Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
1 In the broad sense, all prosodic characteristics of a linguistic utterance that are not tied to a single sound. Since intonational features are an overlay on the segmentable individual sounds, they are also called suprasegmental features. Three aspects are involved in the description of intonation phenomena: (a) stress2 (=accent) through emphasis placed on a syllable (often accompanied by an increase in volume); (b) pitch; and (c) pausing which can be described only in relation to stress and pitch. Intonation can affect a particular syllable, a word, a phrase, or a sentence.
References
Bald, W.D. 1975. Englische Intonation in Forschung und Lehre: ein Überblick. In C.Gutsknecht (ed.) Contributions to applied linguistics, I. Bern. 139–63.
——1976. Contrastive studies in English and German intonation: a survey. PSCL 4. 37–47.
Bolinger, D. 1978. Intonation across languages. In J.H.Greenberg (ed.), Universals of human language. Stanford, CA. 471–524.
——1989. Intonation and its uses.
London.
Esser, J. 1975. Intonationszeichen im Englischen. Tübingen.
Halliday, M.A.K. 1967. Intonation and grammar in British English. The Hague.
‘t Hart, J., R.Collier, and A.Cohen. 1990. A perceptual study of intonation: an experimental-phonetic approach to speech melody. Cambridge.
Hirst, D.J. 1977. Intonative features: a syntactic approach to English intonation. The Hague.
Lieberman, P. 1967. Intonation, perception, and language. Cambridge, MA.
Schmerling, S.F. 1976. Aspects of English sentence stress. London.
Scufil, M. 1982. Experiments in comparative intonation: a case-study of English and German. Tübin gen.
Bibliography
Meier, R. 1984. Bibliographie zur Intonation. Tübin-gen.
2 In the narrow sense (particularly in Slavic studies), the occurrence of pitch as it relates to morphologically defined segments (morphs, words) in tonal languages. The term ‘tone’ is used to refer to distinctive levels of pitch in a language.
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