The tembral component and its function.

Rhythm

Semantic (intonational) pauses

Physiological pauses

Individual pauses

The temporal component and its function

The temporal component

3.1. Pauses.Pausation is closely connected with the other components of intonation. S.F. Leontyeva,considers that, speaking about the delimitative and distinctive functions of pausation, reference should be made to the term juncture. She singles out 4 types of junctures (p.199). Gillian Brown writes that a pause usually indicates that a speaker is thinking what to say next (p.147-148). In the text pauses are marked with dots and dashes. There are a number of specific stylistic uses of pause. One of them is used particularly by people reading aloud - perhaps to give the impression of spontaneous speech. Another is a much more general use and is found both in spontaneous conversation and in plays.

The most detailed analysis

asemantic semantic

constitutive situational individual physiological

rhythmical articulatory intensity

Asemantic pausesare called non-intonational. Constitutive pauses

Intensity pauses

Situational pauses

In Russian, however, they seem to perform this function: летчик-герой (a word), летчик - герой (a sentence).

3.2. Tempo of speechis

As G. Brown writes, everyone has a normal tempo of speech. Sometimes a speaker speaks faster than at other times. Speed may be associated with urgency - the delivery of an important message in a hurry. Rapid speech may arise from situations that have nothing to do with pressure of time or desire to invoke pressure of time. Slow tempo cannot be associated with any specific set of attitudes. A speaker may speak slowly simply because he is thinking very carefully about what he is saying. Equally a speaker may speak slowly because he wishes to give the impression that he is thinking carefully about what he is saying. Many public figures speak slowly, well down in the voice range, with lots of stressed words, long-drawn-out tonic syllables and significant pauses (G.Brown, p.137).

According to L.K. Tseplitis, tempo may be constitutive, situational and individual. Constitutive tempo

Situational tempo

Individual is

Quick tempo means joy, gaiety, enthusiasm; slow tempo means depression, inertia and meditations. Very slow tempo is a characteristic feature of a hampered speech, official solemn speech; it is used in delivery of solemn promise, oath, in reading out the judicial sentence.

The notion of rhythm

It has often been claimed that English speech is rhythmical, and that the rhythm is detectable in the regular occurrence of stressed syllables; of course, it is not suggested that the timing is as regular as a clock - the regularity of occurrence is only relative. The theory that English has

An example is given below. In this sentence, the stressed syllables are given numbers: syllables 1 and 2 - are not separated by any unstressed syllables, 2 and 3 are separated by one unstressed syllable, 3 and 4 by two and 4 and 5 by three.

1 2 3 4 5

'Walk 'down the 'path to the 'end of the ca'nal

The stress-timed rhythm theory states that the times from each stressed syllable to the next will tend to be the same, irrespective of the number of intervening unstressed syllables. The theory also claims that while some languages (e.g. Russian and Arabic) have stress-timed rhythm similar to that of English, others (such as French, Telugu - a Dravidian language spoken mainly in South East India and Yoruba - a language of South West Nigeria, Benin and Togo) have a different rhythmical structure called syllable-timed rhythm; in these languages, all syllables, whether stressed or unstressed, tend to occur at regular time-intervals and the time between stressed syllables will be shorter or longer in proportion to the number of unstressed syllables. Some writers have developed theories of English rhythm in which a unit of rhythm, the foot, is used (with an obvious parallel in the metrical analysis of verse); the foot begins with a stressed syllable and includes all following unstressed syllables up to (but not including) the following stressed syllable. The example sentence given above would be divided into feet as follows:

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1 2 3 4 5

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It follows from what was said above that in a stress-timed language all the feet are supposed to be of roughly the same duration. Many foreign learners of English are made to practise speaking English with a regular rhythm, often with the teacher beating time or clapping hands on the stressed syllables. It must be pointed out, however, that the evidence for the existence of stress-timed rhythm is not strong. There are many laboratory techniques for measuring time in speech, and measurement of the time intervals between stressed syllables in connected English speech has not shown the expected regularity; moreover, using the same measuring techniques on different languages, it has not been possible to show a real difference between "stress-timed" and "syllable-timed" languages. Experiments have shown that we tend to hear speech as more rhythmical than it actually is, and one suspects that this is what the proponents of the stress-timed rhythm theory have been led to do in their auditory analysis of English rhythm. However, one ought to keep an open mind on the subject, remembering, that the large-scale, objective study of suprasegmental aspects of real speech is only just beginning, and there is much research that needs to be done.

There is a rather attractive compromise solution to this argument, in the form of a claim in speaking English we vary in how rhythmically we speak: sometimes we speak very rhythmically (this is typical of some styles of public speaking) while at other times we speak arhythmically (that is, without rhythm) - for example, when we are hesitant or nervous. Stress-timed rhythm is thus characteristic of one style of speaking, not of English speech as a whole; one always speaks with some degree of rhythmicality, but the degree will vary between a minimum value (arhythmical) and a maximum (completely stress-timed rhythm). What, then, is the practical value of the traditional "rhythm exercise" for foreign learners? The argument about rhythm should not make us to forget the very important difference in English between strong and weak syllables; some languages do not have such a noticeable difference (which may, perhaps, explain the subjective impression of "syllable-timing"), and for native speakers of such languages learning English it can be helpful to practise repeating strongly rhythmical utterances since this forces the speaker to concentrate on making unstressed syllables weak. Speakers of languages like Japanese, Hungarian and Spanish, which do not have weak syllables to anything like the same extent as English does, may well find such exercises of some value (as long as they are not overdone to the point where learners feel they have to speak English as though they were reciting verse).

It has been claimed that stress placement is conditioned to some extent by the influence of rhythm. Examples such as 'fourteen' [fL'tJn], 'Westminster' [west'mInstq] (isolate forms) and 'fourteenth day' ['fLtJnT 'd‡], 'Westminster Abbey' ['westmInstq 'bI] (where a stressed syllable follows the word in question) are said to be caused by a tendency in English to avoid two strong stresses near each other. This explanation may have some validity, but it is difficult to see how it could be established as a proven fact rather than just an opinion.

Timber is

The voice-timber

Voice quality is

A Moldavian phonetician О.S. Mindrul gives such varieties of timber as "малонасыщенный, маловариативный, насыщенный, вариативный, перенасыщенный" (1980: 117). A Latvian phonetician L.K. Tzeplitis