Speech rhythm and utterance stress.

Rhythm

An essential feature of connected speech is that the peaks of prominence - the stressed syllables - are inseparably connected with non-prominent syllables. The latter are attached to the stressed syllables, they never exist by themselves. The simplest example of a close relationship between the stressed and unstressed syllables is a polysyllabic word-utterance which is a phonetic and semantic entity incapable of division, e.g.:

`Excellent. To`morrow. `Certainly.

Thus an utterance is split into groups of syllables unified by a stressed syllable, i.e. stress-groups, each of which is a semantic unit - generally a word, often more than a word.

An important feature of English pronunciation is that the prominent syllables in an utterance occur at approximately equal periods of time. It means more or less equal time for each of the stressed groups:I'd 'like to 'give you a 'piece of ad`vice. When the number of syllables in adjacent stress-groups is not equal, the speed of utterance will be the highest in the group having the largest number of syllables and, vice versa, the tempo is noticeably slower in a group having fewer syllables. Thus the perceptible isochrony of stress-groups is based on the speakers tending to minimize the differences in thelength of stressed groups in an utterance.

Thus it has been shown that stress in English performs an important function of 'organizing' an utterance, providing the basis for its r h у t h m i с structure which is the realization of rhythm as a prosodic feature of speech.

Rhythm is defined in different languages in largely the same terms. The notion of rhythm implies, first of all, a certain periodicity of phonological events. For an English utterance these events, as has been made clear, are the stressed syllables. Such a periodicity is a peculiarity of English. English speech is therefore often described as more 'rhythmic' than, for example, Russian.

It follows that the units of the rhythmic organization of an utterance are stress-groups, which may be as well called rhythmic groups.

The distribution of stresses in an utterance is also affected by the rhythmical laws of the English language. Due to the rhythmical organization of the utterance notional words may be unstressed, and form words, on the contrary, may be stressed.

The semantic, grammatical and rhythmical factors are closely connected with one another, the semantic factor being the main one.

The RHYTHMIC tendency can be accounted for the presence in English of a great number of monosyllabic words, some of which are stressed (notional) words, others are not (form words). Such phenomenon has created the English rhythm, consisting of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables This tendency has caused the appearance in borrowed polysyllabic words of a secondary stress on the syllable separated from the word-final principal stress by an unstressed syllable. The words began to be pronounced in isolation on the model of short phrases in which a stressed syllable alternated with an unstressed one. Thus the word ‘RADICAL originally had a stress on the final syllable – RADI’CAL- but later it received the recessive stress on the initial syllable, while the final stress was still retained. The result of it was the typically English alternation of a stressed syllable with an unstressed one. For some time this and similar words had two stresses but gradually the word-final stress began to weaken and disappeared. Thus in tri-syllabic words there remained only one strong stress on the third syllable from the end of the word. The tendency to stress the third syllable from the end was extended to four-syllable words as well, and this stress is called RHYTHMICAL. Strictly speaking, the stress in such words as RADICAL, FAMILY, CINEMA, is rhythmical only in its origin, because in Modern English there is no alternation of a stressed syllable with an unstressed one in these words. The stress here is called HYSTORICALLY RHYTHMICAL In Modern English there is also GENINELY RHYTHMICAL stress. This is the secondary stress on the second PRETONIC syllable in words like PRO,NUNCI’ATION, E,XAMI’NATION, RE,LIA’BILITY, etc. There is also a RETENTIVE tendency which consists in the retention of the stress of the parent word in the derivatives. More commonly it is kept in the parent word as a secondary accent, e.g., ‘PERSON – ‘PERSONAL –,PERSO’NALITY.

The phonetic nature and types of speech rhythm in different languages.

 

Rhythm

 

An essential feature of connected speech is that the peaks of prominence - the stressed syllables - are inseparably connected with non-prominent syllables. The latter are attached to the stressed syllables, they never exist by themselves. The simplest example of a close relationship between the stressed and unstressed syllables is a polysyllabic word-utterance which is a phonetic and semantic entity incapable of division, e.g.:

`Excellent. To`morrow. `Certainly.

Thus an utterance is split into groups of syllables unified by a stressed syllable, i.e. stress-groups, each of which is a semantic unit - generally a word, often more than a word.

An important feature of English pronunciation is that the prominent syllables in an utterance occur at approximately equal periods of time. It means more or less equal time for each of the stressed groups:

I'd 'like to 'give you a 'piece of ad`vice.

______ ______ ______ ______

When the number of syllables in adjacent stress-groups is not equal, the speed of utterance will be the highest in the group having the largest number of syllables and, vice versa, the tempo is noticeably slower in a group having fewer syllables. Thus the perceptible isochrony of stress-groups is based on the speakers tending to minimize the differences in thelength of stressed groups in an utterance.

Thus it has been shown that stress in English performs an important function of 'organizing' an utterance, providing the basis for its r h у t h m i с structure which is the realization of rhythm as a prosodic feature of speech.

Rhythm is defined in different languages in largely the same terms. The notion of rhythm implies, first of all, a certain periodicity of phonological events. For an English utterance these events, as has been made clear, are the stressed syllables. Such a periodicity is a peculiarity of English. English speech is therefore often described as more 'rhythmic' than, for example, Russian.

It follows that the units of the rhythmic organization of an utterance are stress-groups, which may be as well called rhythmic groups.

 

 

Speech tempo and pausation

TEMPO

The tempo of speech is the rate at which utterances and their smaller units are pronounced. On the acoustic level tempo is generally measured by the number of syllables per second.

Tempo of speech may be determined by different factors. It may vary depending on the size of audience, the acoustic qualities of the room, the individuality of the speaker and other extralinguistic factors. But most significant for the linguistic study is how variations in tempo correlate with changes in meaning.

It is common knowledge that by slowing down the tempo of speech we can make an utterance or part of it more prominent, thus underlining the semantic importance of it.

On the contrary, by increasing the speed of utterance we diminish prominence and, as a result the actual semantic importance of what we say.

Tempo can also be used to express the speaker's attitude or emotion. For example, fast tempo may express excitement, joy, anger, etc. Slow tempo shows relaxation or calmness, reserved and phlegmatic attitude on the part of the speaker.

Everybody's speech has some norm of tempo, deviations from which affect meaning. Phoneticians generally distinguish normal tempo and two departures from the norm: fast and slow.

D.Crystal gives a more detailed classification of variations of tempo. He distinguishes between simple and complex tempo systems. The simple tempo system is manifested both in monosyllables and polysyllabic stretches of utterance. The complex tempo system is realized in polysyllabic stretches.

In monosyllables the speeding up and slowing down of the duration of the syllable is perceived as clipped, drawled and held syllables which are generally used for emphasis. "Clipped syllables are articulated at a more rapid speed than normal, in a very tense way; drawled and held syllables are articulated less rapidly than normal, and very lax".

The distinction between drawled and held syllables is that in the former a sound is lengthened as in [ff ain] and in the latter a sound is articulated with the onset of articulation delayed, so that the auditory impression of length is produced through unexpected silence, for example, in stop consonants

as in "Perfectly" [pp3:fiktli] or "Quite, quite blue" [kkwait].

In polysyllabic stretches of utterance D.Crysta I distinguishes two degrees faster than the norm — allegro, allegrissimo, and two degrees slower than the norm — lento, lentissimo in the complex tempo system there are accelerando — a gradual increase in tempo, and rallentando — a gradual decrease. These contrasts of tempo correlate with changes in meaning. They may also serve as a style—forming and style—differentiating device.

 

Pauses

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. Pauses are closely related with tempo: the number and length of pauses affect the general tempo of speech.

Phoneticians distinguish 3 main types of pauses: silent pauses, pauses of perception and voiced (or filled} pauses.

A silent pause is a stop in the phonation (a stop of the work of the vocal cords, which results in the cessation of sound).

Pauses of perception are not a stop in phonation, as there is no period of silence. The effect of a pause is produced by a sharp change of pitch direction, or by variations in duration, or both.

Pauses of perception are generally marked by a wavy line which is used at the junction of intonation groups.

Voiced pauses have usually the quality of the central vowel [ 3: (Э) ] with or without nasalization [ э (m) ]. They are used to signal hesitation or doubt and are therefore called hesitation pauses.

Silent pauses are subdivided into several types according to their length: short, long and extra—long. The short pause is mainly used to separate two intonation groups. The long pause which is approximately twice as long is generally used to delimit two utterances. The extra—long pause is used as a rule to separate two paragraphs. But the main factors that determine the occurrence of the type of pause are the semantic relations between the prosodic units. Short pauses indicate closer relations than long ones.

It should be noted that the duration of pauses is relative, not absolute. It may vary depending on the general tempo of speech.

Pauses are very important constituents of intonation. Besides their segmentative and delimitative functions they also perform a unifying function showing the relations between utterances or intonation groups.