Final questions on theoretical phonetics of English for 3rd

Final questions on theoretical phonetics of English for 3^rd year students of 2021-2022 academic year
Name: Jalilov. Sh Group:XTAK-1908
Variant 4

1. 
   Components of intonation. The functions of intonations (1 point)
   
2. 
   The Moscow phonological school (1 point)
   
3. 
   What does the term “phonetics” mean? (1 point)
   
4. 
   The phonostylistic features of intonation (1 point)
   
5. 
   Accentual structure of English words (1 point)
   

Answer
1. COMPONENTS OF INTONATION .The components of intonation can be viewed on the acoustic level. Each of them has its own acoustic correlate and can be objectively measured. Pitch correlates with frequency of the vibrations of the vocal cords, loudness correlates with intensity, tempo correlates with time (duration) during which a speech unit lasts. Pitch is usually described as a system of tones (fall, rise, fall-rise and so on), pitch levels (keys, registers), which can be high, medium and low, and pitch ranges (intervals between the highest and the lowest pitched syllables), which can be wide, nomal and narrow. Pitch performs the constitutive funetion within a sentence. It manifests itself in the fact that each syllable in a sentence has certain pitch and cannot exist without it. Simultaneously pitch performs the delimitative function both within a sentence and at its end. Within a sentence it consists in delimiting from each other its portions, which are known as sense- groups or intonation groups or syntagms. Variations of pitch at the end of a sentence delimit it from the following sentence. Loudness is described as normal, increased or low. Tempo includes rate of speech and pausation. The rate of speech can be normal, slow and fast. The parts of the utterance which are particularly important are usually pronounced at a slow rate, while in less important parts the rate of speech tends to be faster. Any stretch of speech can be split into smaller segments by means of pauses. A pause is a complete stop of phonation. Pauses are classified according to their length, their position in the utterance and their function. In teaching English intonation, it is sufficient to distinguish the following types of pauses: short pauses which may be used to separate intonation groups within a phrase; - longer pauses which normally manifest the end of the phrase; - very long pauses which are used to separate bigger phonetie units. Pauses made between two sentences are obligatory. They are longer than pauses between sense-groups and are marked by two parallel bars (I). Pauses made between sense- groups are shorter than pauses made between sentences. They are marked by one bar (1). Pauses are usually divided into filled and unfilled, coresponding to voiced and silent pauses Functionally there may be distinguished syntactic pauses (which separate phonopassages, phrases, intonation groups), emphatic pauses (which serve to make some parts of the utterance especially prominent) and hesitation pauses (which are mainly used in pontaneous speech to gain some time to think over what to say next).
The function of intonation. Intonation is an important means of human communication. On the functional level intonation is studied as the list of its linguistic functions and the ways of their differentiation. One of the most developed classifications in foreign linguisties presented by D.Crystal, who distinguishes the following functions intonation: the emotional function, which serves to express attitudinal mean- ing (interest, impatience, delight, irony, shock, anger, etc.); the grammatical function, which helps to identify certain gram- matical structures in oral specch (statement, question, exclama- tion, command); the informational function, which draws the listener's attention the new information in an utterance with the help of the most prominent tone; the textual function, which helps to contrast and organize mean- ingful units larger than the sentence; the psychological function, which splits stretches of speech into units that are easier to perceive and memorize; the indexical function, which serves an important marker of per- sonal or social identity with the help of distinctive prosodic fea- tures. Russian linguists consider the functional aspect of intonation in a dif- ferent way. Intonation is treated as a complex phenomenon with a ge- neral function of communication. This communicative function of into- nation is realized in the process of speech communication and serves: - to structure the information content of a text and identify new information; to determine the speech function of a phrase and indicate sentence types; to convey attitudinal meaning (surprise, annoyance, etc.); to structure a text and organize smaller units (phrases, intonation groups); to differentiate between the meaning of the units with the same grammatical structure and lexical composition; to characterize a particular style of oral speech. For the purposes of language teaching Russian phoneticians (M.A. So- kolova, K.P. Gintovt, and others) define the following two main func- tions of intonation as a powerful means of communication: the constitu- tive and the distinctive ones. The constitutive function characterizes intonation as an organizing mechanism. On the one hand, it delimitates texts into intonation groups with a certain structure; on the other hand, it integrates intonation groups when forming a complete text. A broad classification of intonation patterns, different and specific in their nature, is singled out in every language. Their material realization helps the speaker to construct the utterance and enables the listener to perceive it. 2. The distinctive function of intonation helps to distinguish commu- nicative types of sentences, the actual meaning of a sentence, the speaker's attitude to its contents and the style of the utterance.

2. The Moscow phonological school The representatives of the Moscow phonological school based their definition of a phoneme on the concept of the morpheme. A.A. Reformatsky gave the following definition of the phoneme: «Phonemes are minimal units of the sound structure of a language, serving to form and differentiate meaningful units: morphemes and words»2. Phonemes are meaningless units of a language but they are capable of distinguishing meaningful units as their sequences may form morphemes and words. For example, pit - lit, but - bet etc.Analysing the sound changes in the morphemic structure of a language, it is possible to establish two different positions: stressed and unstressed. In a stressed position phonemes can preserve their phonetic characteristics, while in an unstressed position they change their articulatory and acoustic features. This fact is very important in the phonetic analysis of Russian vowels. In the Russian word вода (vad' дJ there are two variants or allophones of the phoneme /л/: stressed and unstressed, which are different as to their quantitative feature because usually stressed

vowels are longer than unstressed ones. But if we take the wordforms воды /vodi/, водный /vodnij/, водяной /va djanoj/ in the morpheme вод we can distinguish the sound alternations /л' - о - э/. In such cases R. I. Avanesov proposes to define each member of alternations /л' - о - э/ as variants of one phoneme /о/. Likewise in the words вода /vacL\V, вод /vot/, воде /vAde/ the consonants /t/ and /d/ may also be interpreted as variants of the phoneme /d/, but the members of alternations /d — t — d '/ may be considered as the realizations of one phoneme. In all these cases the relationship between the notions of phoneme and morpheme becomes very important. In such alternations, which depend on their position in morphemes or words, and there are no distinctive functions between the members of alternations, it is possible to
use the term phonemic line («фонемный ряд»). According to R.I. Avanesov a phoneme is an element of a wordform and «pho­nemic line» is an element of a morpheme1. There are some differences in the phonemic solutions of the representatives of this school. A.A. Reformatsky did not use the term «phonemic line». Thanks to the perceptual and significative functions, he divided the stressed and unstressed positions into the following types: perceptually the stressed position is that where a phoneme is represented in its basic form independent of its position; as to the unstressed position, where under the influence of positions, a phoneme is represented in its variations. For example, in the words мал - мял and мил - мыл we can observe pairs of vowels Ы - /ае/ and /и/ - /ы/. In the first pair the basic form of the phoneme is /а/, while /ае/ is variation, likewise in the second pair /и/ is the basic form of the phoneme, while /ы/ is its variation.Phonemes organize different phonological oppositions, resulting in their significant functions. In a stressed position phonemic oppositions may be preserved, while in an unstressed position they are neutralized. Usually neutralization is the result of coincidence of two phonemes which are differentiated by one feature. For example, in words плод and плот, луг and лукvoiced consonants become voiceless at the end of words. The Moscow phonologists suggested the term «hyperphoneme» which is defined as a unit which appears in the position of neutralization of a group of phonemes. For example, in Russian neutralization may take place in unstressed syllables where the vowels /а/, /о/, /i/, /e/, /u/ can be distinguished from each other; in this case they are not phonemes but hyperphonemes /а/ о, i /е/ and Inf1. The unit hyperphoneme as presented by the Moscow phonologists does not coincide with the «archiphoneme» unit suggested by the Prague phonological school. The latter is understood as a unit, when two phonemes, distinguished only by one feature, for example, voiced- voiceless consonants /p - b/, /t — d/ etc., may coincide with their feature in the position of neutralization: луг - лук, пруд - прут.In such cases archiphonemes /р/b and t/d/ may appear in Russian.Phonemes and their distinctive features differ. A phoneme is a sum of distinctive features. Distinctive sounds, i.e. phonemes and distinctive features are considered to be two levels of the phono-logical structure of a language. The level of distinctive features is called «merismatic level». One of the fundamental notions of phonology is that of position, which creates conditions for the realization of phonemes in speech. Positions may depend not only on the phonetic context but also on the morphological conditions. For example, in joining basic and affixal morphemes some sound combinations become an affricate: штатский, шведский where /тс/ and /дс/ form the affricate luj.Some Moscow phonologists, especially, A. A. Reformatsky gave a classification of phonological oppositions and presented a new approach to the problem of neutralization. It should be stated that their theory is commonly applied to the description of Russian phonemes; it was also fruitful in the analysis of the phonological systems of other languages.

3 What does the term “phonetics” mean? Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs: their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory perception, and neurophysiological status. Phonology, on the other hand, is concerned with the abstract, grammatical characterization of systems of sounds or signs. The field of phonetics is a multiple layered subject of linguistics that focuses on speech. In the case of oral languages there are three basic areas of study: Articulatory phonetics: the study of the production of speech sounds by the articulatory and vocal tract by the speaker .Acoustic phonetics: the study of the physical transmission of speech sounds from the speaker to the listener Auditory phonetics: the study of the reception and perception of speech sounds by the listener These areas are inter-connected through the common mechanism of sound, such as wavelength, amplitude, and harmonics.

4The phonostylistic features of intonation Phonostylistic is concerned with the study of phonetic phenomena and processes from the stylistic point of view. It cropped up as a result of a certain amount of functional overlap between phonetics and stylistics.Intonation plays a central role in stylistic differentiation of oral texts. Stylistically explicable deviations from intonational norms reveal conventional patterns differing from language to language.The uses of intonation show that the information so conveyed is, in many cases, impossible to separate from lexical and grammatical meanings expressed by words and constructions in a language (verbal context) and from the co-occurring situational information (non-verbal context). The meaning of intonation cannot be judged in isolation. However, intonation does not usually correlate in any neat one-for-one way with the verbal context accompanying and the situational variables in an extra-linguistic context. Moreover, the perceived contrast with the intonation of the previous utterance seems to be relevant.
One of the objectives of phonostylistics is the study of intonational functional styles. There are 5 style categories:

1. informational (formal) style;

2. scientific (academic) style;

3. declamatory style;

4. publicistic style;

5. familiar (conversational) style

Informational (formal) style is characterised by the predominant use of intellectual intonation patterns. It occurs in formal discourse where the task set by the sender of the message is to communicate information without giving it any emotional or volitional evaluation. This intonational style is used, for instance, by radio and television announcers when reading weather forecasts, news, etc. or in various official situations. It is considered to be stylistically neutral.

In scientific (academic) style intellectual and volitional (or desiderative) intonation patterns are concurrently employed. The speaker's purpose here is not only to prove a hypothesis, to create new concepts, to disclose relations between different phenomena, etc., but also to direct the listener's attention to the message carried in the semantic component. Although this style tends to be objective and precise, it is not entirely unemotional and devoid of any individuality. Scientific intonational style is frequently used, for example, by university lecturers, schoolteachers, or by scientists in formal and informal discussions.

In declamatory style the emotional role of intonation increases, thereby intonation patterns used for intellectual, volitional and emotional purposes have an equal share. The speaker's aim is to appeal simultaneously to the mind, the will and feelings of the listener by image-bearing devices. Declamatory style is generally acquired by special training and it is used, for instance, in stage speech, classroom recitation, verse-speaking or in reading aloud fiction.Publicistic style is characterized by predominance of volitional (or desiderative) intonation patterns against the background of intellectual and emotional ones. The general aim of this intonational style is to exert influence on the listener, to convince him that the speaker's interpretation is the only correct one and to cause him to accept the point of view expressed in the speech. The task is accomplished not merely through logical argumentation but through persuasion and emotional appeal. For this reason publicistic style has features in common with scientific style, on the one hand, and declamatory style, on the other. As distinct from the latter its persuasive and emotional appeal is achieved not by the use of imagery but in a more direct manner. Publicistic style is made resort to by political speech-makers, radio and television commentators, participants of press conferences and interviews, counsel and judges in courts of law, etc.The usage of familiar (conversational) style is typical of the English of everyday life. It occurs both within a family group and in informal external relationships, namely, in the speech of intimate friends or well-acquainted people. In such cases it is the emotional reaction to a situational or verbal stimulus that matters, thereby the attitude- and emotion-signalling function of intonation here comes to the fore. Nevertheless intellectual and volitional intonation patterns also have a part to play. In informal fluent discourse there are examples of utterance where the effect of intellectual intonation is neutralized.

5Accentual structure of English words.

The sequence of syllables in the word is not pronounced identically. One or more syllablea in a polysyllabic word have greater prominence than the others. Such syllables are said to be accented or stressed.
Stress is defined differently by different authors. B.A. Bogoroditsky, for instance, defined stress as an increase of energy, accompanied by an increase of expiratory and articulatory activity. D. Jones defined stress as the degree of force, which is accompanied by a strong force of exhalation and gives an impression of loudness. H. Sweet also stated that stress, is connected with the force of breath.
In English any of all four factors – loudness (force), pitch, sound quantity (length), sound quality – may render a syllable more prominent that the others in a word. In similar phonetic contexts a vowel is perceived as a more prominent one if it is louder, longer and more distinct (even vowels of full formation in the unstressed position are not so distinct as their stressed counterparts). The pitch component of word stress manifests itself in the fact that the stressed syllable is always that on which there is a potential change of pitch, though the stressed syllable is not necesseraly higher than the unstressed one – the type of tone direction is not significant.
In comparison with Russian. We never pronounce vowels with full formation and length in unstressed positions, they are always reduced. The quantitative component is of greater importance in Russian than in English.
European languages, such as English, German, French, Russian possess predominantly dynamic word stress. It means that the sressed syllbles are pronounced with greater force and greater muscularenergy is produced by the speaker. There is another type of word stress called musical. It implies difference in tones. In Scandinavian languages the word stress is considered to be both dynamic and musical (or tonic). The musical word stress is observed in Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese. It’s affected by the variations of voice pitch in relation to neighbouring syllables. There are tow more type of stress: quantitative (special prominence in a stressed syllable is achieved through the changes in the quantity of the sressed vowel – it becomes longer) and qualitative (the quality of the vowel under stress in changed).The accentual types are:

1. ['___]. This accentual type marks both simple and compound words. The accentual structures of this type may include two and more syllables, e.g. 'fafher, 'possibly, 'mother-in-law, 'gas-pipe.

2. [ '_ '_ ]. The accentual type is commonly realized in compound words, most of them are with separable prefixes, e.g. 'radio-'active, 're'write, 'diso'bey.
3. [ '_ ' _ '_ ] and 4. ['_ ' _ '_ '_]. The accentual types are met in initial compound abbreviations like 'U'S'A, 'U'S'S'R.
5. ['_ ,_ _ ]. The type is realized both in simple and compound words, very
common among compound words, e.g. 'hair-,dresser, 'substructure.
6. [, _ '_ _ ]. The accentual type marks a great number of simple words and some compound words as well. In simple words the stresses fall onto:

1. the prefix and the root: maga'zine;

2. the root and the suffix: ,hospi'tality;

3. the prefix and the suffix: disorganization.

The other five types are rare and found in small number of words.

7.[‘_ ,_ ‘_ _ ] – simple words with the separate prefixes: misrepresent.

8. [,_ ,_ ‘_ _ ] – individualization.

9. [‘_ ‘_ ,_ _ ] – compound words with separable prefixes: unseaworthy

10. [‘_ _ ,_ ,_ ] – simple and compound words: soda-water, bottle.

11. [,_ ‘_ ,_ ] – rare cases of compound words consisting of three components: gignerbeer-bottle.

The data given above suggest an idea of the great variability in the accentual structure of English words. The most widely spread among the enumerated accentual types are supposed to be Type 1, Type 2, Type 5 and Type 6. Each type includes varieties of definite accentual structures with different numbers of syllables and marks thousands of words. So the four of them cover the main bulk of most common English words and are therefore most typical for the English vocabulary.

The variability of the word accentual structure is multiplied in connected speech. The accentual structure of words may be altered under the influence of rhythm, e.g. An 'unpolished 'stone but: The 'stone was un'polished.

The tempo of speech may influence the accentual pattern of words. With the quickening of the speed the carefulness of articulation is diminished, the vowels are reduced or elided, the secondary stress may be dropped, e.g. The 'whole organi'zation of the 'meeting was 'faulty

Head of the department M. Itolmasov