The Syllable as a Phonetic and Phonological Unit

The Accentual Structure of English Words.

· The syllable as a phonetic unit.

· The syllable as a phonological unit.

· The syllabic structure of English words.

· Word and utterance stress.

The smallest pronunciation (articulatory) units, into which the speech continuum is divided, are called syllables. The notion of the syllable in modern phonetics is the problem of syllable formation, syllable division, and the phonological status of the syllable. The phonetic aspect of the syllable is characterized by the following features: the peak of the syllable has a higher intensity than its marginal consonants and perceptually, it is louder and higher in pitch. Due to these features the syllable as a phonetic unit may be defined as a peak of articulatory effort.

Like the phoneme the syllable is an abstraction which is realized in speech in phonetically definite units. In each language there is a limited number of syllable structures. As a linguistic unit the syllable performs the following functions: constitutive, distinctive and identificatory.

The syllabic structure in English has certain features that distinguish it from other languages. Syllabic sounds in English are not only vowels but also sonants. The following types of syllables are distinguished depending on the position of the vowel and that of the consonants:

• open syllables

• closed syllables

• covered syllables

• uncovered syllables

The fundamental syllabic type in English is the closed syllable.

The auditory impression of stress is that of prominence. There may be one prominent syllables in a word, there may be two equally prominent syllables or more, two unequally prominent syllables. This correlation of degrees of prominence of the syllables in a word forms the stress pattern of the word, which is called the accentual structure of a word. Word stress belongs to the word when said in isolation. Whereas utterance stress belongs to the utterance. The placement of utterance stress is primarily conditioned by the situation and linguistic contexts, by the speakers’ intentions to bring out words semantically important. The stress pattern of a word is also conditioned by pronunciation tendencies and the norm of a language.

A stressed syllable is a syllable that that has special prominence. The effect of prominence may be produced by a greater degree of loudness, greater length of the stressed syllable, some modifications in its pitch and quality. Thus prominence is created by an interaction of four acoustic features: loudness, pitch, length, quality. English word stress is of a complex nature and manifests itself in various ways.

Intonation and Prosody.

1. The Prosodic system of a language and its unites:

• the syllable

• the rhythmic unit

• the intonation group

• the utterance

2. The prosodic subsystem of a language:

• pitch

• utterance stress

• rhythm

• tempo

• pauses

3. The functional aspect of prosody with reference to its functions performed in speech:

• constitutive

• distinctive

• identificatory (recognitive)

Intonation is defined as a complex unity of speech melody, sentence stress, tempo, rhythm and voice timbre, which enables the speaker to express his thoughts, emotions and attitudes towards the content of the utterance and the hearer. Speech melody, sentence stress, tempo, rhythm and timbre are all components of intonation. Phoneticians abroad define intonation as the variation of the pitch of the voice, thus reducing it to one component – speech melody. This is a narrow approach to the definition of intonation.

The notion of prosody is broader than the notion of intonation as it can be applied to the utterance, the word, the syllable.

The syllable is widely recognized to be the smallest prosodic unit. A rhythmic, or accentual, unit (group) is either one stressed syllable or a stressed syllable with a number of unstressed ones grouped around it. The intonation group is hierarchically higher than the rhythmic unit. Structurally the intonation group has some obligatory formal characteristics. These are the nuclear stress on the semantically most important word and the terminal tone. The boundaries between intonation groups are marked by tonal junctures and pauses. The structure of the intonation group varies depending on the number of syllables and rhythmic units in it.

A higher unit in which prosodic features are actualized is the utterance. The utterance is the main communicative unit. It is characterized by semantic entity which is expressed by all the language means. The prosodic structure of an utterance is a meaningful unit that contributes to the total meaning of this utterance.

Pitch, one of the prosodic subsystems, or speech melody is the variations in the pitch of the voice which take place with voiced sounds. To describe the melody of an utterance it is necessary to determine the relevant pitch levels, pitch ranges, directions and rate of pitch movement in the terminal zone and pre-terminal part of each of its intonation groups.

Words grouped into an utterance are not all equally important. Depending on the context or the communication situation some words appear to contribute more information than others. Those that are semantically more important are made prominent. The special prominence given to one or more words in an utterance is called utterance stress. The means, with the help of which the special prominence is achieved and the effect of stress is produced, are variations of pitch, loudness, length and quality.

English is considered to be mostly a language with stress-timed rhythm. Stress-timed rhythm presupposes that utterance stress serves as a basis for the rhythmic organization of speech and that stresses segment the speech continuum into units of more or less equal length.

The tempo of speech is the rate at which utterances and their smaller units are pronounced. Phoneticians generally distinguish normal tempo and two departures from the norm: fast and slow.

The speech continuum is divided into units of different length and hierarchy by means of pauses. It is the main function of a pause to segment connected speech into utterances and intonation groups to delimit one utterance or intonation group from another. Phoneticians distinguish three main types of pauses: silent pauses, pauses of perception and voiced (or filled) pauses.

Rhythm and Speech Melody.

· Pitch levels, pitch ranges, rate of pitch movement.

· The terminal tone of an utterance.

· The structure of an intonation group.

· Rhythm.

The pitch level of the utterance (or the intonation group) is determined by the pitch of its highest-pitched syllable. It shows the degree of semantic importance in comparison with any other utterance, and also conveys the speaker’s attitudes and emotions. In unemphatic speech most phoneticians distinguish three pitch levels: low, mid and high.

The pitch range of an utterance is the interval between its highest-pitched syllable and its lowest-pitched syllable. According to circumstances the speaker changes his voice range. It may be widened and narrowed to express emphasis or the speaker’s attitudes and emotions.

The rate of pitch variations may be different depending on the time during which these variations take place, and on the range of the variations. Differences in the rate of pitch variations are semantically important. When the rate of the fall is fast, the falling tone sounds more categoric and definite than when the rate of the fall is slow.

The most important from the functional point of view is the terminal tone of an utterance. The peculiarity of the terminal tone in English is that it may occur not only on the “nucleus” but may be extended to the tail. The pitch of the tail depends on the kind of a terminal tone. It conveys certain meanings of its own which make the whole utterance more concrete and precise. The meanings of the falling tone are definiteness, incompleteness, non-finality, uncertainty, tentativeness. The falling-rising tone carries the meaning of reservation, implication, contrast.

The elements of the intonation group are the prehead, the head, the nucleus and the tail. The prehead is normally pronounced on the low or mid pitch level. The head is viewed as one melodic shape, one part of the pitch contour of the utterance. It acts as a unit independent of the nucleus. The functions of the head are to express relations between its constituent units. The fallowing types of head are distinguished: the descending head, the level head, the ascending head. The functional analysis of speech melody shows that the leading role in differentiating communicative types of utterances belongs to the terminal tone. That is why the communicative-distinctive function of speech melody is widely recognized. The distinctive function of intonation also manifests itself in other particular functions, e.g. the modal-stylistic (attitudinal) function.

Rhythm has been defined as regularity or periodicity in the occurrence of a particular phenomenon in an utterance. In some languages the recurring phenomena are stressed, in others – syllables. English is considered to be mostly a language with stressed-timed rhythm. The stressed syllable is the nucleus of the rhythmic unit. There are as many rhythmic units in an utterance as there are stressed syllables in it. The rhythmic group is also characterized by a pitch pattern and duration pattern. These prosodic characteristics make it possible to perceive the rhythmic unit as an actual discrete unit of prosody.