intonation

intonation (intonasjon, tonefall): patterns of pitch (or tone) that carry meaning. Intonation is also often referred to as prosody. Intonation can signal grammatical structure, in a similar fashion to punctuation. That is, intonation can signal phrase and clause divisions by means of slight pauses. Intonation also signals communicative function and attitude. The most common associations between intonation and communicative function are as follows: statement: falling intonation; yes/no question: rising intonation; wh-question: falling intonation; command: falling intonation; request: rising intonation. A stretch of language that represents a complete pitch pattern is called a tone unit. A pitch pattern contains a nucleus, which involves a movement in pitch (rising or falling), normally occurring on the last accented syllable of the tone unit.