ogical facts of intonation system are much more open to question than in the field of segmental phonology. Descriptions differ according to the kind of meaning they regard intonation is carrying and also according to the significance they attach to different parts of the tone-unit. J. D. O'Connor and G. F. Arnold assert that a major function of intonation is to express the speaker's attitude to the situation he/she is placed in, and they attach these meanings not to pre-head, head and nucleus separately, but to each of ten 'tone-unit types '* as they combine with each of four sentence types, statement, question, command and exclamation .. Halliday supposes that English intonation contrasts are grammatical. He argues first that there is a neutral or unmarked tone choice and then explains all other choices as meaningful by contrast. Thus if one takes the statement I don't know the suggested intonational meanings are: Low Fall - neutral. Low Rise - non-committal, High Rise - contradictory, Fall-Rise - with reservation, Rise-Fall - with commitment. Unlike J. D. O'Connor and G. F. Arnold, M. Halliday attributes separate significance to the prе-nuclear choices, again taking one choice as neutral and the other (s) as meaningful by contrast .. Crystal presents an approach based on the view "that any explanation of intonational meaning cannot be arrived at by seeing the issues solely in either grammatical or attitudinal terms". He ignores the significance of pre-head and head choices and deals only with terminal tones.is still impossible to classify, in any practical analysis of intonation, all the fine shades of feeling and attitude which can be conveyed by slight changes in pitch, by lengthening or shortening tones, by increasing or decreasing the loudness of the voice, by changing its quality, and in various other ways. On the other hand it is quite possible to make a broad classification of intonation patterns which are so different in their nature that they materially: change the meaning of the utterance and to make different pitches and degrees of loudness in each of them. Such an analysis resembles the phonetic analysis of sounds of a language whereby phoneticians establish the number of significant sounds it uses. [4,85] distinctive function of intonation is realized in the opposition of the same word sequences which differ in certain parameters of the intonation pattern. Intonation patterns make their distinctive contribution at intonation group, phrase and text levels. Thus in the phrases: Mary, comes let me Г know at once (a few people are expected to come but it is Mary who interests the speaker ) -> Mary comes let me Г know at once (no one else but Mary is expected to come) the intonation patterns of the first intonation groups are opposed. In the opposition I enjoyed it - I...
