THE FOX AND THE GRAPES

A fox saw some nice grapes. “They look good,” he said. “I want to eat them, but they are too high for me. I must try jumping for them”.

He jumped and he jumped. Again and again he jumped but he could not reach the grapes. So he said, “I can see now that they are green. They are not sweet. I do not like green grapes. They are sour. I don’t want them.” So he went away without any.

He knew that the grapes were really very nice. He just said they were sour because he could not reach them.

Moral: It is silly to say that you do not want something just because you cannot have it.

Task 8. Listen to the following dialogues and exercises [Thompson:43-47], concentrate on the intonation of special questions. Write them down, lay stress-and-tone marks, give the tonograms. Formulate the rule of the intonation organising special questions and their grammatical structure. Do it in writing.

Ex.47, Listen to a television interviewer interviewing Gloriette Harrod, the film-star:

Interviewer: Miss Harrod, a question on everyone’s lips, I’m sure... How many films have you appeared in?

G.Harrod: Why does everyone always ask me that?

Interviewer: Well, I read somewhere it was about a hundred and twenty.

G.Harrod: Where did you read that? Come on... let’s look forwards instead of backwards.

Interviewer: O.K. What’s the title of your next film?

G.Harrod: Who’s asking the question?

Interviewer: Well, I thought, I was, but it...

G.Harrod: No... that’s the title: “Who’s asking the question?”