Report: English Phonology Lecturer: Evi Kasyulita, M.

Pd

INTONATION

Arranged by:

Devi Kurniawati (1832007)

Nurma Sari (1832023)

Siti Jumisa (1832027)

ENGLISH STUDY PROGRAM

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF PASIR PENGARAIAN

T.A 2019/2020
 PREFACE

Thank you for all the gods gave, so that he could complete a paper entitled “Intonation”
in a timely manner. We would like to thank all relevant parties who have provided assistance
in writing this paper.

Finally, we as authors realize that this paper still has many shortcomings, both in
writing and in content. Therefore, we apologize to the reader for these shortcomings, and we
sincerely expect suggestions, responses, and criticism from readers to serve as guidelines and
improvements in the future. We hope that this paper can benefit all for us. May God always
provide guidance and guide us.

Pasir pengaraian, September 6,2019

The writers
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the paper
1.2 Purpose of the paper

CHAPTER II
THEORY AND DISCUSION
2.1 What is intonation
2.2 Functions of intonation
3.3 The types of intonation
CHAPTER III
CONCUSION
REFERENCES
 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the paper

The term intonation implies variations of pitch, force of utterance and tempo. Variants
of pitch are produced by significant moves of the voice up and down. The force, component
of intonation, is measured by the degree of loudness of syllables that determines the
prominence of the words. The tempo is determined by the rate of speech and the length of
pauses.

Intonation is a complex unity of variations in pitch, stress, tempo and timbre.

1.The pitch component of intonation or melody is the changes in the pitch of the voice in
connected speech.

2. Sentence stress or accent is the greater prominence of one or more words among other
words in the same sentence.

3.Tempo is the relative speed with which sentences and intonation groups are pronounced in
connected speech.

There are other supra segmental features, besides stress, that govern appropriate
English pronunciation. You will certainly remember that these other features include
intonation, tone, and length. Due to its importance in native-like pronunciation, the supra
segmental feature 'intonation' will be explained here. 'Intonation' means when, why and how
a speaker chooses to raise, lower or sustain the pitch of her or his voice at particular points
while speaking. These choices are as much a part of the grammatical system of the language
as, say, using the correct auxiliary verb, or remembering when and where to place the person
markers (I, you, he/she ...) which tell us who is carrying out an action; who or what is acted
upon.

Intonation is very important to make the point that we are not interested in all aspects of
a speaker’s pitch, the only thing that should interest us are those which carry some linguistic
information.

This paper discusses about the definition of intonation, functions of intonation and the
types of intonation.
 CHAPTER II
THEORY AND DISCUSSION
2.1 What is intonation
Language conveys very specific information, such as how to get somewhere or what
someone is doing. It can be also used beyond the exact meaning of the words to indicate how
the speaker feels about what he is saying, or how he personally feels at that moment.
Generally speaking, if English is not first language, this is where the speaker start running
into difficulty. Even the speaker pronounces each word clearly, if the intonation patterns are
non-standard, the meaning will probably not be clear. Also, in terms of comprehension, the
speaker will lose a great deal of information if the audiences are listening for the actual words
used.

One of the most important tasks in analyzing intonation is listen the speaker’s pitch and
recognize what it is doing, this is not an easy thing to do, and it seems to be a quite different
skill from that acquired in studying segmental phonetics.

2.2 Functions of intonation

As you will have seen, intonation is a complex and difficult area, where much depends
on the correct interpretation of certain patterns, an interpretation which is often made more
difficult by the influence of specific segmental features, such as the absence of voicing in
consonants preceding a vowel, etc. Because of this complexity, we will only be able to cover
a relatively tiny part of what there is to know about the topic.

Pitch, F0 & Intonation. When we talk about intonation, we may actually refer to
different features, depending on whether we think in terms of production, perception or
systematic use as a structuring/cohesive device. On the one hand, we may mean the active
modulation of the speaker’s voice – or fundamental frequency (F0) to be more exact – caused
by changing the frequency of glottal pulses in the production of voiced sounds. This is strictly
on the acoustic, measurable, production side. On the other hand, we may be referring to the
simpression created in the hearer on the auditory side, which is usually referred to as pitch.
However, the term pitch is also often, perhaps confusingly, used to refer to fundamental
frequency, especially when we talk about the pitch range of a given speaker. And finally, on
the third level, we may be talking about a somewhat more abstract system of F0-or pitch
contours/patterns used to structure and emphasise particular bits of information. The latter
may be seen as an attempt to relate the two former levels to one another, despite the fact that
there are no absolutely clear physical correspondences between F0 and perceived pitch.

Functions of Intonation. Having seen how we can potentially identify relevant

boundaries, we can now proceed to look at the potential functions intonation can fulfil, and
list them briefly before discussing them in a little more depth further below. As we have
already seen in our discussion of stress, pitch movements (or their absence) are a very
important means of providing accentuation or de-accentuation. A further important role is the
signalling of different ‘sentence’ types, i.e. minimally to help us distinguish between
utterances of a stating as opposed to a querying nature, although this distinction is by no
means as obvious as some people make it out to be. We will certainly have to return to the
issue a little further below, when we talk about some default assumptions. A third use of
intonation is in the grouping of information. It helps us e.g. to indicate whether certain
chunks of information belong together (e.g. lists, certain types of relative clauses) or are to be
seen as asides or additional information, such as in parentheticals, relative clauses or
appositions. The final, but probably most often quoted, function is ‘attitudinal’ marking. This
encompasses the different ways of signalling the attitude of a particular speaker towards an
interlocutor. For example boredom/routine or tiredness on the part of the speaker are usually
said to be signalled by a level intonation, surprise by a
rise-fall, etc.

Units of Intonation. Since units of intonation are often also units of information, it is
perhaps not very surprising that they may to some extent coincide with syntactic phrases,
clauses or what we generally tend to perceive as ‘sentences’. These units are often referred to
as tone groups/units or intonation groups. Although their size may be rather variable and
include one or more of the syntactic categories named above, there are some criteria that may
help us to detect certain boundaries between them.

2.3 The types of intonation

In general, English uses six different forms of intonation patterns:

a) Falling Intonation

Falling intonation is characterized by a clear fall of the pitch after the stressed syllable
of the last content word towards the end of the sentence. In other words, the pitch will have to
fall after the stressed syllable of the last content word. Falling intonation is used in many
situations.

1. Statements

Statements are those sentences that provide information for the listener. They may be
either positive or negative. They may sometimes be imperative. All of these forms of
statements require falling intonation. For statements, you should stress the nouns and let the
tone fall at the end of the sentence.

2. WH-questions

WH-questions are those questions that ask for information by having the question word
(e.g., where, when, how, what, which, why, who, etc.) placed at the front of the sentence.
You have certainly noticed that the pitch falls for the questions that begin with WH-words
like where, when, etc. Take the following examples; hey! Where are you going? Which
temples should I visit?

3. Tag question

Tag questions are very small questions (usually in the form of auxiliary verbs followed
by subject) that come at the end of statements (often for politeness purposes). They can
receive either falling or rising intonation depending on the predictions the speaker can make.
When the speaker believes that the listener will confirm what he says, he will use falling
intonation; when, on the other hand, the speaker is not sure whether the listener will confirm
his position, he may prefer to use rising intonation. Rising intonation is often more polite.
Take the following examples: Jack will come over to lunch, won’t he? You come from
London, don’t you?

b) Rising Intonation

Rising intonation is characterized by a clear rise of the pitch after the stressed syllable of
the last content word of the sentence onwards. In other words, the pitch will have to rise after
the stressed syllable of the last content word. Rising intonation is used in:

1. yes-no questions

In English, yes-no questions are often differentiated from question-word questions (also
called information questions or WH-questions) in terms of intonation. Yes-no questions
require rising intonation. Take the following examples: Have you just come from the airport?
Is there a local bus terminal nearby?

2. Repeated questions

Notice that pitch on a regular question goes up (compared with a statement), but drops
back down at the end. Do dogs eat bones? A repeated, rhetorical or emotional question goes
up, and then up again at the end. Do dogs eat bones?

3. Tag Questions

Rising intonation is also used in tag question in which the speaker is not sure if the
listener will confirm what he says. Take the following examples: Jack will come over to
lunch, won’t he? You come from London, don’t you?

c) Rising-Falling Intonation

Rising-falling intonation is characterized by a combination of a rise followed by a fall.

Rising-falling intonation is characterized by a combination of a rise followed by a fall. In this
case, the pitch will go up on one part of the sentence and then fall down on another part.
Rising-falling intonation is often used in:

1. two-part statements

In two-part sentences, the first half of the sentence usually sets up the second half. That
is, the first half requires rising intonation, and the second half will take on falling intonation.
The cradle of intonation in both parts is the last content word of each part. Take the following
examples: dogs eat bones, but cats eat fish.

2. Intro-phrases

Intro-phrases, too, require rising-falling intonation patterns. When you want to preface
your statement, use a rising tone. In the following example, the first part requires rising
intonation because it is an intro phrase. The second part will then be articulated with falling
intonation. Examples: As we all know, dogs eat bones.

3. Listings

Rising-falling intonation is also used in listings. With more than one item in a list, all but
the last one have a rising tone. The last item in the list will, however, require falling
intonation. Dogs eat bones, kibbles, and meat.
d) Falling-rising intonation

Falling-rising intonation is characterized by a combination of a fall followed by a rise.

This intonation pattern is the reverse of the rising-falling pattern. Falling-rising intonation is
often used for soothing and politeness. When small children feel uneasy, for example, parents
use falling-rising intonation to soothe them.

1. Soothing

Soothing refers to statements that make pain or discomfort less severe. Take the
following examples: Don’t cry. I’ll take you to the park.

2. Politeness

For purposes of politeness, too, falling-rising intonation is a good tool. Take the
following examples: Thank you.

3. Pleading

Falling-rising intonation pattern is sometimes used for pleading. Pleading refers to

statements in which the speaker makes an earnest or urgent entreaty, often in emotional
terms.

e) Take-off intonation

Take-off intonation is characterized by a take-off pattern after the most important

contrastive stress of the sentence. In other words, the speaker begins with a regular or level
tone and then gradually raises the pitch (similar to the way airplanes run along the runway
before take-off). The point at which the pitch comes to a full rising pattern depends on the
speaker's choice. This is normally the point the speaker finds most important. Take-off
intonation is often used in statements with negatively-charged emotions. For example, take-
off intonation can freely be used for grumbling. Take the following examples: You shouldn’t
have given him all that money you silly boy. Grumbling is a kind of emotional expression,
one that is normally negative. Other forms of negative emotional expressions, too, require
take-off intonation. Cursing, blasphemy, etc. often take on this intonation pattern.
 CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION

1. Intonation means when, why, and who a speaker chooses to raise, lower or sustain the
pitch of his/her voice.

2.There are five aims of intonation, they are:

a. Expressing new information

b. Showing contrast
c. Expressing meaning
d. Showing pronunciation
e. Showing mood and personality

3.There are five types of intonation, they are:

a. Falling intonation
b. Rising intonation
c. Rising-falling intonation
d. Falling-rising intonation
e. Take-off intonation
 REFERENCES

Birjandi, Parvis. 2005. An Introduction to Phonetics. Tehran: Allameh Tabatabaii University.

Selkirk, E. (1995) Sentence prosody: Intonation, stress and phrasing. In J.Goldsmith (Ed.),
The Handbook of Phonological Theory, pp. 550-569. Oxford: Blackwell.