The Phonology of Tone and Intonation [Paperback]

This book provides a survey of research into tone and intonation, and how they are integrated into our grammars.All languages use modulations in pitch to give shape to utterances. Pitch modulation functions in two ways: to encode lexical 'tone', that is, to signal boundaries between morphemes or words, and to encode 'intonation', that is, to give words and sentences a further meaning that isn't part of the meaning of the words themselves. Using examples from a wide variety of languages, this book explains why speakers vary their pitch, what these variations mean, and how they are integrated into our grammars.All languages use modulations in pitch to give shape to utterances. Pitch modulation functions in two ways: to encode lexical 'tone', that is, to signal boundaries between morphemes or words, and to encode 'intonation', that is, to give words and sentences a further meaning that isn't part of the meaning of the words themselves. Using examples from a wide variety of languages, this book explains why speakers vary their pitch, what these variations mean, and how they are integrated into our grammars.Using examples from a wide variety of languages, this book reveals why speakers vary their pitch, what these variations mean, and how they are integrated into our grammars. All languages use modulations in pitch to form utterances. Pitch modulation encodes lexical tone to signal boundaries between morphemes or words, and encodes intonation to give words and sentences an additional meaning that isn't part of their original sense.1. Pitch in humans and machines; 2. Pitch in language I: stress and intonation; 3. Pitch in language II: tone; 4. Intonation and language; 5. Paralinguistics: three biological codes; 6. Downtrends; 7. Tonal structures; 8. Intonation in optimality theory; 9. Northern Biskaian Basque; 10. Tokyo Japanese; 11. Scandinavian; 12. The central Franconian tone; 13. French; 14. English I: phrasing and accent distribution; 15. English II: tonal struclsj