Intonation
Vibrating glottis provides voiced and voiceless distinction. It has another important role to play in continuous speech, I.e. it provides pitch fluctuation. By pitch fluctuation we mean that the pitch of the voice is continually in the process of this in the process of either falling or rising. While we are talking in fact it never remains constant for more than a fraction of a second. Pitch fluctuation is found in the speech of all communities. It is not a random fluctuation but follows well-defined melodic patterns which are meaningful.
The pitch of the voice is determined by the frequency of the vibration of the vocal cords that is the number of times they open and close in a second. The pattern of variation of the pitch of the voice (that is fall or the rise) constitutes the intonation of a language.
If you say ‘Put it down’ the pitch of your voice will move from a high level through a low-level this is called the falling tone.
The falling tune is sometimes referred to as the glide –down. It consists of a fall in the pitch of the voice from a high level to a low level. It is marked[ ]. The falling tune is normally used in
Ordinary statements: It was quite good.
Wh questions: Who are you talking to?
Command: Take it a way.
Exclamations: Splendid!
Question Tags: It was a good film .Wasn’t it?
Rhetorical questions: Wasn’t that a difficult exam?
The Rising Tune is sometimes referred to as glide up. It consists of glide in the pitch from low to high level. It is marked [ ]
The rising tune is normally used in
Polite requests: Go and open the window.
Expected responses: Thank you.
Alternative questions: Do you like tea or coffee or coke.
Enumeration : One, two, three, four , five.
Greetings, apologies, partings: He llo, I’m so sorry, Good bye,
The falling-rising tune is sometimes referred to as the dive. It consists of a fall from high to low and then a rise to the middle of the voice. The tune can be used either on one syllable or different syllables of a word or sentence. It can be illustrated thus: Seventy, That was nice.
For correcting and warning (he’s forty-five.) Forty six,
Please be careful, You’ll be late
These tunes are called kinetic tunes, i.e. there is a pitch change on a particular tune. If a syllable is said on a level pitch, it is said to be a static one.
Practical exercise on Intonation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6aE4nceJt8
Rhythm: Content words and structure words
All words in a sentence are not equally important for meaning, some are more important than others. For example, in the sentence
Which is the train for Hyderabad, please?
Which, train, Hyderabad, please are more important than is, the, and for. The important words are stressed.
\Which is the \train for \Hyderabad, \please?
Thus we can say that content or lexical words are stressed and structural or functional words are generally not stressed.
Examples of content words: Nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs, demonstratives and interrogative pronouns.
Example of structure words: Articles, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, personal and relative pronouns.
Some more examples:
1. Let’s have \bread and \butter for \breakfast.
2. She \took the \dog for a \walk in the \park.
In case a word to be stressed has more than one syllable only one syllable will be stressed following the rules of word stress. In breakfast stress is one he first syllable ‘break’.
In English speech Stressed syllable tend to occur at regular interval of time. In sentence number 2 the time interval between the beginning of the stressed syllable took, dog, walk, park will be approximately the same. The stressed syllables are pronounced carefully and the unstressed ones are crowded together and said quickly. It is this regular occurrence of stressed syllables that gives English its characteristic rhythm. This rhythm is known as stress -time -rhythm. English Russian and Arabic as stressed time languages. In some languages the syllables recur at regular intervals. This rhythm is known as syllable-timed- rhythm. Most Indian languages are syllable-timed-rhythm.
This brings another important feature of English rhythm, the use of weak forms.
Weak forms
The content or lexical words are stressed and the structures remain functional words are not stressed in connected speech. These structural words have a strong form and a weak form. When the words are not stressed weak form is used. For example the word and is pronounced /aend/ but in connected speech it is reduced to/ənd/ or /ən/ or /n/.
People often say bread and jam and bread and butter as /bred en jam/ and /bread n bʌtə/ the strong form is not used. The use of weak forms is an essential part of English speech. To acquire the rhythm of English speech its essential to learn to use the weak form of structural words.
Weak forms of words are enlisted below
I am French (strong form) I'm French (weak form)
But usually there is no change of spelling, only the pronunciation is different:
But strong form: /bʌt/ weak form: /bət/
Tell him to go strong forms /hɪm/ /tu:/ weak form: /tel əm tə gəʊ/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu6UVwkUgzc
Word Stress
Words are made of syllable(s): if a word has more than one syllable, all the syllable are not equally prominent: one of the syllables is more prominent than the others. For example, the word telephone is made up of three syllables te, le, and phone but only The first syllable te is stressed i.e. it is more prominent than le and phone. Similarly in the word pronunciation which is made up of five syllables, the syllable a is the most prominent. In the word mountaineer which has three syllables the last syllable ne’er is stressed.Syllable is made up of a vowel and optionally consonant(s).
Stress in English words is fixed, I.e. the stress always falls on a particular syllable in a given word. For example in the word miserable, the stress is on the first syllable I.e. mis, whether the word is said in isolation or in connected speech. But at the same time, stress and English words is free I.e. is not tied to any particular syllable in the chain of syllables constituting the word. For e.g. English words can be stressed on the first syllable as in miserable, on the second syllable as in agree, on the third syllable as in understand and so on.
It is not only the stress that makes syllable prominent: pitch change also contributes to the prominence of syllables. The syllable on which primary movement can be initiated is said to have the primary stress/ accent. Any other prominent syllable syllable is said to have secondary stress. Primary accent is marked with a vertical bar above and in front of the syllable to which it refers. Secondary accent is marked with a vertical bar below and in front of the syllable. For example:
After’noon
Ciga’rette
Repre’sent
The primary stress is on the last syllable and the secondary stress is on the first syllable are used speech which movie initiated on the syllabus which have primary stress.
Weak Forms of words
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