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Prosody (linguistics)

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	Topics Prosody (linguistics) Topic Home In linguisticsLinguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language.... , prosody (from GreekGreek language Greek has a documented history of 3,500 years, the longest of any single language within the Indo-European family.... p??s?d?a) is the rhythmRhythm Rhythm is the variation of the accentuation of sounds or other events over time.... , stressStress (linguistics) In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis given to certain syllables in a word.... , and intonationIntonation (linguistics) In linguistics, intonation is the variation of pitch when speaking.... of speech. Prosody may reflect the emotional state of a speaker; whether an utterance is a statement, a question, or a command; whether the speaker is being ironic or sarcastic; emphasis, contrast and focusFocus (linguistics) and [[Ja... ; and other elements of language which may not be encoded by grammar. Acoustic attributes of prosody AcousticallyAcoustics Acoustics is a branch of physics that studies sound, namely mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids.... , the prosodics of oral languages involves variation in syllable length, loudnessLoudness Loudness is the quality of a sound that is the primary psychological correlate of physical intensity.... , pitchPitch Summary Pitch may refer to:In music:... , and the formantFormant A formant is a peak in an acoustic frequency spectrum which results from the resonant frequencies of any acoustical system.... frequencies of speech sounds. In Cued SpeechCued speech Cued Speech is a system of communication used with and among deaf or hard of hearing people.... and sign languageSign language A sign language is a language which uses manual communication instead of sound to convey meaning - simultaneously combining... s, prosody involves the rhythm, length, and tenseness of gestures, mouthing, and facial expressions. Prosody is notoriously difficult to convey in writing, which is one reason why, for example, email may so easily cause misunderstanding. Orthographic conventions to convey prosody include punctuationPunctuation Punctuation is the act and the effect of punctuating, i.e., using punctuation marks.... such as commas, exclamation marks, question marks, scare quotes, and ellipsesEllipsis Ellipsis ???e???? in linguistics refers to any omitted part of speech that is understood; i.e.... ; forms of emphasisEmphasis (typography) In typography, emphasis is the exaggeration of words in a text with a font in a different style from the rest of the text&md... such as italic, bold, and underlined text; and emoticonFacts About Emoticon An emoticon, also called a smiley, is a sequence of ordinary printable characters, such as :-), xD ;o), t, ^_^, :-.... s. The details of prosody will depend upon the phonologyPhonology Phonology , is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language .... of a language. For instance, in a language with phonemic vowel lengthVowel length , [[Hawaiian lan... , this must be kept distinct from prosodic syllable length. Likewise, prosodic pitch cannot obscure toneTone (linguistics) Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish words.... in a tone language if the result is to be intelligible. Although a tone language such as MandarinMandarin (linguistics) Overview Mandarin, or Beifanghua , or Guanhua , or Mandarin Chinese is a category of related Chinese dialects spoke... will use pitch variations for prosody, they will occur at a different level than the pitch variations involved in lexical and grammatical tone. If pitch can be compared to ocean waves, the swells are the prosody, and the wind-blown ripples in their surface are the lexical tones. That is, the pitch corresponding to a "mid" tone may rise or fall with prosody, but it will retain its relative position compared to "high" and "low" tones. This is similar to stress in English: The word dessert has greater stress on the second syllable, compared to desert, which has greater stress on the first, but this distinction is not obscured when the entire word is stressed by a child demanding "Give me dessert!" Vowels in many languages are likewise pronounced differently (typically less centralMid central vowel The mid central vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages.... ly) in a careful rhythm or when a word is emphasized, but not so much as to overlap with the formant structure of a different vowel. Thus rhythm, loudness, pitch, and vowel formants convey a mixture of lexical and prosodic information. The prosodic domain Prosodic features are suprasegmental in that they are not confined to any one segmentSegment (linguistics) Overview In linguistics, *segment* is used primarily “to refer to any discrete unit that can be identified, either physically... ; rather, they occur in a hierarchy of higher levels of an utterance. These prosodic unitProsodic unit In linguistics, a prosodic unit, often called an intonation unit, is a segment of speech that occurs with a single pro... s are the actual phonetic spurts or chunks of speech. They do not in general correspond to grammatical units such as phrasePhrase In grammar, a phrase is a group of words that functions as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence.... s, and clauseClause Summary In grammar, a clause is a group of words consisting of a subject and a predicate, although, in non-finite clauses, the subje... s, though they may, and both may reflect how the brain processes speech. Prosodic units are characterized by several phonetic cues, such as a coherent pitch contourFacts About Pitch contour In linguistics, speech synthesis, and music, the pitch contour of a sound is a function or curve that tracks the perceived p... , and the gradual decline in pitch and lengthening of vowels over the duration of the unit, until the pitch and speed are reset to begin the next unit. Breathing, both inhalation and exhalation, only seems to occur at these boundaries where the prosody resets. See also IntonationIntonation (linguistics) In linguistics, intonation is the variation of pitch when speaking.... Phonological hierarchyPhonological hierarchy Summary In phonology, the phonological hierarchy describes a series of increasingly smaller regions of an utterance....