Реферат: Интонация

The two compound patterns combine the meanings of falling and rising intonation in interesting iconic meanings. The fall-rise pattern has the meaning of both, i.e. both closed and open meaning. This signifies both definiteness and indefiniteness simultaneously, in the sense that a referent is instantiated but the utterance is not yet completed or in the sense that the speaker feels some hesitancy, reservation, doubt or uncertainty. The rise-fall pattern incorporates the fall of completion or assurance of the first pattern with the emotional overtone of a high pitch in the middle of the utterance. This is a so-called swell tone used for emphatic meaning: as the tone swells, the meaning or emphasis increases.

Brazil, Coulthard and Johns (1980) point out the importance of relative pitch, in a discourse context, e.g. for indicating affect or emotion. Most importantly, relative pitch of an utterance shows the speaker's attitude toward the information that he\she is conveying. The neutral, unmarked, mid relative pitch - which is the speaker's modal pitch - is used to make a statement in a neutral manner. In contrast, high relative pitch indicates an informational contrast, as shown in example (a). Because high key implies a contrast even when one is not explicitly present in the discourse, it can be used to single out individual words for special attention, as in example (b).

Y

H a

ar 1

(a) I'm going to vard, not e !!!

n

e

v t t.

(b) I'd er do ha

Low key is used when the speaker wants to assert that two items in successive tone units are in some sense equivalent, as in (c):

T

O

I L

D

(c) you already, du

mmy.

Here the low key on dummy signals that it is to be interpreted as confer-ential to you.

In some varieties of English, e.g. those spoken in Ireland, Liverpool and Hawaii, the terminal high rise in yes/no questions is replaced by an earlier rise, with high pitch maintained until the tonic word or phrase, followed by a fall as in


Ireland: Would you like some tea?


Liverpool: Did you go to the new supermarket?


Hawaii: 1) You need a general catalog?

You get one book?

In Hawaniian English, question tags comprising yea with high rising pitch are frequent/ In Welsh English, question tags are emphasized by a swell-tone (rise-fall patern) on the tag, which makes it more definite or emphatic.

Stylistic use of intonation

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