information in a statement is also often spoken with a rising tone, or a mid-level tone, for this information is incomplete, being dependent for its full understanding on the main assertion. Encouraging or polite denials, commands, invitations, greetings, farewells are generally spoken with rising tone. A falling-rising tone may combine the falling tone’s meaning of assertion, certainty with the rising tone’s meaning of dependence, incompleteness. At the end of a phrase it often conveys the feeling of reservation. In the beginning or in the middle of a phrase it is a more forceful alternative to the rising tone, expressing the assertion of one point, together with the implication that another point is to follow. The falling-rising tone consists of a fall in pitch followed by a rise. If the nucleus is the last syllable of the intonation group the fall and rise both take place on one syllable – the nuclear syllable. Otherwise the rise occurs in the remainder of the tone unit.

THE PITCH RANGE AND LEVEL. Since every syllable is pronounced on a definite pitch level, the pitch movement can be defined as a succession of pitch levels. The interval between two pitch levels is called pitch range. There are 3 pitch levels: HIGH, MID, LOW. In highly emotional speech there may be EXTRA-HIGH and EXTRA-LOW levels. Pitch ranges may be normal, wide and narrow.

Дата добавления: 2015-05-31