Intonation.
PARENTHESES
Parentheses express the speaker's attitude towards his utterance. At the end and in the
middle of the sentence parentheses are generally unstressed and don't make a separate syntagm. Parentheses at the beginning of the sentence are usually stressed. They form a separate syntagm and can be pronounced with any nuclear tone: Low Fall, Low Rise or Fall-Rise.
Intone and read:
1. It is alreadyTate, I'm afraid.
2. My father is a doctor, I'm glad to say.
3. This isn't a very bad city, as far as I remember.
4. The Barnes are a happy family, of course.
5. Their childremare Polly, Molly and'Dplly, I^guess.
6. Bob, Bill and Tom aren't good friends, sorry to say.
7. Mr. Roger has a bad profession, as you can see.
8. His child hasn't rich hair, you know.
9. They have seven foreign cars, to tell the truth.
10. My parents haven't any hobbies, I think.
11. Is Thomas a doctor or a docker, to your mind?
12. Is Mrs. Smith sixty-five, I wonder, or sixty-six?
13. Are Nancy and Nelly twins, I'd like to know?
14. Are you busy, so far, or not?
15. Has Benny holidays, at least?
16. Have the Hogglers a farm, by the way?
Intone and read:
1. As for me, I'm an architect.
2. I'm afraid, it's too dark to go out into the street.
3. Besides, they have six children in the family.
4. They say, that lady has a pretty face.
Text.
Read the text. Translate. Retell the same text, changing information and adding one about yourself.
My Family.
Let me introduce myself. My name is Alexander, Alec for short. My full name is Alexander Sergeyevich Orlov. Orlov is my surname, Alexander is my first name and Sergeyevich is my patronymic. I am not yet nineteen.
At the moment I am a first-year student at the University.
My parents have two more children besides me. Thus I have got an older brother and a younger sister. My sister Helen is just out of school. She is seventeen. She is a pretty girl with brown hair and soft dark-brown eyes. Her dream is to become a pianist.
My brother, whose name is Michael, is eight years my senior. He is twenty-seven already. He is a builder. He is married and has a family of his own. They are four in the family. He has a wife and two children — a son and a daughter. They are twins. They are lovely little children with golden hair and dark-blue eyes. They are always full of iov and gaiety. His wife's name is Nina. She is a surgeon by profession. They are not in St. Petersburg. They are in the Far East.
My parents are not old at all. Father is fifty, and Mother is three years his junior. My grandparents are already pensioners but they are still full of life and energy. They have a house in the country. Aunt Mary is with them.
She is a pleasant-looking woman of about forty. Uncle Nick, her husband, is a librarian. He is a clever man but a little unpractical. Aunt Mary, on the other hand, is very practical and full of common sense.
They have a son. He is my cousin. Peter is nineteen, tall, and a fine manly fellow. He is at the University and is studying to be a chemist. He is a clever, hard-working student, a first-class footballer, and a good runner. He is strong, quiet and thoughtful like his father.
Listen to the dialogue and practice. (unit 19 d1 )
