LECTURE 12-13

ENGLISH PROSODY
 
 
 OUTLINE:
 
1. Definition of intonation
2. Difference between prosody and intonation
3. Structural prosodic units:
A.a syllable
B. a rhythmic unit\group
C. an intonation group
i. pre-head
ii.head\ scale
iii.nucleus
iv.tail
D.an utterance
4. Prosodic components:
A.a pitch
B. an utterance stress
C. rhythm
D.tempo
E. pauses
5. Meanings and functions of prosody
 1. DEFINITION OF INTONATION.

INTONATION is a language universal. It can be defined in a narrow and broad sense:

 In a narrow sense, intonation is the modifications in only one component (pitch/tone).

So, INTONATION (in a narrow sense) is the variations of the pitch/musical tone produced
by the vibrations of the vocal cords.
It doesn’t seem reasonable to limit intonation to only one (pitch) component. All
intonation components function as a whole.

The broad definition of intonation – INTONATION is the interconnection of pitch or

melody, stress, tempo, rhythm and timbre in speech.
Akchmanova gives such a definition: “Intonation is a complex unity of prosodic
elements including speech melody, word accent, rhythm, tempo, voice timbre and logical
stress, which serves to express not only different syntactical meanings and categories, but
also emotional connotations”.
It seems reasonable to exclude timbre from intonation components. Though speech
timbre definitely conveys certain shades of attitudinal and emotional meanings, there’s no
reason to consider it an intonation component.
 
 2. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROSODY AND INTONATION.
1) Often the terms ‘prosody’ and ‘intonation’ are used synonymously and
include the above-mentioned intonation components.
2) But sometimes prosody is applied to the features pertaining to the syllable,
word or rhythmic unit, which are regarded as meaningless units, while
intonation is considered a meaningful phenomenon.
3) Some scholars maintain that prosody has to do with intonation groups and
utterances as well. Hence, “prosody” has a broader meaning than
“intonation”.
4) There is an opinion that prosody makes the combinations of different sounds
and syllables easily perceived by human ear while intonation clarifies the
meaning.
Acoustically, prosody is the modifications of fundamental frequency, intensity
and duration.
(!) In this course of lectures we would use the terms synonymously and treat
prosody as the intonation in its broad sense.
 3. STRUCTURAL PROSODIC UNITS.
Phonemes usually occur in sequences. From the Prosodic point of view these
sequences are divided into the following structural prosodic units: A.Syllable. B.
Rhythmic unit. C.Intonation group. D.Utterance.
 

A. SYLLABLE. It consists of one/a number of phonemes. Some scholars consider it a

phonetic and purely articulatory unit, which lacks the functional value. However,
the majority of linguists treat syllable as the smallest prosodic, hence linguistic,
unit, which possesses the FOLLOWING FEATURES:
a) a syllable is a chain of phonemes of different length;
b) a syllable is constructed on the basis of contrast of its constituents;
c) the nucleus of a syllable is a vowel, the presence of consonants is optional;
d) the distribution of phonemes in the syllable follows the rules which are specific

for a language.

So, the syllable constitutes higher prosodic units.

Prosodic features (tone, stress and duration) depend on the position and function
of the syllable in the rhythmic unit\group.
B. A RHYTHMIC UNIT/GROUP consists of one stressed
syllable or a stressed syllable with a number of unstressed
syllables. The stressed syllable is the nucleus of the rhythmic
group. There are as many rhythmic groups in an utterance, as there
are stressed syllables in it.

Unstressed syllables which precede the stressed are proclitics.

Unstressed syllables which follow the stressed syllable are enclitics.
The rhythmic group is characterized by:
pitch pattern/tonal contour
 duration pattern/temporal structure.

The rhythmic unit is considered meaningful, as it can express a

separateness, completeness, uncertainty, connectedness etc.
C. INTONATION GROUP. There are many terms to denote it which are used synonymously: a sense
group, a breath group, an intonation group, an intonation contour, a tone group/unit, a devisable
accentual unit, a tune.
Initially the intonation groups were considered to be purely rhythmical. Later approaches were
developed to analyze their semantic and syntactic, thus the syntagm theory was put forward. The
syntagm is a group of words which are semantically and syntactically united and compete.
Sintagms rather belong to language and in phonetics their actualization is called intonation groups.

The intonation group is a meaningful prosodic unit and may express completeness /
incompleteness, finality\non- finality etc.

There are 4 structural elements of the intonation group: i. the pre-head; ii the head; iii. the nucleus;
iv. the tail.

i. Pre-head consists of unstressed and half-stressed syllables which precede the first stressed
syllable of the head.

ii. Head or the scale, or the body. Roger Kingdon distinguishes between the head – the first stressed
syllable in the sintagm and the body – the stressed syllables of the syntagm without the first and
the last stressed syllables.
In modern linguistics the three terms are used synonymously and denote a sequence of syllables
stretching from the first stressed syllable up to, but not including, the last syllable.
iii. The nucleus is the last and the strongest stressed syllable of the
intonation group, on which the pitch movement changes. It is the semantic
centre of the intonation group.

iv. Tail is partially stressed or unstressed syllable(s) which follow the nucleus
Example:
  I ‘WANT TO ‘GO HOME AFTER ֽCLASSES
Prehead head nucleus tail
Scale/ Body

Types of pre-head differentiate between emotional meanings;

Types of head – convey attitudinal meaning;
Types of the nucleus express communicative and attitudinal meanings
and together with the tail they indicate the end of the intonation group.

(!) The most important functional element of the intonation group is the
nucleus. Other components are optional.
D. UTTERANCE is the main communicative unit, which can include one or
more intonation groups, it has logical organization and conveys thoughts.
Each utterance has a definite prosodic structure, which may be used in any
syntactical structure of an utterance, that means, for instance, that the same
prosodic structure can be used in any syntactical structure: in statements,
imperative, declarative, interrogative sentences etc
The same prosodic structure: | . ¯ ˙ ˙ – ּּ │ can be used in :
• statements: The ‘island is ‘far from the ↓east
• imperatives: So ‘tell them they ‘ought to come ↓back
• general questions: But ‘shall we ‘discuss it a↓gain?
• special questions: And ‘what is the ‘matter with ↓John?
• exclamations: If ‘only you’ve ‘asked me be↓fore! Etc
 
When utterances are grouped together, they form larger prosodic units:
hiperutterances, paragraphs, texts.
 4. PROSODIC COMPONENTS.

The following prosodic components are realized in structural prosodic units:

A.
THE PITCH (speech melody) is the variations in the pitch of the voice. Acoustically,
pitch is the variations of fundamental frequency, generated by the vibrations of the vocal cords.
Among the pitch parameters we can distinguish: 1) pitch range; 2) pitch level; 3) variations in
the pitch movement.
 
1) PITCH RANGE. Variations in it occur within the normal range of human voice between its
upper and lower limits. The pitch range of the utterance is the interval between the highest
pitched and the lowest pitched syllable which, can be:
wide: mid: narrow:
a) wide - the whole voice range is involved -------- -------- --------
b) mid/normal – the voice doesn’t vary too sharply -------- -------- --------
c) narrow – pitch range remains about the same level -------- -------- --------
 
The pitch range can be widened/narrowed to express the speaker’s attitude and emotions: Ex.,
Widening the range expresses joy, happiness, indignation,
Narrowing the range – horror, disgust etc.

 
2) PITCH LEVEL is determined by the highest pitched syllable by which the speaker
shows the degree of semantic importance of the utterance, his attitude and emotions.
 Most scholars single out three level of pitch: low; medium (mid); high.
 Some scholars distinguish emphatic (with higher and lower variations) – and
emotional (with higher and lower variations) levels.
 American linguists (Pike, Trager, Smith) acknowledge four pitch levels: low; mid; high
and extra-high which they call pitch phonemes.

The meaning of intonation pattern is determined by the combination of pitch range and
pitch level meanings. The higher the pitch contrasts within the intonation group
(including pitch range and level), the more emphatic the intonation group sounds.
 
3) VARIATIONS IN PITCH MOVEMENT.
From the point of view of any changes in pitch, we can distinguish between:
a) Static tones don’t change the pitch level. They are all level with high, mid, low variations.
b) Kinetic (dynamic) tones change the pitch level during their pronunciation and are further
subdivided into simple and complex:
 Keeping in mind the DIRECTION of pitch movement, within kinetic tones there are:
 Simple tones are unidirectional and include falling and rising tones.
 Complex tones are bidirectional (falling-rising; rising-falling; rise-fall-rise).
 Depending on different PITCH LEVELS of the voice, the kinetic tones (both simple and
complex) can be of high or low variations (Ex., high fall; low rise etc)
 HOW THE PITCH COMPONENT (RANGE, LEVEL, DIRECTIONS) FUNCTIONS IN THE
INTONATION GROUP (IN NUCLEUS, HEAD, PREHEAD AND TAIL):
 

1) IN THE NUCLEUS.
THE NUCLEUS is the last stressed syllable in the intonation group on which the pitch
movement changes. The whole pattern changes on that pitch syllable. The changes in pitch
in the nucleus are nuclear tones.

In modern linguistics it is generally agreed that there exist 8 nuclear tones:

 falling tones: low (medium) fall; high fall; rise-fall;
 rising tones: low rise; high (medium) rise; fall-rise; rise-fall-rise;
 level tone.

Meaning of nuclear tones. In general:

the falling tones of any level and range express certainty, completeness, definiteness,
finality, etc.
the rising tones of any level and range express uncertainty, incompleteness, indefiniteness,
non-finality… the fallingl-rising tone expresses reservation, implication, contrast.
the level tone – is used for parenthetical and subsidiary information; boredom, sarcasm
etc.
2) IN THE TAIL.
The pitch of the tail depends on the nuclear tone:
 the tail is descending or falling when the nuclear tone is falling;
 the tail is ascending or rising if the nuclear tone is rising or falling-rising;
 the tail pitch is level :
 when the fall reaches its lowest level and it’s impossible to
move further and then the tail follows;
 when the tail follows the nuclear level tone.

The nucleus and the tail form THE TERMINAL TONE. Due to its linguistic
meanings and functions the terminal tone can be treated as a phonological
unit of the language – a toneme. Particular tones in which a toneme is
actualized in speech are defined as allotones of the toneme.

The terminal tone determines the communicative type of the utterance.

That’s why the communicative function of pitch is considered purely
linguistic and is called the distinctive function.
The head and the pre-head form the PRE-NUCLEAR part of the intonation
group, which takes a variety of pitch patterns. The pre-nuclear part often
conveys meanings associated with attitudes or phonetic style.

3) IN THE HEAD.
The functions of the head express relations between rhythmic groups
and convey modal stylistic meanings. The head can predict the
communicative type of an utterance.

According to the general direction of the pitch movements over the

head, we distinguish three types of head:
descending,
ascending
level.
According to the PITCH MOVEMENT in a rhythmic unit these types are subdivided into:
a) Within a Descending head:
 The stepping head when the syllables move down the steps; the unstressed
syllables remaining on the same level, as the preceding stressed syllable
________________________________________

_________________
 The falling head is equal to the stepping head, but the unstressed syllables are also
descending – a little bit lower, than the preceding stressed.
________________________________

_______________
 The scandent head is the same as stepping but the unstressed syllables are higher
than the preceding stressed.
______________________________________

_________________
 The sliding head is like stepping but the voice moves down by slides within stressed
syllables.
_____________________________________

________________
 Accidental/special rise occurs when the stepping head is broken by a rise to single
out certain words.
_______________________________-______

________________
b) Within an Ascending head.
 The rising head occurs when the voice moves up by steps on the
stressed syllables; the unstressed syllables continue the rise.
_____________________
_____________________
 The climbing head. The head ascends but the voice moves up by
slides on the stressed syllables, the unstressed glide up, too.
____________________
____________________

c) Within a Level head.

 The high level head when all the syllables are on the same high level.
 The medium level head. All the syllables are on the same mid level.
 The low level head. All the syllables are on the same low level.
 4) IN THE PRE-HEAD.
According to changes in the VOICE PITCH pre-heads can be:
a) Low if the unstressed syllables are lower than the first stressed syllable
________________________________________________________

_____________________

b) Rising if the unstressed syllables ascend towards the first stressed.

______________________________________________________

__________________
c) High when the unstressed syllables are higher than the first stressed.
_________________________________________________________

_______________________

When the pitch level of the pre-head is high the utterance becomes emphatic
and emotional.
B. THE UTTERANCE STRESS
The prominence given to one or more words in an utterance is AN UTTERANCE/
SENTENCE STRESS.
The prominence is achieved through the greater force of utterance and changes in the
direction of voice pitch, accompanied by changes in the quality of the vowels under stress.
In unstressed position vowels may undergo qualitative changes.
Acoustically, utterance stress is determined by variations of fundamental frequency,
intensity and duration.

FUNCTIONS of the word stress and the utterance stress are different.

 The function of word stress is to mould the words by indicating the strongest
syllable in the word.
 The function of the utterance stress is more complicated:
It indicates the end of the syntagm by strengthening the last stressed
syllable with a definite speech pattern and frequently by a pause as well.
It’s used to indicate the important words in the syntagm from the point of
view of grammar, meaning or speaker’s attitude.
 In accordance with their functions, there are three types of utterance
stress:

1) Syntagm/normal/syntactical stress. It is used in unemphatic speech to

break up connected speech into syntagms, to arrange words into
sentences and word groups and to indicate the important words in an
utterance. Together with the lexical and grammatical means, it expresses
the general idea and the communicative centre of the sentence.

2) Logical stress. It is used to push into prominence a word or words in

the intonation group that are important from the point of view of meaning
or the speaker’s attitude towards the subject discussed. The word which is
singled out denotes a new element in a sentence. It is the communicative
and logical centre which bears the terminal tone.

3) Emphatic stress expresses the speaker’s emotions and attitude. It

increases the effort of expression and strengthens the stressed word
making it more prominent.
 
 The utterance stress INCLUDES:
 nuclear stress which is the strongest, carrying the most
important information;
 non-nuclear full stress
 partial stress which is usually unmarked

 The distribution of stresses in an utterance depends on

semantic, grammatical and rhythmical factors:
 The semantic centre is singled out by the nuclear stress.


 Notional words in an utterance are usually stressed, form

words are not
 Logical and emphatic stresses can fall on ANY word in an
utterance.
C.RHYTHM
Rhythm is one of the intonation components. RHYTHM is the
regularity in the occurrence of stresses or syllables in an utterance.

According to the rhythmic organization, languages are divided into 2

groups:
1) syllable-timed languages (ex., French) Syllables alternate at a certain
rhythm. An equal amount of time is given to each syllable, no matter
whether it is stressed or unstressed. So we have staccatorism.

2) stress-timed languages. (Ex.,German, Slavonic, Russian). Stresses

segment speech into units of more or less equal length. The lapse of
time between the stressed syllables is uniform, no matter how many
unstressed syllables are located between the two stressed ones. So, this
type of rhythmic organization produces the spiky and abrupt effect of
the English rhythm.
 
The main unit in rhythm is a stress group / rhythmic group. It consists
of:
a stressed syllable,
proclitics
enclitics.
The stressed syllable is the prosodic nucleus of the rhythmic group.

There are two main alternative viewpoints upon the division of an

utterance into rhythmic groups:

 According to the semantic point of view, the unstressed syllables

tend to be drawn towards the stressed syllables of the same word or
lexical unit because of their semantic connection.

 According to enclitic tendency, the unstressed syllables tend to join

the preceding stressed. The more organized the speech is, the more
rhythmical it appears.
Acoustically, rhythm is realized by variations in frequency, intensity and
duration. The basis of rhythm is STRESS. The nuclear stress is the most
prominent and functionally the most important.

The nuclear rhythmic unit is the most important in an utterance. Prosodic

characteristics of rhythmic groups depend on their position and functioning in
larger prosodic units – intonation groups and utterances.

Rhythm performs important linguistic functions.

 It specifies the speech and gives it maximum perceptibility.

 It unifies smaller language units into utterances, hyper-utterances and texts

– performing an integrative function.

 It indicates the relations between the language units performing a

distinctive function. All in all there are 3 contrastive pairs of rhythmic
structure: rhythmic – arrhythmic; spiky – glissando; staccato – legato.

English rhythm is determined by all prosodic features – loudness, pitch,

duration.
 
D. TEMPO / RATE

 TEMPO is the rate at which utterances and their smaller

units are pronounced. Acoustically, tempo is usually measured
by the number of syllables per second.

 3 types of tempo are usually distinguished:

 Normal: from about 3 to 8 syllables per second.

 Slow, lento: from 2 to 4 syllables per second.
 Fast, allegro: from 5 to 9 syllables per second.

 The rate of speech is varied by the speaker in accordance with

the situation in which he is involved and depends on his
individual speaking habits, the size of the audience, the
acoustic qualities of the room and the purposes of delivery.
Special rate is a personal characteristic. But it also depends on the rhythmic
organization of the sentence:

1) When two stressed syllables occur close together, the tempo is

slower. When they are separated – the speech is faster.

2) The tempo of speech also varies according to the number of

unstressed syllables between the stressed syllables.

 But the most important linguistic factor of tempo is how it correlates with the
changing in meaning. When we slow down the tempo of speech, we can make
the utterance sound more prominent underlining the semantic importance of
an utterance. By increasing the tempo we can diminish the importance and the
prominence of the utterance. Thus, tempo performs the distinctive function.

The tempo can also perform emotional and attitudinal functions. Fast tempo
indicates anger, excitement, joy; slow – relaxation, calmness, reservation,
doubt, blame, phlegmatic attitude on the part of the speaker.
 
E. PAUSES

 PAUSE is an act of stopping in the flow of

speech. Pauses divide speech into units of
different length.

The number and the length of pauses

determine the tempo of speech. A slower
tempo makes the utterance more prominent
and important and involves more pauses.
Pauses can be characterized from different VIEWPOINTS:
1) According to the presence or absence of voice, pauses are divided into:
a) silent/unfilled – is complete silence
b) voiced/filled - certain sounds or even words are pronounced (m-m, ә–ә..) and
(you see, you know, etc.).

2) From the functional point of view, we distinguish:

a) segmentative (delimitative) pauses break speech into sentences and intonation
groups. They are realized only by silent pauses. They differ in length and can be:
 short, used to separate intonation groups. Graphically marked as |.
 long (double), twice as long as the short pauses, they are used to separate
sentences. Graphically marked as || ;
extralong (triple), three times longer than the short pauses, they are used to
separate paragraphs; Marked as ||| ;

b) pauses of perception. There is no stop in the flow of speech. There is no pause.

The effect of a pause is produced by either a sharp change of pitch direction or by
the variation in duration or both. Marked as ~

c) hesitation pauses. They are a short interval of silence arising from doubt, a
hesitation caused by different emotions, forgetfulness, one’s wish. They are realized
by silent or voiced pauses; the speaker either just stops speaking to think, or fills
the gap with the fillers.
Pauses are important constituencies of intonation; they
perform a number of FUNCTIONS:

 segmentative and delimitative functions,

 a unifying, constitutive function (they also show relations
between utterances and intonation groups),
 the semantic and syntactic function,
 attitudinal function (realized through hesitation pauses
which express uncertainty).
 5. MEANINGS AND FUNCTIONS OF PROSODY.
Phonologically, prosody (and its components) performs A NUMBER OF
FUNCTIONS:
1) The constitutive function presents utterances as communicative units. Intonation
structures the text.

 On the one hand, it segments texts into smaller units (passages, intonation
groups, phrases) and delimits them one from another performing thus a
segmentative and delimitative function within the constitutive function.
 On the other hand, it integrates these smaller constituents forming unified
texts and showing relations between them, performing an integrative
function within the constitutive one.

2) The identificatory function. It provides the basis for the listeners’ identification
of the communicative and modal type of an utterance, its semantic and syntactical
structure with the situation of discourse.
3) The phonological or distinctive function differentiates the meanings of textual
units. This function manifests itself in the following functions:

a) the communicative distinctive function. It differentiates the

communicative types of utterances(commands, questions, requests, reporting
questions).
b) the modal distinctive function. It conveys the modal meanings of
utterances, (certainty/ uncertainty, definiteness/indefiniteness, etc). It is often
called an attitudinal function conveying the meanings of attitude (surprise,
annoyance, enthusiasm…)
c) The culminative distinctive function. It differentiates the location of the
semantic nucleus . Prosody indicates the theme – rheme relations of an
utterance.
d) the stylistic distinctive function. It characterizes a particular pronunciation
stylistic variety of oral speech.
e) the syntactical distinctive function. It differentiates utterances from the
point of view of their syntactic structure and characterizes the syntactic
relations in a sentence.
 
• On the phonological level, intonation is viewed as a
complex structure of all its prosodic parameters.

• Intonation choices carry information about:

 the structure of the interaction,
 the relationship between utterances
 the discourse function of indicated utterances,
the awareness or newness of information
 the state of convergence or divergence of the
participants.