18. Irregular preheads. Stress reduction. Nuclear tone-shift.

Irregular Prehead is a displacement in pitch from the normal position in the lower half or near the middle of the voice-range. The displacement can be made both upward and downward - High Irregular and Low Irregular Preheads. In the High Irregular Prehead all the syllables are said on a very high pitch. In the Low Irregular Prehead all the syllables are said on a very low pitch. The exact modal-emotional meaning of an utterance with the High Irregular Prehea. depends on the nuclear tone. In tunes with the nuclear Emphatic Mid/Low Fall the High Irregular Prehead is used to express disapproval, indignation or insistence.In tunes with the emphatic Low Rise nuclear tone the High Irregular Prehead after. adds a feeling of disagreement and impatience.When followed by the emphatic High Rise the High Irregular Prehead gives a feeling of extreme surprise.

When you desire to reinforce the semantic weight of the nuclear word it can be done a) by reducing or eliminating the prenuclear stresses, thus giving the nucleus greater relative b) by using the so-called nuclear tone-shift, which means displacing the nuclear tone from its normal position - on the last notional word in an utterance - to a word at the beginning or in the middle of it. The effect of a departure from final position is that of special semantic prominence or contrast.The effect of a contrastive tone-shift is always greater when the nuclear stress is given to a function word or a pronoun.Nuclear shifts are often combined with emphasis witch increases the prominence of the word.

19. The expressive potential of compound tunes

Intonation-groups having more than one kinetic tone are called compound tunes. The intonation-groups are not split into as many smaller groups as there are prenuclear kinetic tones in them. This can be explained by the absence of a pause after the prenuclear kinetic tones. There are some peculiarities in the pitch and duration features of these tones which mark them as non-final accents closely linked within one unit - an intonation-group. the Ascending Head=the Low Rise + High Fall compound tune, the Sliding Head=the Fall + Fall compound tune, the Scandent Head=the Rise + Rise compound tunes. The most common types of compound tunes are: High Rise + High Rise(This compound tune typically occurs in general questions. It gives them a feeling of surprise or incredulity), Low Rise + Fall(It usually gives a feeling of: a) mystification and puzzlement to questions; b) persuasiveness and expostulation to statements and imperatives; c) wonderment to exclamations.), Fall + Fall-Rise(It usually serves to give special emphasis to some word; a more apologetic note in statements), Fall-Rise + Fall(It serves to emphasize and often to give a sense of contrast to some word (words) coming earlier than the nucleus.), Fall + Fall(gives emphasis to or expresses a contrast; a) insistence to special and general questions; b) dogmatism to statements; c) energy to imperatives; d) extra emphasis to exclamations).