1. Intonation: approaches, definitions, functions
Intonation is a language universal. There are no languages which
are spoken without any change of prosodic parameters but intonation
functions in various languages in a different way.
There are two main approaches to the problem of intonation in Great
Britain. One is known as acontour analysis and the other may be
called grammatical.
The first is represented by a large group of phoneticians: H.
Sweet, D. Jones, G. Palmer, L. Armstrong, I. Ward, R. Kingdon, J.
O'Connor, A. Gimson and others. It is traditional and widely used.
According to this approach the smallest unit to which linguistic
meaning can be attached is a tone-group (sense-group). Their theory
is based on the assumption that intonation consists of basic
functional "blocks". They pay much attention to these "blocks" but
not to the way they are connected. Intonation is treated by them as
a layer that is superimposed on the lexico-grammatical structure.
In fact the aim of communication determines the intonation
structure, not vice versa.
The grammatical approach to the study of intonation was worked out
by M. Halliday. The main unit of intonation is a clause. Intonation
is a complex of three systemic variables: tonality, tonicity and
tone, which are connected with grammatical categories. Tonality
marks the beginning and the end of a tone-group. Tonicity marks the
focal point of each tone-group. Tone is the third unit in
Halliday's system. Tones can be primary and secondary. They convey
the attitude of the speaker. Hallyday's theory is based on the
syntactical function of intonation.
The founder of the American school of intonation K. Pike in his
book «The Intonation of American English» considers «pitch
phonemes» and «contours» to be the main units of intonation. He
describes different contours and their meanings, but the word
«meaning» stands apart from communicative function of
intonation.
There is wide agreement among Russian linguists that on perception
level intonation is a complex, a whole, formed by significant
variations of pitch, loudness and tempo closely related. Some
Russian linguists regard speech timbre as the fourth component of
intonation. Neither its material form nor its linguistic function
has been thoroughly described. Though speech timbre definitely
conveys certain shades of attitudinal or emotional meaning there is
no good reason to consider it alongside with the three prosodic
components of intonation, i.e. pitch, loudness and tempo.
M. Sokolova and others write that the term prosody embraces the
three prosodic components and substitutes the term intonation. It
is widely used in linguistic literature, it causes no
misunderstanding and, consequently, it is more adequate. They feel
strongly that this term would be more suitable for their book too,
but, unfortunately, it has not been accepted in the teaching
process yet.
Many foreign scholars (A. Gimson, R. Kingdon) restrict the formal
definition of intonation to pitch movement alone, though
occasionally allowing in variations of loudness as well. According
to D. Crystal, the most important prosodic effects are those
conveyed by the linguistic use of pitch movement, or melody. It is
clearly not possible to restrict the term intonation by the pitch
parameters only because generally all the three prosodic parameters
function as a whole though in many cases the priority of the pitch
parameter is quite evident.
There is no general agreement about either the number or the
headings of the functions of intonation which can be illustrated by
the difference in the approach to the subject by some prominent
Russian phoneticians. T.M. Nikolayeva names three functions of
intonation: delimitating, integrating and semantic. L.K. Tseplitis
suggests the semantic, syntactic and stylistic functions the former
being the primary and the two latter being the secondary functions.
N.V. Cheremisina singles out the following main functions of
intonation: communicative, distinctive (or phonological),
delimitating, expressive, appellative, aesthetic, integrating.
Other Russian and foreign phoneticians also display some difference
in heading the linguistic functions of intonation.
D. Crystal distinguishes the following functions of intonation.
• Emotional function's most obvious role is to express attitudinal
meaning -sarcasm, surprise, reserve, impatience, delight, shock,
anger, interest, and thousands of other semantic nuances.
• Grammatical function helps to identify grammatical structure in
speech, performing a role similar to punctuation. Units such as
clause and sentence often depend on intonation for their spoken
identity, and several specific contrasts, such as
question/statement, make systematic use of it.
• Informational function helps draw attention to what meaning is
given and what is new in an utterance. The word carrying the most
prominent tone in a contour signals the part of an utterance that
the speaker is treating as new information.
• Textual function helps larger units of meaning than the sentence
to contrast and cohere. In radio news-reading, paragraphs of
information can be shaped through the use of pitch. In sports
commentary, changes in prosody reflect the progress of the
action.
• Psychological function helps us to organize speech into units
that are easier to perceive and memorize. Most people would find a
sequence of numbers, for example, difficult to recall. The task is
made easier by using intonation to chunk the sequence into two
units.
• Indexical function, along with other prosodic features, is an
important marker of personal or social identity. Lawyers,
preachers, newscasters, sports commentators, army sergeants, and
several other occupations are readily identified through their
distinctive prosody.
2. Components of intonation and the structure of English intonation
group.
Let us consider the components of intonation.
In the pitch component we may consider the distinct variations in
the direction of pitch, pitch level and pitch range.
According to R. Kingdon the most important nuclear tones in English
are: Low Fall, High Fall, Low Rise, High Rise, and Fall-Rise.
The meanings of the nuclear tones are difficult to specify in
general terms. Roughly speaking the falling tone of any level and
range expresses certainty, completeness, and independence. A rising
tone on the contrary expresses uncertainty, incompleteness or
dependence. 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
a feeling of reservation; that is, it asserts something and at the
same time suggests that there is something else to be said. At 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, as its name suggests, 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. In English there is often clear evidence of an
intonation-group boundary, but no audible nuclear tone movement
preceding. In such a circumstance two courses are open: either one
may classify the phenomenon as a further kind of head or one may
consider it to be the level nuclear tone. Low Level tone is very
characteristic of reading poetry. Mid-Level tone is particularly
common in spontaneous speech functionally replacing the rising
tone. There are two more nuclear tones in English: Rise-Fall and
Rise-Fall-Rise. But adding refinement to speech they are not
absolutely essential tones for the foreign learner to acquire.
Rise-Fall can always be replaced by High Fall and Rise-Fall-Rise by
Fall-Rise without making nonsense of the utterance.
According to D. Crystal, there are nine ways of saying Yes as an
answer to the question Will you marry me?
1. Low fall. The most neutral tone; a detached, unemotional
statement of fact.
2. Full fall. Emotionally involved; the higher the onset of the
tone, the more involved the speaker; choice of emotion (surprise,
excitement, irritation) depends on the speaker's facial
expression.
3. Mid fall. Routine, uncommitted comment; detached and
unexcited.
4. Low rise. Facial expression important; with a 'happy' face, the
tone is sympathetic and friendly; with a 'grim' face, it is guarded
and ominous.
5. Full rise. Emotionally involved, often «disbelief or shock, the
extent of the emotion depending on the width of the tone.
6. High rise. Mild query or puzzlement; often used in echoing what
has just been said.
7. Level. Bored, sarcastic, ironic.
8. Fall-rise. A strongly emotional tone; a straight or 'negative'
face conveys uncertainty, doubt, or tentativeness; a positive face
conveys encouragement or urgency.
9. Rise-fall. Strong emotional involvement; depending on the face,
the attitude might be delighted, challenging, or complacent.
Two more pitch parameters are pitch ranges and pitch levels. Three
pitch ranges are generally distinguished: normal, wide, and narrow.
Pitch levels may be high, medium, and low.
Loudness is used in a variety of ways. Gross differences of meaning
(such as anger, menace, and excitement) can be conveyed by using an
overall loudness level.
The tempo of speech is the third component of intonation. The term
tempo implies the rate of the utterance and pausation. The rate of
speech can be normal, slow and fast. The parts of the utterance
which are particularly important sound slower. Unimportant parts
are commonly pronounced at a greater speed than normal.
Any stretch of speech can be split into smaller portions, i.e.
phonetic wholes, phrases, intonation groups by means of pauses. By
'pause' here we mean a complete stop of phonation. We may
distinguish the following three kinds of pauses:
1. Short pauses which may be used to separate intonation groups
within a phrase. .
2. Longer pauses which normally manifest the end of the phrase.
3. Very long pauses, which are approximately twice as long as the
first type, are used to separate phonetic wholes.
Functionally, there may be distinguished syntactic, emphatic and
hesitation pauses.
Syntactic pauses separate phonopassages, phrases, and intonation
groups. Emphatic pauses serve to make especially prominent certain
parts of the utterance. Hesitation pauses are mainly used in
spontaneous speech to gain some time to think over what to say
next. They may be silent or filled.
Each syllable of the speech chain has a special pitch colouring.
Some of the syllables have significant moves of tone up and down.
Each syllable bears a definite amount of loudness. Pitch movements
are inseparably connected with loudness. Together with the tempo of
speech they form an intonation pattern which is the basic unit of
intonation. An intonation pattern contains one nucleus and may
contain other stressed or unstressed syllables normally preceding
or following the nucleus. The boundaries of an intonation pattern
may be marked by stops of phonation that is temporal pauses.
Intonation patterns serve to actualize syntagms in oral speech. It
may be well to remind you here that the syntagm is a group of words
which is semantically and syntactically complete. In phonetics
actualized syntagms are called intonation groups (sense-groups,
tone-groups). Each intonation group may consist of one or more
potential syntagms, e.g. the sentence / think he is coming soon has
two potential syntagms: / think and he is coming soon. In oral
speech it is normally actualized as one intonation group.
The intonation group is a stretch of speech which may have the
length of the whole phrase. But the phrase often contains more than
one intonation group. The number of intonation groups depends on
the length of the phrase and the degree of semantic importance or
emphasis given to various parts of it:
This bed was not' slept, in— ,This be was not' slept in
An additional terminal tone on this bed expresses an emphasis on
this bed incontrast to other beds.
Not all stressed syllables are of equal importance. One of the
syllables has the 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 strongly accented syllable of an intonation
pattern and which marks a significant change of pitch direction,
that is where the pitch goes distinctly up or down. The nuclear
tone is the most important part of the intonation pattern without
which the latter cannot exist at all. On the other hand an
intonation pattern may consist of one syllable which is its
nucleus. The tone of a nucleus determines the pitch of the rest of
the intonation pattern following it which is called the tail. Thus
after a falling tone, the rest of the intonation pattern is at a
low pitch. After a rising tone the rest of the intonation pattern
moves in an upward pitch direction:
No, Mary — Well, Mary.
The nucleus and the tail form what is called terminal tone. The two
other sections of the intonation pattern are the head and the
pre-head which form the pre-nuclear part of the intonation pattern
and, like the tail, they may be looked upon as optional
elements:
àLake District is one of the loveliest 'parts of, Britain.
The pre-nuclear part can take a variety of pitch patterns.
Variation within the prе-nucleus does not usually affect the
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.
3. The phonological aspect of intonation.
Phonology has a special branch, intonology, whose domain is the
larger units of connected speech: intonation groups, phrases and
even phonetic passages or blocks of discourse.
The descriptions of intonation show that phonological facts of
intonation system are much more open to question than in the field
of segmental phonology. Descriptions differ according to the kind
of meaning they regard intonation is carrying and also according to
the significance they attach to different parts of the tone-unit.
J.D. O'Connor and G.F. Arnold assert that a major function of
intonation is to express the speaker's attitude to the situation
he/she is placed in, and they attach these meanings not to
pre-head, head and nucleus separately, but to each of ten
'tone-unit types' *as they combine with each of four sentence
types, statement, question, command and exclamation.
M. Halliday supposes that English intonation contrasts are
grammatical. He argues first that there is a neutral or unmarked
tone choice and then explains all other choices as meaningful by
contrast. Thus if one takes the statement I don't know the
suggested intonational meanings are: Low Fall - neutral. Low Rise -
non-committal, High Rise - contradictory, Fall-Rise - with
reservation, Rise-Fall - with commitment. Unlike J.D. O'Connor and
G.F. Arnold, M. Halliday attributes separate significance to the
prе-nuclear choices, again taking one choice as neutral and the
other(s) as meaningful by contrast.
D. Crystal presents an approach based on the view "that any
explanation of intonational meaning cannot be arrived at by seeing
the issues solely in either grammatical or attitudinal terms". He
ignores the significance of pre-head and head choices and deals
only with terminal tones.
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 the utterance and to make
different pitches and degrees of loudness in each of them. Such an
analysis resembles the phonetic analysis of sounds of a language
whereby phoneticians establish the number of significant sounds it
uses.
The distinctive function of intonation is realized in the
opposition of the same word sequences which differ in certain
parameters of the intonation pattern. Intonation patterns make
their distinctive contribution at intonation group, phrase and text
levels. Thus in the phrases:
If Mary, comes let me à know at once (a few people are expected to
come but it is Mary who interests the speaker)
If —>Mary comes let me à know at once (no one else but Mary is
expected to come)
the intonation patterns of the first intonation groups are opposed.
In the opposition I enjoyed it - I enjoyed it the pitch pattern
operates over the whole phrase adding in the second phrase the
notion that the speaker has reservations (implying a continuation
something like 'but it could have been a lot better').
Any section of the intonation pattern, any of its three
constituents can perform the distinctive function thus being
phonological units. These units form a complex system of intonemes,
tonemes, accentemes, chronemes, etc. These phonological units like
phonemes consist of a number of variants. The terminal tonemes, for
instance, consist of a number of allotones, which are mutually
non-distinctive. The principal allotone is realized in the nucleus
alone. The subsidiary allotones are realized not only in the
nucleus, but also in the pre-head and in the tail, if there are
any, cf.:
No. No, Tom. Oh, no, Mary.
The most powerful phonological unit is the terminal tone. The
opposition of terminal tones distinguishes different types of
sentence. The same sequence of words may be interpreted as a
different syntactical type, i.e. a statement or a question, a
question or an exclamation being pronounced with different terminal
tones, e.g.:
Tom saw it (statement) - Tom saw it? (general question)
Didn't you enjoy it? (general question) - Didn't you enjoy it?
(exclamation)
Will you be quiet? (request) - Will you be quiet? (command).
The number of terminal tones indicates the number of intonation
groups. Sometimes the number of intonation groups may be important
for meaning. For example, the sentence My sister, who lives in the
South, has just arrived may mean two different things. In oral
speech it is marked by using two or three intonation groups. If the
meaning is: 'my only sister who happens to live in the South', then
the division would be into three intonation groups: My sister, who
lives in the South, has just arrived. On the other hand, if the
meaning is 'that one of my two sisters, who lives in the South',
the division is into two intonation groups.
Together with the increase of loudness terminal tones serve to
single out the semantic centre of the utterance. By semantic centre
we mean the information centre which may simultaneously concentrate
the expression of attitudes and feelings. The words in an utterance
do not necessarily all contribute an equal amount of information,
some are more important to the meaning than others. This largely
depends on the context or situation in which the intonation group
or a phrase is said. Some words are predisposed by their function
in the language to be stressed. In English lexical (content) words
are generally accented while grammatical (form) words are more
likely to be unaccented although words belonging to both of these
groups may be unaccented or accented if the meaning requires
it.
Let us consider the sentence It was an unusually rainy day. As the
beginning of, say, a story told on the radio the last three words
would be particularly important, they form the semantic centre with
the nucleus on the word day. The first three words play a minor
part. The listener would get a pretty clear picture of the story's
setting if the first three words were not heard and the last three
were heard clearly. If the last three words which form the semantic
centre were lost there would be virtually no information gained at
all.
The same sentences may be said in response to the question What
sort of day was it? In this case the word day in the reply would
lose some of its force because the questioner already possesses the
information that it might otherwise have given him. In this
situation there are only two important words - unusually rainy -
and they would be sufficient as a complete answer to the question.
The nucleus will be on the word rainy. Going further still, in
reply to the question Did it rain yesterday? the single word
unusually would bear the major part of the information, would be,
in this sense, more important than all the others and consequently
would be the nucleus of the intonation pattern.
Grammatical words may be also important to the meaning if the
context makes them so. The word was, for instance, has had little
value in the previous examples, but if the sentences were said as a
contradiction in the reply to It wasn 't a rainy day yesterday, was
it?, then was would be the most important word of all and indeed,
the reply might simply be It was, omitting the following words as
no longer worth saying. In this phrase the word was is the nucleus
of the semantic centre.
These variations of the accentuation achieved by shifting the
position of the terminal tone serve a striking example of how the
opposition of the distribution of terminal tones is fulfilling the
distinctive function.
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.
It should be pointed out here that the most important role of the
opposition of terminal tones is that of differentiating the
attitudes and emotions expressed by the speaker. The speaker must
be particularly careful about the attitudes and emotions he
expresses since the hearer is frequently more interested in the
speaker's attitude or feeling than in his words - that is whether
he speaks nicely or nastily. For instance, the special question
Why? may be pronounced with the low falling tone sounding rather
detached, sometimes even hostile. When pronounced with the
low-rising tone it is sympathetic, friendly, interested.
All the other sections of the intonation pattern differentiate only
attitudinal or emotional meaning, e.g.: being pronounced with the
high рге-head, Hello sounds more friendly than when pronounced with
the low pre-head, cf.:
à He llo! - O He llo!
More commonly, however, different kinds of pre-heads, heads, the
same as pitch ranges and levels fulfil their distinctive function
not alone but in the combination with other prosodic
constituents.
We have been concerned with the relationship between intonation,
grammatical patterns and lexical composition. 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. All types of questions, for instance, express a
certain amount of interest which is generally expressed in their
grammatical structure and a special interrogative intonation.
However, there are cases when intonation is in contradiction with
the syntactic structure and the lexical content of the utterance
neutralizing and compensating them, e.g.: a statement may sound
questioning, interested. In this case intonation neutralizes its
grammatical structure. It compensates the grammatical means of
expressing this kind of meaning: Do you know what I'm here for? —
No (questioning)
There are cases when intonation neutralizes or compensates the
lexical content of the utterance as it happens, for instance, in
the command Phone him at once, please, when the meaning of the word
please is neutralized by 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.