The Stepping Scale

1.The Regular Descending Stepping Scale is characterised by steplike descend of all stress-tone units. The head-unit of the contour takes the highest pitch. The unstressed syllables within every stress-tone unit are said on a level sequence.

The Regular Descending Stepping Scale is commonly used in descriptive prose and in monologue parts of a conversation. It can serve any communicative type of utterance. It sounds formal, businesslike, matter-of-fact.

e.g. I¤m a "first-year "student of the "English de°partment.||

The Regular Descending Stepping Scale can be combined with any of the six terminal tones.

2.The Broken Descending Stepping Scale

The Descending Stepping Scale can be broken on any important word (except the head one), which takes a higher pitch than the preceding stressed syllable. Then the step-like descend continues. This rise is called SPECIAL or ACCIDENTAL. It is used for several reasons:

• to avoid the monotony of a long syntagm:

e.g. I’m a "first-year "student of the ↑English de°partment.||

• to join short syntagms into longer ones:

e.g. To"morrow "morning we ↑ leave for °Kyiv.||

• to give special emphasis to an important word. There is a number of emotionally coloured words which are liable to take the Special Rise, they are: all, always, very, every, best, many, quite; all the numerals and so on.

e.g. Our "classes be"gin at ↑three in the "after°noon.||

NOTE. If the Special Rise is produced during the second accented word, the preceding stressed word takes a low-level or a mid-level pitch.

e.g Our can%teen is ↑always over°crowded.||

3.The Ascending Stepping Scale is characterised by the step-like ascend of all stress-tone units. The head-unit of the utterance takes the lowest pitch. The unstressed syllables within every stress-tone unit are said on a level sequence.

The High Level Prehead often precedes it. It can be used on any communicative type of utterance. It conveys displeasure, disgruntled protest, critical surprise.

e.g. I %thought per%haps you "might stay "up to Îsee her.|| (displeasure)

¯Are you %sure you %don’t "want to be a ælawyer, John?|| (critical surprise)

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1456