Lecture 1 Phonetics as a Linguistic Science Plan

3. Rhythmic Group and Intonation Group

Concrete realizations of speech prosody and its systematic nature can be described adequately in terms of the syllable, the rhythmic (or accent) group, the intonation group and the utterance.

The syllable is the smallest prosodic unit. It has no meaning of its own, but it is significant for constituting higher prosodic units. Prosodic features of the syllable (pitch, loudness, duration) depend on its position and function in the higher-level units.

A rhythmic group (or an accent unit) is either one stressed syllabic or a stressed syllabic with a number of unstressed ones grouped around it.

The stressed syllable is the nucleus of the rhythmic group. There are as many rhythmic groups in an utterance as there are stressed syllables in it. The unstressed syllables are clitics. Those precedings the stressed syllable are called proclitics, and those following it – enclitics. The syllables of a word always belong to one rhythmic group. Form words may be both proclitics and enclitics, depending on their semantic and syntactic relations with the notional words preceding and following them. Rhythmic groups are actual perceptible units, capable of being isolated out of an utterance due to the meanings, expressed by their prosody. These may be the meanings of assertiveness, separateness, newness (when the pitch falls within the stressed syllable or within the enclitics or within both) as in the first rhythmic group of the following utterance:

But `nobody `knew abut it.

the meanings of connectedness and incompleteness (when the pitch rises within the stressed syllable, or the pitch of the stressed syllable is higher then that of the proclitics) as in the second and the first rhythmic groups of the utterance:

The `warmer they are the `better.

The intonation group is higher than the rhythmic group. It has also been termed “syntagm”, “sense-group”, “breath-group”, “divisible accent unit”, “tone-group”, “tune”, “tore-unit”.
4. Syntagm Theory

The term “syntagm” has a drawback: it suggests only syntactic relationship of a group of words. Moreover, the term “syntagm” is often used by many well-known linguists with two different meanings which have nothing to do with the prosodic unit under consideration.

Baunduin de Cournetay applied the term “syntagm” for a word used in a sentence in contradistinction to a word taken as a lexical unit (“a lexeme”).

Sausure used this term to mean two or more linguistic elements joined together: two successive morphemes or two elements of a compound word or a noun with an attribute.

Scherba’s syntagm theory is based on the syntactic, semantic and phonetic relations of words in an utterance. Scherba defined the syntagm in the following way: “The phonetic entity, which expresses a semantic entity in the process of speaking (and thinking), and which may consist either of one rhythmical group or of a number of such groups is what I call a syntagm.”

The term “sense-group” calls attention to the fact that it is a group of words that make sense when put together. But it doesn’t indicate its intonational character. 98

The term “breath-group” emphasizes the physiological aspect of the syntagm, which is uttered with a single breath. A breath-group usually coincides with a syntagm because pauses for breath are normally made at points where pauses are necessary or possible from the point of view of meaning.

But a pause for breath may be made after two or more syntagm are uttered, so a breath-group may not coincide with a syntagm.

To be consistent in the use of the criterion of accentual division, the term “divisible accent unit” is preferable. The divisible accent unit may consist of several rhythmic groups, which are indivisible accent units. The terms “tone-group”, “tune”, “tone-unit” also emphasize the role of just one (pitch) component of prosody for the formation of the unit. In our opinion, the term “intonation group” better reflects the essence of this unit. It shows that the intonation group is the result of the division in which not only stresses, but pitch and duration play a role. It also shows that intonation group is meaningful unit. The most general meanings expressed by the intonation group are, for instance, those of completeness, finality versus incompleteness, non-finality.

Structurally the intonation group has some obligatory characteristics. These are the nuclear stress, on the semantically most important word, and the terminal tone i.e. pitch variations on the nucleus (and the tail if any). They shape the intonation group, delimit one intonation group from another and show its relative semantic importance.

The length of an intonation group may vary. The minimal intonation group is represented by a rhythmic group and potentially may be reduced to a syllable.

5. Elements of an Intonation Group

The stressed and unstressed syllables of an intonation group perform different functions. Palmer was the first to single out consecutive elements of the intonation group (“tone-group”) which differ in their functions. These elements are “pre-head”, “head”, “nucleus”, and “tail”.

The number of functional elements distinguished by different phoneticians is not the same. Thus, Palmer, O’Connor and Arnold distinguish two elements in the per-nuclear part of the utterance – the pre-head (unstressed syllables, preceding the first stressed one) and the head (the first stressed syllable and the following stressed and unstressed ones). The notion of “head” in this sense coincides with the notion of “scale”, used by Russian phoneticians, e.g. Torsuyev, Tyrakhterov, Vassilyev, Antipova and others.

Kingdon uses the term “head” to mean only the first stressed syllable, which he considers to be independent functional element. The stressed and unstressed syllables following the head, form another functional element – the body.

The functional role of the pre-head of an utterance has been proved. It bears distinctively significant pitch variation. The high pre-head is opposed to the low or mid pre-head for differentiating attitudinal meanings.

But whether the first stressed syllables of an utterance plays a functional role or not is a moot point. Auditory observations and the analysis of acoustic data show that pitch characteristics attributed to the first stressed syllable are actually characteristics of the unstressed syllables following it (part of the body). Eth Rising Head, for instance, is frequently characterized as such due to the higher pitch of the following unstressed syllables.

The first stressed syllables and the following ones seem to function as one whole, the first stressed syllable being the one which determines the pitch variations of the intonation group.

It is also disputable that the tail is an independent functional element of the intonation group, since its pitch variations are determined by the nuclear tone.

The “pre-head”, “head” and “tail” are non-obligatory element of an intonation group, whereas the nucleaus is an obligatory and the important functional element.

Thus, the intonation group can be divided in two different ways: 1) into rhythmic groups and stllabic which arearchically related (the latter being an element of the former) or 2) into functional elements which are autonomous prosodic units.

Further experimental investigations are needed to study prosodic features of all theses units and to determine their correlation and their functional significance.

The largest prosodic unit is the utterance, which is characterized by its definite acoustic and auditory structure. It is the main communicative unit. One and the same intonation pattern of an utterance may be imposed on any syntactical structure of a senetnce. The term “sentence” may denote 1) a synactical unit only. A formal grammatical structure, and 2) a ssintactical and phonetic unit together.

The utterance is an actualized sentence (a formal grammatical structure which is uttered), or it is the phonetic aspect of the sentence in the broad sense.

An utterance may consis of one or more intonation groups.

The structure of an utterance is determined by its thought content and its modality, and also by the number of stressed and unstressed syllables in it.

The meaning of an utterance is to a great extent determined by its prosodic characteristics, or intonation.