INTONATION

INTONATION

1. Definition

2. Tone unit

3. Tail, head and pre-head

4. Tones

5. Functions of intonation

The phenomenon of normal changing of the pitch of the voice which carries linguistic information.

DEFINITION

The unit of analysis of intonation is the tone unit. It is made up of a tonic syllable, a head, a pre-head and a tail. Tonic syllables carry the tones and are typically the most prominent ones (but not the only ones) in a tonic unit. Of all these, the tonic syllable is the only obligatory element.

THE TONE UNIT

The tonic syllable carries the tone, but it is not the only carrier of pitch movement. The TAIL is made up of all the syllables between the tonic and the end of the tone-unit.E.g. LOOK at itThe PRE-HEAD is composed of all the unstressed syllables in a tone-unit preceding the first stressed syllable.The HEAD of a tonic unit goes from the first stressed syllable to the pre-tonic. A high head is a stressed syllable produced with a high pitch. A low head is a stressed syllable produced with a low pitch. E.g. in a 'little less than an HOUR (pre.head) (head) (tonic)

TAIL, PRE-HEAD AND HEAD

• FALL: Completeness, finality, definiteness
• RISE: questions, listing, giving the floor
• FALL-RISE: uncertainty, doubt, request, referring
• RISE-FALL: surprise, impression

• LEVEL: routine, uninteresting, boring

TONES

• ATTITUDINAL: related to emotions and attitudes
• ACCENTUAL: related to prominence
• GRAMMATICAL: related to semantics, punctuation and sintaxis
• DISCOURSE: related to the type of information given (old/new) and attention focus.

FUNCTIONS OF INTONATION