- •1. Intonation of Greetings.
- •2. Intonation of Farewells.
- •3. Intonation of Thanks and Apologies.
- •4. Intonation of Congratulations and Surprise.
- •5. Intonation of Sympathy and Reassurances.
- •6. Intonation of Yes/No questions.
- •7. Intonation of Definite Answers to Yes/No Questions.
- •8. Intonation of Indefinite Answers to Yes/No Questions.
- •9. Giving information: the use of Falling-Rising tone.
- •10. Giving of information: The use of the Falling tones.
- •11. Asking wh-questions.
- •12. Intonation of Invitation and Order.
- •13. Intonation of Warnings and Suggestions.
- •14. Intonation of Hopes and Wishes.
- •15. Intonation of Question Tags and Echo-Questions.
- •16. Intonation of Short Questions and Short Answers.
- •17. Intonation of Too, Only, Either, Just and Even.
- •18. Intonation of Alternative Questions and Enumerations.
- •19. Intonation of Disjunctive Questions and Suggestions with Tags.
- •20. Types and Degrees of Utterance-Stress. Peculiarities of English Utterance-Stress.
- •23 Emphatic tones
- •24. Irregular Preheads.
- •25. Expressive means of English Intonation: Stress Reduction and Nuclear Tone-Shift.
- •26. Classification of Head Types. General Principles.
- •27. The Gradually Descending Stepping Head. The High Head. The Broken Stepping Head.
- •28. The Ascending Stepping Head. The Low Head.
- •29. The Sliding Head. The Scandent Head.
29. The Sliding Head. The Scandent Head.
The Sliding Head. SH
The Sliding Head is formed by sequence of slides, i.e. downward pitch movements, associated with each fully stressed syllable of the head. The stress syllable in the SH may start not on the same pitch or form a gradual ascent or descent. Descent seems to be the most frequent.
In the Descending SH each preceding stressed syllable starts on a higher pitch than the following one. It may has a jumpy, or wave-like character. Such an effect is due to the pitch contrast between the end of the preceding stress-group and the beginning on the following.
Partially stressed syl. behave in the same way as the unstressed ones. *When a full stress is given only to the 1st notional word and the other prenuclear notional words are given partial stresses, the pirch pattern of the head is falling rather than sliding.
The difference between the SH and its Falling is that in the Steppimg and the Sliding H semantic prominence if Diffuse, or balanced, ie distributed evenly and this emh-zes the meaning of the whole ytter, increasing its overall prominence. In the Falling and High heads semantic prominence is concentrated on the 1st semantic item. The degree of prominence achieved is at the same time greater in the Sliding and Falling Heads as compared with the Stepping and the High Heads. This accounts for their wide use in lively. Expressive conversation and in reading emotionally colored texts.
The SH and its variant, the Galling Head, are combined with the F-R Tone, and they occur with any the other nuclear tones as well.
The Scandent Head. ScH
The head of utterance is sometimes formed by a sequence of climbs, ie upward pitch-changes associated with each of the stress syllables. These upward pitch movements are realized either inside the stressed syllable or on the unstressed syllables which are pronounced on a higher pitch than the preceding str syll.
*The initial points of the stressed syll most typically take the same level above or below the middle of the voice-range.
The stressed syll may also form a descending or an ascending contour.
--Utterances pronounced with the Scandent Head sound lively and expressive.
--Combined with the Low Rise in general Q the ScH often express surprise and incredulity.
--Combined with the LR in imperative utterances this head has a reassuring, encouraging meaning and it is often used in speaking to children.
-- The ScH before a Fall may express the speaker’s irritation or cheerfulness and interest.
The modal meaning of the Rising Head is practically the same as that of the Ascending Head.