Intonation

English Phonetics and Phonology

Fernando Trujillo

Intonation
It is not easy to define Intonation. We know that the basic feature of
intonation is pitch, being high or low. The overallbehaviour of the pitch is called
tone. Tones can be static, level tones or moving tones, either rising or falling.
For the purpose of analysing intonation, a unit is normally used called the
tone-unit.Tone-units consist of at least one tonic syllable (a tonic syllable being
a syllable with tone and prominence). Tone-units also have a “head”, which is
that part of the tone-unit that extends from thefirst stressed syllable up to (but
not including) the tonic syllable. Before the head, there may be a pre-head,
which includes all the unstressed syllables in a tone unit preceding the firststressed syllables. Sometimes there is even a “tail”, that is, some syllables
following the tonic syllable up to the end of the tone-unit. So, the structure of a
tone-unit is (pre-head) (head) tonicsyllable (tail).
Intonation is very important for communication, as it helps the addressee
interpret the message. There have been different proposals to explain how
intonation can help communication,some of which are:
1. Intonation enables us to express emotions and attitudes as we speak:
the attitudinal function of intonation.
2. Intonation helps to produce the effect of prominence on stressedsyllables: the accentual function of intonation.
3. Intonation helps to recognise the grammar and syntactic structure of the
utterance: the grammatical function of intonation.
4. Intonationconveys the given-new information, or provides information for
turn-taking: the discourse function of intonation.
So, there are three simple possibilities for intonation: level, fall and rise.
However,more complex tones are also used, such as fall-rise or rise-fall. Each
of these tones are functionally distinct, that is, they convey different attitudes,
intentions and meanings to the hearer, as...