Intonation

Question 1

What is intonation?

Answer 1

The use of pitch to create what we call the sentence melody

Question 2

How will English be pronounced in terms of pitch?

Answer 2

with either a step up or a step down

Question 3

Does pitch distingusish between words in English ?

Answer 3

No

Question 4

What do we use intonation for ?

Answer 4

To distinguish between utterances

Question 5

What is a tone unit?

Answer 5

a group of words naturally spoken together, typically corresponds to a grammatical unit clause or phrase

Question 6

What is meant by the term the nucleus

Answer 6

the most prominent syllable in the tone unit (stress + pitch change) it constitutes the information focus or
The nucleus is the stressed syllable of the last accented word and it therefore highlights the most important word in the tone unit.

Question 7

What word in a tone unit gets the nucelus?

Answer 7

The last accented word in a tone unit must contain a pitch glide

Question 8

What is meant by the tail?

Answer 8

The nucleus may be followed by syllable s (mostly unstressed) and this part of the tone unit is called the tail.