Theoretical phonetics. Study guide for second year students. Борискина О.О - 73 стр.

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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.
      Melody
      Speech melody or pitch of the voice is closely connected with sentence
stress. D. Crystal states that "the only realizations of stress, which are linguistic,
which are capable of creating an effect of relative prominence, of accent, are
those which are effected with the complex help of pitch, quantity and quality
variations. The most important is pitch."
      Successive contours of intonation singled out of the speech flow may be
defined differently: sense-groups (semantic approach), breath-groups (extra-
linguistic approach), tone groups (phonological definition), intonation patterns /
groups, tone (tonetic) units, pitch and stress patterns. Each tone unit has one
peak of prominence in the form of a nuclear pitch movement and a slight pause
after the nucleus that end the tone unit and is usually shorter than the term
"pause" in pausation system.
      The tone unit is one of the most important units of intonation theory. It
contains one nucleus, which is often referred to as nuclear tone, or peak of
prominence. The interval between the highest and the lowest pitched syllable is
called the range of a sense-group. The range usually depends on the pitch level:
the higher the pitch, the wider the range. High, medium and low pitch of the
voice is shown on the staves. The change of pitch within the last stressed
syllable of the tone-group is called a nuclear tone. It may occur not only in the
nucleus but extend to the tail — terminal tone.
      The inventory of tonal types given by different scholars is different. Sweet
distinguishes 8 tones: level, high rising, low rising, high falling, low falling,
compound rising, compound falling, rising-falling-rising.
      Palmer has four basic tones: falling, high rising, falling-rising, low rising.
He also mentions high-falling and "low level" and describes coordinating tonal
sequences (identical tone groups), and subordinating tonal sequences (dissimilar
tone groups). Kingdon distinguishes high and low, normal and emphatic tones
and gives rising, falling, falling-rising (divided and undivided), rising-falling,
rising-falling-rising and level tone (the latter is not nuclear). O'Connor and
Arnold give low and high falls and rises, rise-fall, fall-rise, and a compound fall
+ rise (the latter is considered a combination of two simple tunes). Halliday
recognizes seven major types.
      Vasilyev gives ten tone units. He states that tones can be moving and level.
Moving tones can be: simple, complex and compound. They are: Low Fall; High
Wide Fall; High Narrow Fall; Low Rise; High Narrow Rise; High Wide Rise;
Rise-Fall; Fall-Rise; Rise-Fall-Rise. The most common compound tones are:
High Fall + High Fall; High Fall + Low Rise. Level Tones can be pitched at
High, Mid and Low level.