Lecture 8 - Intonation has content: Definition, Tune shapes, Functions of intonation, The basic English tunes (The falling tune – The glide down, The first rising tune – The glide up, The second rising tune – The take off, The falling-rising tune, The dive). | Lecture 8: Intonation • Definition • Tune shapes • Functions of intonation • The basic English tunes • The falling tune – The glide down • The first rising tune – The glide up • The second rising tune – The take off • The falling-rising tune – The dive 1 Definition • Intonation is the pattern of pitch changes that occurs over a phrase which may be a complete sentence. When he came, I greeted him I bought some bananas, oranges, apples and grapes • The part of a sentence over which a particular pattern extends is called a tone group. A short sentence often forms a single tone group, while longer ones are made up of two or more. • Within the tone group, there is usually a single syllable that stands out because it carries a major pitch change. A syllable of this kind is called the tonic syllable. 2 Tonic syllable • It is usually impossible to predict which syllable will be the tonic syllable in a tone group. It depends on what the speaker considers important. In general, new information is more likely to receive a tonic stress than material that has already been mentioned. Water is a liquid How was he? Was he boring? Water is a liquid He was very boring He was very boring 3 Tune shapes • The shape of a tune is decided partly by the number of important words in the group, and partly by the exact attitude you wish to express. Important words are words which carry the most meaning in a word group. Important words must be stressed, but not all stressed words are important. Examples: • How was John? He was in an appallingly bad temper 4 • Was John in a good temper? He was in an appallingly bad temper • Was John in a bad temper? He was in an appallingly bad temper 5
