1. Give the definition of intonation and describe its components.

Intonation (also known as prosody or suprasegmental feature) is the melody of speech.

Intonation, rhythm, andstressare the three main elements of linguisticprosody.

The term intonation implies variations of pitch, force of utterance and tempo.

Variations of pitch are produced by significant moves of the voice up and down.

The force component of intonation is measured by the degree of loudness of syllables that determines the prominence of words.

The tempo is determined by the rate of speech and the length of pauses.

2. What is rhythm?

Rhythm – is the arrangement of spoken words alternating stressed and unstressed elements. There are two kinds of rhythm in languages:

(i) syllable-timed rhythm

(All syllables are of equal value, they follow each other with fairly equal length and force. It is an even rhythm, based on the smooth flow of syllables without a strong contrast of stress. French, Japanese.)

(ii) stress-timed rhythm

(It is based primarily on the alteration of strongly and weakly stressed syllables. Within each intonation group the stressed syllables occur at fairly equal intervals of time. The unstressed syllables occupy approximately the same time between the stresses; they have to be fitted in without delaying the regular beat. English, Ukrainian, Russian.)

3. What is stress? What types of stress are distinguished in English?

Stress – is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllablesin a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence.

The stress placed on syllables within words is called word stress or lexical stress. Word stress is accent on one syllable within a word.

There are three types of English word stress according to its degree:

• primary — the strongest

• secondary — the second strongest, partial

• weak — all the other degrees.

The stress placed on words within sentences is called sentence stress or prosodic stress. Sentence stress is accent on certain words within a sentence.

4. What do you know about content and function words? What words are normally stressed in a sentence?

Content words are the key words of a sentence. They are the important words that carry the meaning or sense.

Structure words are not very important words. They are small, simple words that make the sentence correct grammatically. They give the sentence its correct form or “structure”.

If you remove the structure words from a sentence, you will probably still understand the sentence. If you remove the content words from a sentence, you will not understand the sentence. The sentence has no sense or meaning.

Rules for Sentence Stress in English:

The basic rules of sentence stress are:

- content words are stressed

- structure words are unstressed

- the time between stressed words is always the same

Content words – stressed Words carrying the meaning			Structure words – unstressed Words for correct grammar
main verbs	SELL, GIVE, EMPLOY	pronouns		he, we, they
nouns	CAR, MUSIC, MARY	prepositions		on, at, into
adjectives	RED, BIG, INTERESTING	articles		a, an, the
adverbs	QUICKLY, LOUDLY, NEVER	conjunctions		and, but, because
negative auxiliaries	DON'T, AREN'T, CAN'T	auxiliary verbs		do, be, have, can, must