English
Pitch accents in English serve as a cue to prominence, along with duration, intensity, and spectral composition. Pitch accents are made up of a high (H) or low (L) pitch target or a combination of an H and an L target. The pitch accents of English used in the ToBI prosodic transcription system are: H*, L*, L*+H, L+H*, and H+!H*.
Most theories of prosodic meaning in English claim that pitch accent placement is tied to the focus, or most important part, of the phrase. Some theories of prosodic marking of focus are only concerned with nuclear pitch accents.
Read more about this topic: Pitch Accent
Famous quotes containing the word english:
“The French are a logical people, which is one reason the English dislike them so intensely. The other is that they own France, a country which we have always judged to be much too good for them.”
—Robert Morley (b. 1908)
“While abroad, he met with a very salacious English woman, whose liberality retrieved his fortune, with several circumstances more to the honor of his vigor than his morals.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Anyone who has been to an English public school will always feel comparatively at home in prison. It is the people brought up in the gay intimacy of the slums ... who find prison so soul-destroying.”
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)