Different combinations of pitch sections (pre-heads, heads and nuclei) may result in more than one hundred pitch-and- stress patterns. But it is not necessary to deal with all of them because some patterns occur very rarely, so attention must be concentrated on the commonest ones.
As the nucleus is the most important pitch section on which the whole pitch pattern centres, we grouped all the sections (pre- heads, heads, and tails) into eight pitch-and-stress groups according the eight nuclear tones:
- The Low (Medium) Fall pitch-and-stress group.
- The. High Fall group.
- The Rise-Fall group.
- The Low Rise group.
- The High Rise group.
- The Fall-Rise group.
- The Rise-Fall-Rise group.
- The Mid-Level group.
All the patterns of each group have one pitch section in common - the nuclear tone. So they all convey the most general meaning expressed by the nucleus itself, and different pitch sections (pre-heads or heads) either add some additional attitudinal meanings to the patterns or intensify them. In this book forty patterns of the eight pitch-and-stress groups are described and practised.
Each group, however, contains patterns that are commonly used and those which are rather occasional. So we grouped patterns that occur frequently and with a much wider usefulness than others into 'Common Usage' subgroup and patterns that occur rather rarely into 'Occasional Usage' subgroup. Since the Rise-Fall and the Rise-Fall-Rise are not so commonly used as the other nuclear tones, all the patterns of these two groups (Groups Three and Seven) are treated as occasional. The other six groups include both common and occasional usage.
