Prosodie

Prosody, sometimes spelled prosodie in some languages, is the study of the patterns of rhythm, stress, and intonation in spoken language, and of the metrical structure of verse in poetry. In linguistics, prosody encompasses pitch (intonation), duration (timing), loudness (amplitude), and voice quality, together with tempo and rhythm. These suprasegmental features extend over sequences of sounds and syllables, conveying information about syntax, emphasis, focus, discourse structure, emotions, and speaker attitude. Prosodic structure is often described in terms of units such as prosodic words, phonological phrases, and intonational phrases, with boundary tones and prominence marking boundaries and focal accents. Transcription schemes like ToBI provide a framework for annotating pitch accents and boundary tones for particular languages.

In poetry, prosody refers to the rhythmic and metric aspects of verse, including meter, cadence, stress patterns, line length, rhyme, and the use of caesura or enjambment. Poetic prosody varies across languages and historical periods and is central to the analysis of verse forms, performance, and stylistic effect.

Applications of prosody include speech synthesis and recognition, language teaching and assessment, forensic linguistics, and the study of cross-linguistic variation in rhythm and pitch. Ongoing research debates the extent of universal rhythm classifications and how closely intonation tracks syntax versus discourse functions. See also intonation, metrical poetry, phonology, and the ToBI annotation framework.