22. The structure of a prosodic contour (intonation group) in English. The functions of its elements. Supraphrasal unities

The view of a text as 'built up' by utterances - the minimal self-contained units of communication - has been enriched in modern linguistics by introducing a “hierarchy” of text constituents which embraces a variety of 'intermediate' units lying between an unexpanded simple utterance and the text.

The higher units are formed by grouping utterances into complexes, or sets, each occupying a certain 'slot' in the semantic structure of the text, reflecting thereby the subdivision of the overall topic into a number of subtopics. The unit coming next to an utterance in the above-mentioned hierarchy is a supraphrasal unity (SPU)

The individual phrases within a SPU have specific language markers of a closer semantic relationship between them than between the initial phrase of a SPU and the preceding utterance, on the one hand, and the final phrase of a SPU and the following utterance in the text, on the other. Because of this 'marked' semantic closeness superphrasal unity is restricted in its length, which does not typically exceed 4 or 5 component phrases.

The identification of a supraphrasal unity in spoken language is achieved primarily with the help of prosodic features. This makes it possible to speak of the prosodic structure of a supraphrasal unity.

First of all, there are constant prosodic markers distinguishing initial, median а final phrases in the unity. These are the features of pitch, loudness and tempo. It has been proved, in particular, that the pitch of the onset syllable in an initial phrase is noticeably higher than that in the following phrases, the decrease of the pitch-height being gradual in many cases. The same tendency is observed for the degree of loudness. The tempo of speech tends to be somewhat slower at the beginning and end of the supraphrasal unity and faster in the middle.

An important feature marking the boundary of a supraphrasal unity is a pause which is considerably longer than any of the pauses separating the phrases within the unity. It is the so-called three-unit pause, e.g.:

College gets nicer and nicer, | I like the girls {and the teachers {and the classes | and the campus {and the things to eat. || We have ice-cream twice a week | and we never have corn-meal mush. |||

The degree of semantic completeness of the utterances within a supraphrasal unity is reflected in the degree of finality of its nuclear tone. The last utterance in a unity normally has a falling nuclear tone with the lowest ending point (Mid Wide Low Narrow Fall) while the fall in the non-final phrases doesn't generally reach the bottom of the voice-range (a falling tone with a not-low ending, e.g. the High narrow Fall, the Mid Narrow Fall). There is a rather higher probability for non-falling tones (Low Rise, Fall-Rise) in the initial and medial phrases than in the final phrase of a unity.

Due to the specific prosodic markers an utterance isolated from a supraphrasal unity is easily recognized as 'contextual'. Besides the features referred to above, this repression depends on the accentual pattern, which is very often 'marked', i.e. characterized by a shift of prominence from its normal position. The placement of the nucleus in such a phrase can only be justified by a larger context.