The main components of an intonation group. Types of pre-heads and heads.

The Head.

The Head in Eng is a very flixible segment. It stretches from the first stressed syllable up to (but not including) the nuclear tone. There are three groups of the Heads: descending, ascending and level.

1) Descending Heads. In des.heads the voice moves down from a Mid/Hi pitch level to the low one, stressed syllables form a descending sequence. The first stressed syllable is the highest and the following are lower. The syllables can move down by steps. Then the Head is called stepping.

In the Stepping Head unstressed/partly stressed syllables are pronounced on the same noe as the preceding step.

I down’t want to go to the cinema.

We use [\] arrow to show its’ decending character. We use [‘] to mark stressed syllables.

The head is called falling when the stressed syllables also move down by steps but interventing unstressed syllables fall down by steps but interventing unstressed syllables fall down, continuing descending direction.

I don’t want to go to the cinema.

If partly-stressed syllables are pronounced higher than the stressed syllables the head is scandent.

I don’t want to go to the cinema.

If the voice moves down by slides within stressed syllables the head is called sliding. Unstressed/partly-stressed syllables fall too.

I don’t want to go to the cinema.

Long intonation groups which are gradually descending may be broken by the so-called accidental rise. This happens when one of the syllables is pronounced on a higher pitch level than the preceding one. The broken descending head is very common when a particular word ih phrase should be singled out.

You’d get to know quite a lot of interesting people there.

2) Ascending heads are the opposite of descending nes: thier first stressed syllable is low in the pitch, each following stressed syllable being highe than the preceding one.

If the voice moves up by steps and unstressed syllables continue the rise the head is called rising.

I don’t want to go to the cinema.

If the voice moves up by slides the head is called climbing, where unstressed/partly stressed syllables glide up too.

I don’t want to go to the cinema.

3) Level Heads. In Level Heads all the syllables are pronounced on the same pitch level.

If they happen to be on a hi-level head is called the High Level Head.

I don’t want to go to the cinema.

This Head is usually used before Hi-Falling/Hi-Rising/Rising-Falling nuclears. It’s normally used wih one strongly-stressed syllable and usually called Hi-Head.

I didn’t know it.

If the syllables are partly-stressed and they are on the medium pitch the head is called medium level.

I don’t want to go to the cinema.

Such Head ma appear before any nuclear tone.

If the pitch is low, so it’s the Low Level Head.

I don’t want to go to the cinema.

Low Level Head is mostly used before the Low Rise and the Low Fall.

The Pre-head.

Unstressed/partly-stressed syllables which precede the head are called the pre-head. In short intonation groups where there is no head and these syllables precede the nucleus they are called pre-nucleus. There are two types of pre-heads: low and high.

If unstressed/partly-stressed syllables are pronounced lower than the first stressed syllable of the head, the pre-head os called low.

I don’t want to go to the cinema.

If unstressed/partly-stressed syllables are pronounced higher than the first stressed syllable of the head, the pre-head os called high.

I don’t want to go to the cinema.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 1965