Intonation in the English and Kyrgyz languages

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Intonation in the English and Kyrgyz languages

Through the simultaneous functioning of its components intonation in English and Kyrgyz as a whole unifies words in sense-groups and sentences thus giving the letters final shape, or form, without which a sentence can not exist. Intonation differentiates communicative types of the sentences and the degrees of the semantic importance of sense-group within them. Finally it enables the speaker to express not only his thoughts but also his attitude to what he is saying, his static of mind and emotions. Thus, we see that intonation as a whole plays an extremely important role in speech.

The sentence-distinctive function of intonation is performed not only by one of its components, but by a combination of all of them. This proves the fact that intonation cannot be reduced to only one its components, e. g., to pitch variation alone. The super segmental characteristics of a sentence are closely connected interrelated and interdependent in expressing its intellectual, emotional and attitudinal (modal) content that it is incorrect to reduce intonation to one of these characteristics, e.g. to pitch variations alone, as some linguists do. It follows from what has been said about intonation in the foregoing paragraphs that a complete definition of a sentence intonation must include reference to:

a) all the super segmental characteristics of the sentence;

b) its proper grammatical structure;

c) its proper lexical composition and the function of intonation.

In accordance with these requirements the following definition may be suggested, which reflects the point of view held by the majority of Russian and Kyrgyz linguists.

On the perceptual level, sentence intonation is a complex unity of four components, formed by communicatively relevant variations in: voice pitch, or speech melody; the prominence of words, or their accent; the tempo (rate), rhythm and pause of the utterance, and voice-timber, this complex unity serves to express adequately, on the basis of the proper grammatical structure and lexical composition of the sentence, the speaker's or writer's thoughts, emotions, feelings and attitudes towards reality and the contents of the sentence. This definition of a sentence intonation differs radically from the one given by the overwhelming majority of foreign linguists, as it has already been mentioned; reduce intonation to only one of its components, variations on voice pitch.

Thus, the English phonetician D. Jones wrote «Intonation may be defined as the variations which take place in the pitch of voice in connected speech, i. e. variations in the pitch of the musical note produced by the variation of the vocal cords». [9] Regarding intonation as «quite a different thing from stress» D. Jones had, nevertheless, to admit that «there are, however, important relations between intonation and stress in English, as indeed in all «stress» languages. Foreign and other well known phoneticians as L. Armstrong and I. Ward and others defined intonation as follows: «By intonation, we mean the rise and fall of the pitch of the voice when we speak».

They also pointed out the inseparable connection between what they defined as intonation and stress: «In addition to stress, other elements to make a word more prominent than its neighbours, the chief changed in pitch, or intonation. These two elements, stress and intonation are closely connected. So close is that the connection, indeed, that is often difficult to decide whether stress or intonation or a combination of the two is responsible for certain effect».

A.C. Gimson also interprets intonation as «variation of pitch», «rises and falls in pitch level», emphasizing the fact that «various degrees of accentuation in an utterance may be signaled by means of intonation».

The American descriptivists also speak of «stress and intonation», from which it follows that they do not consider stress as a component of intonation, although they, too, regard both as closely connected with each other.

However, some foreign linguists in their latest works are beginning to define sentence intonation also as something more than just variations of pitch.

Thus, L.S. Hultzen in his article «Grammatical intonation» published in 1964 in the collection of papers in Honor of Danial Jones wrote: «I use the term intonation in somewhat different way from that in which it is often used» [9]. An intonation is a pattern of accent; an accent is a composite of relative pitch, loudness (stress in some systems), and «length» since those who equate intonation with pitch variations recognize at the same time, openly or implicitly, the letters' inseparable connection with the other super segmental characteristics of the sentence, the two definitions of the sentence intonation differ mainly terminologically. They can be easily reconciled in one of the following three ways:

(1) By using and qualifying each time, the use of the term intonation both in the narrow sense (pitch variations, speech melody) and in the broad sense (a complex unity of the four components).

(2) By giving up the use of the term in the narrow sense altogether and replacing it by such terms as speech melody, the pitch (fundamental frequency) component of intonation.

(3) By adopting a special term to replace the term intonation in the sense as a complex of the four supersegmental units, i. e. prosodic, features of sentence, e. g. prosody. Russian and Kyrgyz linguists, including the author of the present work, have chosen the second way [1], [5].

Although the four components of intonation function all together, and none of them can be isolated or separated from the others in actual speech, it is possible to single out each component for purposes of analysis. Then it will be seen that an individual component of intonation, though inseparable from the others, performs a special function and thus is crucial in implementing this or that function of intonation as a whole, while the other of its components play a subordinate and auxiliary part in implementing this particular function. In general terms, intonation as a whole and at least some of its components perform the same three functions that are fulfilled by the other phonetic and phonological units of language constitutive, distinctive and identifactory (recognitive) - although each individual component of intonation performs these functions in its own way.

In analyzing the three functions of speech melody it is necessary to distinguish between the role of pitch variations within a sentence and their role at its end. The constitutive function of the pitch component of intonation through the whole of a sentence manifests itself in the fact of that teaching syllable in it (i.e. its voiced elements) has a certain pitch and cannot exist without it. Simultaneously, this constitutive function of pitch manifests itself in the delimitative function, both within a sentence and at its end. Within a sentence this delimitative function consists in delimiting from each other its portions which are variously known as sense-group, breath-group and intonation-group [4].

The term breath-group, it is employed by some linguists to denote a complete sentence that can conveniently be said with a single breath, or in the case of very long sentences, the longest portions that can conveniently be said with single breath.

A breath-group usually coincides with a sense-group because «pauses for breath are normally made at points where pauses necessary or allowable from the point of view of meaning.

However, two or even more potentially delimitable sense-groups or breath-groups may be pronounced together without being actually delimited from each other. Therefore, there are may be potential and actual sense-groups and potential sense-groups have no formal phonetic indicators of their boundaries.

An intonation group, on the other hand, is a unit in the actually realized division of a sentence into sense-groups. In other words, an intonation-group is an actualized sense-group. Variations of pitch at the end of a sentence delimit it from a following sentence. American descriptists use the term clause to denote both an actual sense-group within a sentence and a sentence representing a single sense-group.

Thus, H.A. Gleason writes that the term clause is used by him «to refer to a unit in the spoken language which is evident from the pronunciation only. It may frequently prove to be equivalent to a clause in a conventional grammatical sense, but it will often be different».

The delimitation of two adjacent actual sense-groups or sentences is effected principally by a change of pitch direction or pitch level. By delimiting a sense-group or sentence such a change of pitch gives them final shape, thus, completing the constitutive function of the pitch component of intonation.

A change of pitch at the junction of two sense-groups or sentences is called a terminal tone by Russian linguists and a clause terminal by American descriptivists. English, there is also the so-called even, or level, tone, which R. Kingdom calls static. In the case of this tone the delimination of sense-groups or sentence begins at a different (usually higher) pitch level.

All terminal tones perform their delimitative function in conjunction with other phonetic means of delimitation. The first of these is open, or plus, juncture, which always occurs between two actual sense-groups or sentences.

The second pause has different duration: a long pause always separates two sentences, while a short one may, but need not, occur between two sense-groups within a sentence.

Besides, kinetic and static terminal tones are inseparable connected with the other components of intonation. Their connection with the force component consists of in that and usually occur within the last stressed syllable of an intonation-group or sentence, e. g.: When they arrived at the railway station, they found that train had gone. - Когда они прибыли на станцию, они обнаружили, что поезд уже уехал. - Алар станцияга келгенде, поезд кетип калгандыгын билишти.

The last stressed syllable of a sense-group or sentence is often called their accentual nucleus; for this reason a tone associated with it is called a nuclear tone (by British phoneticians). Thus, the pitch prominence of a syllable bearing a nuclear tone is supported by the stress prominence of this syllable. The degree of stress itself often depends on the kind of nuclear tone used. For instance, the use of a falling-rising tone usually entails a very strong stress [6].

The use of this or that nuclear tone determines the duration of the nuclear syllable. A syllable containing a high fall is longer than one with a low fall, whereas a syllable with a falling-rising tone or a rising-falling-rising tone is much longer than one with any other nuclear tone.

Pitch is inevitably connected with voice-timbre, whose variations give different emotional colorings to a sentence. American descriptivists, e. g. H.A. Gleason distinguish clause terminals of three kinds:

/v/ fading: a rapid trailing away of the voice into silence. Both the pitch and volume decrease rapidly.

/^/ rising: a sudden, rapid, but short rise in the pitch. The volume does not trail off so noticeably, but seems to be comparatively sharply cut off.

/>/ sustained: a sustention of the pitch accompanied by prolongation of the last syllable of the clause and some diminishing of volume.

British phoneticians distinguish more terminal tones in English than their American colleagues do and use different graphical means of representing both these tones and intonation in general. In existing systems of representing intonation graphically only its pitch and force components can so far be indicated. These can be shown either by placing special signs on an interlined scale, or stave, between or beside the line of the text or by inserting tone and stress indicators on the line of text itself, which may be written or printed both in conventional spelling or in phonetic transcription. In representing intonation on the staves the special signs are used in different systems of phonetic transcription. The system introduced by T. Armstrong and I. Ward [13] most widely used in countries where Received Pronunciation is taught, including the former Soviet Union's republics among them Kyrgyzstan, a dash represents a stressed syllable pronounced with a static tone, a curve stressed syllable with a kinetic tone, and a small does for an unstressed syllable and so on.

In the system used by D. Jones, A.C. Jimson, J. O'Conner and G. Arnold, T.K. Ahmatov, J.K. Sydykov a stressed syllable having a kinetic tone by a large dot with a tail-like curve attached to it, and an unstressed syllable by a small dot.

In R. Kingdom's system wedge-like signs are used instead of dashes and curves.

R. Kingdom sees the following advantages and disadvantages of representing intonation on the staves [9], [2], [10].

Advantages. Pitch changes and stress can be shown with considerable accuracy.

Disadvantages. The exact correspondence between the pitch shown and the syllables of the text is not always easy to see at first glance. The drawing and filling-in of the staves is too slow a process for extensive use in class, while the staves occupy a lot of space. So prosody is distinctive alterations of pitch, intensity, duration, tempo, etc., the combination of which forms intonation in both languages like English. Study of this phenomenon is called prosodic.

References

english kyrgyz languages intonational

1. Arakin V.D. Comparative typology of the English and Russian languages. Leningrad, 1979.

2. Akhmatov T.K., Mukambayev Zh. Modern Kyrgyz language. Frunze, 1978.

3. Akhmatova O.S. Dictionary of linguistic terms. Moscow, 1966.

4. Akhmatov T.K. Sound system of the modern Kyrgyz literary language. Part I-II, Frunze, 1962, 1972.

5. Batmanov I.A. Modern Kyrgyz language. Frunze, 1963.

6. Vasilyev I.A., Burenkova O.V. Phonetic of English language. Moscow, 1973.

7. Dikushina I.O. Phonetics of English language (theory course). Leningrad, 1965.

8. Dusheev K. Intonation of a simple sentence in modern Kyrgyz language. Frunze, 1980.

9. Jones D. An outline of English phonetics. Cambridge, 1960.

10. Kingdom R. Intonation practice. London, 1960.

11. Connor D.O., Arnold Y.F. Intonation of colloquial English. London, 1961.

12. Palmer U.E. First course of English phonetics. Cambridge, 1967.

13. 13.I. Ward. Phonetics of English. Cambridge, 1968.

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