The tunes of longer sense groups containing only one important word.

In the examples above, the word Two, being the only word in the sense group, must naturally be important (otherwise there would be no point in saying it) and therefore prominent. Now suppose that John’s response was not Two but Twenty. This is still a sense group of a single prominent word, but there are now two syllables instead of one. The first of these syllables is stressed, i.e. said with the greater general effort than the second, which is unstressed. Our six tunes will now be as follows (and here we use large dots to represent the stressed syllable and smaller ones to represent the unstressed syllable):

Low Fall: Twenty.

High Fall: Twenty.

Rise-Fall: Twenty. Twenty.

Low Rise: Twenty.

High Rise: Twenty.

Fall-Rise: Twenty.

The similarities with the treatment of Two are obvious, but there are some differences which must be noticed. In the two rising tunes the stressed syllable is level in pitch and there is no upward glide as there was in Two, but rather a jump from the pitch of the stressed to that of the unstressed syllable; in other words the rise is not complete before the end of the sense group. In the same way the Fall-Rise is spread over the two syllables and not completed on the first. Whether or not, in the falling tunes, the fall is completed within the stressed syllable depends on the structure of that syllable: if the stressed vowel is short and followed by a voiceless sound (having no vocal cord vibration and therefore no pitch) there is often not time to complete the fall within the stressed syllable, and the effect is of a jump from the higher to the lower pitch level.

E.g. Fifty. Sixty.

If, on the other hand, the stressed syllable contains a long vowel or diphthong, or short vowel followed by a voiced sound, then the fall is usually completed within that syllable.

E.g. Forty. Eighty. Twenty.

The Rise-Fall may be said in either of the two ways shown above.

Below are six more examples, this time of sense groups containing one prominent word followed by other words which are not prominent.

1. PETER: Will you have one packet, or two?

JOHN: Two, Peter.

2. PETER: How many shoes in a pair?

JOHN: Two, you silly chap.

3. PETER: Did you know Richard has two wives?

JOHN: Two, indeed! Two, indeed!

4. PETER: How many cigarettes have you got?

JOHN: Two, I think.

5. PETER: I’ve only got two pounds.

JOHN: Two, did you say?

6. PETER: You’ve got one brother, haven’t you?

JOHN: Two, you mean.

These examples show that when the single prominent word is followed by other words which are not prominent, the pitch patterns remain very similar to the patterns in the examples Two and Twenty. In the Low Fall and High Fall the fall of the voice to the lowest pitch level takes place during the stressed syllable of the prominent word or from that syllable to the next, whether in the same word or not, and any subsequent syllables are all on the same low level. The Rise-Fall is spread over either two or three syllables, as shown above, both patterns being commonly heard; once the voice has reached the low pitch, on either the second or third syllable, it continues on this pitch during any other following syllables. In the Low Rise and High Rise the stressed syllable of the prominent word does not itself rise in pitch, but each of the following syllables is a step higher than the previous one, and the final pitch, medium in the case of the Low Rise and high in the case of the High Rise, is reached on the last syllable of the sense group. So whereas in the Low and High Fall the fall must be completed not later than the syllable immediately following the stressed syllable of the prominent word, in the Low and High Rise the rise is not complete until the end of the sense group. It may be noticed too that in the rising tunes, when the final syllable of the sense group is stressed (and only then), there is a tendency to slide upwards in pitch during the syllable, whereas there is no parallel tendency in the falling tunes. In the Fall-Rise the fall takes place during the stressed syllable of the prominent word (or from that syllable to the next) and the rise takes place on or from the last stressed syllable of the sense group.

E.g. I don’t want it.

If there is no stressed syllable following the fall, then the rise takes place between the last two syllables.

E.g. Fortunately.

<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
The tunes of single-syllable sense groups.	\|	Nucleus and tail.

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