Theoretical phonetics. Study guide for second year students. Борискина О.О - 69 стр.

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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.

       Леонтьева С.Ф. Теоретическая Фонетика Английского языка
       There are two main approaches to the problem of intonation in Great
Britain. One is known as a contour 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. Halliday's theory is based on the syntactical function of
intonation.
      The founder of the American school of intonation is K. Pike. In his book
"The Intonation of American English" he 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. A. Antipova in her "System of English Intonation"