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preachers, newscasters, sports commentators, army sergeants,
and several other occupations are readily identified through their

distinctive prosody.

13.4 Components of intonation and the structure of English
tone-group

Different kinds of meanings are expressed by different sound
means. Lexical and grammatical meanings are made using sound

segments and rhythmic patterns that form the shell of morphemes

and words. Syntactic structure is expressed primarily by grammar
linking words and their order.

But the utterance also has other functional characteristics.
Main ones define its purpose (statement, question and motivation)

and its communicative structure (rheme, which is the semantic
focus, and theme). Modal assessments of the content of the

statement, such as its prominence, are less important and optional.

These functional characteristics are expressed in several
linguistics means but intonation is the most significant.

There are two types of intonation means: phrasal accents
usually placed on the stressed syllables of words, and integral

(non-accent) characteristics relating to the certain phrase or to the
whole sentence. The most important functions of intonation are

performed by the accents.

A remarkable feature of major intonation components (pitch,
loudness, tempo) is that each of them can be used both locally (in

the phrasal accents) and integrally as a general description of the

intonation group, grammatically expressed by phrase or by the
whole sentence. Possible dual use of prosodic attributes of

different types is presented in the table below.

Two ways of using of prosodic attributes

Using of accentual Using of integral

components components

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