tone unit

tone unit (intonasjonsenhet): a stretch of language that represents a complete pitch pattern (in speech). A tone unit often corresponds to a grammatical unit, most commonly a clause. A tone unit must contain an accented syllable that acts as nucleus and involves change in pitch. It may also contain accented syllables before the nucleus (=head) and unaccented syllables before the head (=prehead) or after the nucleus (=tail). See also intonation. A tone unit may also correspond to an information unit, conveying a piece of new information, most commonly following a piece of given information. Most commonly the new information will be signalled by nuclear accent, i.e. a movement in pitch. See also information principle. In the following example the # marks the tone unit boundaries in a stretch of speech. The slashes mark falling or rising nuclear tones.