Intonation/Prosod

y in English and
Ukrainian
INTONATION in both contrasted languages is a
linguistically relevant and complex combination of:
• Speech melody
• Sentence stress
• Tempo
• Pausation
• Voice timbre
FUNCTIONS
THE MAIN FUNCTION OF INTONATION IS TO
CONSTITUTE THE INTONATION
GROUPS/SYNTAGMS AND WHOLE UTTERANCES
THE UNIVERSAL FEATURE – TO DELIMIT THE
SENSE GROUPS (SYNTAGMS IN SPEECH)
In contrasted languages:
• Sentence
forming and
sentence
delimiting
• Distinctive
• Attitudial
Nevertheless, the force with witch the stressed and
unstressed syllables are pronounced, and consequently
their length, is not the same in English and Ukrainian
 Intonation of utterences:
- English – greater intensity
- Ukrainian – longer duration
THE SPEECH
Ukrinian English
Once upon a time there lived an old
man who had an old cat.
PITCH
RANGE
PITCH RANGE is considered to be narrower
in unemphatic Ukrainian speech than in
English one
FALLING TONES
 • It must be noted that to express
different emotions as joy, surprise,
often also warm greetings in
English and Ukrainian a low
rising tone(broad or narrow) is
used. Though joy may also be
NOTE! expressed in English with High
Fall. This and their tones despite
their general similarity as far as
the prosodic means are concerned,
are still far from identical in the
contrasted languages
RISING TONES
 • Counting and
enumerating may also be
pronounced in
Ukrainian with the
falling tone (Один, два,
NOTE! три, чотири, п’ять…)
which is also quite
possible in English (One,
two, three, four, five…)
 • When the speaker expects to
receive/to hear the
confirmation of this
judgement concerning the
statement in the first part of
the disjunctive question, the
NOTE! falling tone is used in English,
which is less occurent in
Ukrainian, however.
LEVEL TONES
 • It is worth mentioning in
conclusion that intonation
or rather the terminal tones
in the contrasted languages
may sometimes serve as
NOTE! the only means of
distinguishing between the
communicatively and
semantically different
types of utterances.
INTONATION IS:
a)  is the variations in the pitch of the
voice which take place with voiced
sounds.

b) a linguistically relevant and complex

combination of Speech melody, Sentence
stress, Tempo, Pausation, Voice timbre

c) a quality of sound
THE MAIN FUNCTION OF
INTONATION IS:

a) to constitute the intonation

groups/syntagms and whole utterances

b) to regulate the pitch range of the

speech

c) to differentiate different speech types

PITCH RANGE is considered to be
narrower in unemphatic:

a) Ukrainian speech rather than in

English

b) English speech rather than in

Ukrainian