TYPOLOGY OF MECHANISMS OF DIFFERENT INTONATIONAL FUNCTIONS INTERACTION

In spite of the availability of a number of specific language peculiarities in the intonation of utterances, where the intonation simultaneously fulfills several functions under the real conditions of communication, the character of the correlation mechanism “intonation-meaning” is completely identical in the compared languages. More than that, the most essential features of these mechanisms could be treated as language universals.

When an intonation contour is formed under the condition of two or more functions of intonation being realized in a speech act the result is not straightforward and depends on a variety of factors. Note the following:

- availability/absence of prosody models “of their own” or “indirect” ones in combined functions;

- the degree of stability in correlation between these models and semantics;

- the degree of semantic character intensity conveyed by the intonation model;

- the degree of similarity between the original intonational structures that are interacting and the degree of proximity in the language nature of the functions involved the interaction.

The analysis of the character of the functional and semantic factors influence on the degree of stability of intonational models demonstrates that different functions of intonation possess various possibilities of providing such an effect. The most stable are the prosodic models executing the attitudinal and emotional functions of intonation. The status of the other functions towards the attitudinal function of intonation changes from the subordinate one (as in the function of division into sense groups) up to the dominating one (as in the function reflecting the speaker’s emotional state). In correspondence with this status and the poly-functional character of intonation in an utterance, the resulting intonational contour mainly preserves the relevant prosodic features of the dominating function intonation.

Nearest to the attitudinal function of intonation (from a lanuage point of view) is the emotional one, and to some extent some subtypes of the communicative function of intonation. This determines the isomorphism of mechanisms of these functions mutual development.

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