Prosody
Using pitch, timing and loudness to [see page 9, signal] important information in speech, like punctuation or underlining in text.
These features can span over several speech segments, syllables and whole utterances.
It can be described as suprasegmental behaviour.
Lexical Stress
Louder, Longer, Higher/Lower Pitch.
Basically emphasise syllables as you speak. See [see page 11, here] for a description of the affects of lexical stress, including the weaking of vowels (known as vowel centralisation/reduction).
Lexical Tone
The use of see page 11, tones to distinguish words.
| Language | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Contour Tone | Language has moving pitch patterns (eg. Chinese) |
| Register Tone | Language has entirely level tones (eg. Yoruba) |
Intonation
The use of [see page 13, pitch] to alter the utterance of a statement (not meaning). For example how we say something can affect whether it's taken as an expression or a question.
The location of the change of pitch is called a nucleus. The type of pitch contour at the nucleus is called the nuclear tone.
Different [see page 15, tones] can be used to signal different things.