Ўзбекистон давлат жаҳон тиллари университети

e.g. He asked me to do it. or He asked me to do it.

You better do it . or

The same type of falling intonation contour characterizes the so-called General Questions in GA.

Did he ask you to do it? ―Rising‖ tunes that rise from a low pitch level and end on a high pitch level occur with some General Questions, especially in situations where a very polite form is desirable.

e.g. Do you know him?

W ill you be ready at seven?

Such intonation contours used in GA unemphatic questions are generally perceived by RP speakers in Britain as implying surprise or disappointment. On the other hand, the RP General Questions (pronounced with a Descending Scale ending with a Rise) are considered by the American to sound pretentious.

Though the so-called Special Questions are pronounced with a falling tone in both RP and GA, the difference lies in the pronunciation of the Scale. If in RP it is usually the Descending Scale (e.g. ˈWhy ˈhaven‘t you `told me aˌbout it?), in GA the whole utterance is generally pronounced on a level tone.

e.g. Why haven’t you told me about it? or

Why haven’t you told me about it?

Such questions sound dispassionate and disrespectful to an RP speaker.

The RP Special Question pronounced with a rising tone (polite question) are perceived by the Americans as questions implying curiosity.

To end a sentence with a high-pitched fall-rise (which differs from the RP fall-rise) is another frequent intonational characteristic in GA.

e.g. Can you do it? We ˌcertainly ˅can.

We ˌhappened to be ˅passing by.

On account of the fact that the features which distinguish AE from the

British English are numerous, some linguists claim that AE can no more be

considered a variant of the English language. H. L. Mencken, for instance, wrote that ―the American form of the English language was plainly departing from the parent stem, and it seemed at least likely that the differences between American and English would go on increasing‖.

But most of the linguists express the opposite point of view. Prof. Shveitser, a Russian linguist who has made a thorough study of AE, has proved that the distinctions between AE and BE do not affect the inventory of the main language units which are common to both variants of the English language: AE and BE.

2. The Pronunciation of English in Other Countries