Intonáció

Intonation refers to the systematic variation of pitch across spoken utterances. It concerns how rises and falls in pitch across syllables and phrases help convey meaning, structure, and speaker attitude. In many languages intonation operates over sequences larger than a single word and interacts with syntax and discourse; in tonal languages, pitch also carries lexical or grammatical contrasts alongside intonational patterns.

Intonational patterns are described as contours. The central components are pitch accents (the high or prominent pitch on a syllable) and boundary tones (pitch levels at the edges of intonational phrases). Contours may be rising, falling, rising-falling, or level.

Functions: Intonation signals sentence type (declarative, interrogative, exclamative), focus and information structure (topic/comment, given/new), attitudes (certainty, doubt, irony), and talker stance. It also marks discourse boundaries and helps resolve ambiguities in connected speech.

Cross-linguistic variation: Some languages rely little on intonation; others use a rich set of contours. In non-tonal languages, intonation primarily marks illocutionary force and structure; in tonal languages, intonation can interact with lexical tone, creating complex patterns. Common cross-linguistic tendencies include final falling contours in declaratives and rising contours in yes–no questions, though these patterns vary by language and dialect.

Analysis and notation: Researchers study intonation using acoustic measurements such as fundamental frequency (F0), duration, and intensity. Transcription systems like ToBI (Tone and Break Indices) annotate nucleus tones and boundary tones to represent the intonational structure of an utterance.

Applications: In linguistics, education, and speech technology, understanding intonation improves discourse interpretation, second-language teaching, and speech synthesis and recognition.