Intonation Patterns

Table of Contents

Glossary………………………………………………………………………………….. 1
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………… 3
Intonation Patterns of Language Functions in English……………………………….. 5
Intonation Patterns of Language Functions in Romanian……………………………. 9
Intonation Patterns of Language Functions in Spanish………………………………. 12
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….. 15
Reference………………………………………………………………………………… 16

Glossary Emphatic Uttered, or to be uttered, with emphasis; strongly expressive

Falling Tone
When the pitch descends

Juncture
The line or point at which two bodies are joined; joint or articulation

Loudness
Making, emitting, or uttering strongly audible sounds

Pattern
A distinctive style, model, or form

Pitch
The degree of height or depth of a tone or of sound, depending upon the relative rapidity of the vibrations by which it is produced.

Prosody
The stress and intonation patterns of an utterance.

Rising Tone When the pitch ascends Suprasegmental
Linguistics . pertaining to or noting features of speech, as stress, pitch, and length, that accompany individual consonants and vowels and may extend over more than one such segmental element; pertaining to junctural and prosodic features.

Stress
Emphasis in the form of prominent relative loudness of a syllable or a word as a result of special effort in utterance.

Tone A particular quality, way of sounding, modulation, or intonation of the voice as expressive of some meaning, feeling, spirit, etc

Utterance
Any speech sequence consisting of one or more words and preceded and followed by silence: it may be coextensive with a sentence.

Introduction
The term ‘intonation’ has been defined in at least two different ways in the literature. A narrow definition equates intonation with ‘speech melody’, restricting it to the “ensemble of pitch variations in the course of an utterance”. Not unexpectedly, therefore, it is very closely associated

References: 2. Hirst, D, “Intonation Systems. A Survey of Twenty Languages”, Cambridge University Pres, 1998 http://www.scribd.com/doc/28696522/1998-Hirst-Di-Cristo-Eds-Intonation-Systems-A-Survey-of-Twenty-Languages 3. Jacobs, George “Integrating Language Functions and Collaborative Skills in the Second Language Classroom”, TESL , 1996 4 6. Wells, J. “English Intonation”, Cambridge University Press, 2006 http://books.google.md/books?id=YBVomSTQQkQC&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66&dq=intonation+in+greetings&source