INTONATION AND SENTENCE TYPES

 

◈ INTONATION AND SENTENCE TYPES

In order to deploy intonation effectively at the level of discourse, learners need first to become aware of, understand, and practice the relationships between intonation, syntax, and context in spoken English. 

 

 

1. DECLARATIVES
Unmarked or neutral versions of most English declarative sentences have rising-falling intonation and fairly predictable prominence on the new information occurring toward the end of the utterance.

 

2. IMPERATIVES AND EXCLAMATIONS
Like declaratives, imperatives (often referred to as commands or directives when viewed pragmatically) generally take the rise-fall intonation contour, but they are often more forceful or affectively loaded than declarative sentences and thus may make use of level 4 (extra high pitch) more often. 


3. YES/NO QUESTIONS
The unmarked grammar for an English yes/no question involves the inversion of the subject and the auxiliary verb (or the addition of do as the auxiliary in sentences that have no lexical auxiliary verb). When this option conveys no special presuppositions, it is accompanied by rising intonation. It is also possible when using this same syntactic option that the speaker chooses a marked rising-falling intonation pattern. This pattern can signal an inference (or guess), or it may also indicate the speaker's impatience with the interlocutor. 

4. WH-QUESTIONS
Wh-questions are those questions where the constituent being questioned appears in the form of a wh-word (what, who, when, where, and the like). They follow the same risingfalling intonation as declaratives when they are unmarked. They are designed to elicit rather than to state specific information. As with declaratives, there are often two or more different realizations of the contour depending on whether the result of the action or the agent of the action is in focus. Such rising-falling intonation surprises some nonnative speakers, who assume that all questions – regardless of type should be spoken with rising intonation. However, when wh-questions are spoken with rising intonation, the prosody is marked and signals “I didn't hear everything you said; clarify or repeat what comes after the constituent I have emphasized".

 

5. QUESTION TAGS
Question tags follow declaratives. The declaratives themselves have rising-falling intonation, and so do the question tags when they are used in what Brown (1981) has described as their two most frequent functions.

6. ALTERNATIVE QUESTIONS

True alternative questions generally show a rise on the first part, a pause, and then a risefall on the second part.
They differ semantically, syntactically, and pragmatically from yes/no questions having objects conjoined by or. These have rising intonation and do not force a choice.