Intonation Phrases in Phonetics

In phonetics, an intonation phrase is a stretch (or chunk) of spoken

material that has its own intonation pattern (or tune). Also called
an intonation group, phonological phrase, tone unit, or tone group.
The intonation phrase (IP) is the basic unit of intonation. In a phonetic
analysis, the vertical bar symbol (|) is used to represent the boundary
between two intonation phrases.
Examples and Observations
"When speakers produce words in a row, we can usually observe that they
are structured: individual words are grouped together to form an
intonation phrase... Intonation phrases can coincide with breath groups...,
but they do not have to. Often a breath group contains more than one
intonation phrase. As with all other phonological units, it is assumed that
speakers have a mental representation of intonation phrases, i.e. they
know how to produce speech structured into intonation phrases and they
rely on this knowledge when listening to the speech of others.

"Within an intonation phrase, there is typically one word that is most

prominent... Some utterances might contain just one intonation phrase,
others might contain several of them. Moreover, speakers can put
utterances together to form larger stretches of speech or discourse...

"Intonational phrasing in English can have a meaning-distinguishing

function. Consider utterances 11a and 11b:

(11a) He washed and fed the dog.

(11b) He washed | and fed the dog.
If the intonation phrase 'He washed and fed the dog' is produced as one
intonation phrase, its meaning is that a person both washed and fed a
dog. Conversely, if the same utterance is produced as a sequence of two
intonation phrases with an intonation boundary after washed (indicated
by the symbol |), the meaning of the utterance changes into 'someone who
washed himself and fed a dog.'"
(Ulrike Gut, Introduction to English Phonetics and Phonology. Peter
Lang, 2009)
Intonation Contours
 "Intonation often does serve to convey information of a broadly
meaningful nature . . .. For example, the falling pitch we hear at the
end of a statement in English such as Fred parked the car signals
 that the utterance is complete. For this reason, falling intonation at
the end of an utterance is called a terminal (intonation) contour.
Conversely, a rising or level intonation, called a nonterminal
(intonation) contour, often signals incompleteness. Nonterminal
contours are often heard in the nonfinal forms found in lists and
telephone numbers." (William O'Grady et al., Contemporary
Linguistics: An Introduction, 4th ed. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001)

Tonality (Chunking)
"The speaker does not necessarily have to follow the rule of an IP for each
clause. There are many cases where different kinds of chunking are
possible. For example, if a speaker wants to say We don't know who she
is, it is possible to say the whole utterance as a single IP (= one intonation
pattern):
We don't know who she is.

But it is also possible to divide the material up, in at least the following
possible ways:

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We don't know | who she is.
We | don't know who she is.
We don't | know who she is.
We | don't know | who she is.
Thus the speaker may present the material as two, or three, pieces of
information rather than a single piece. This is tonality (or chunking)."
(J. C. Wells, English Intonation: An Introduction. Cambridge University
Press, 2006)
The Position of Intonation Phrase Boundaries
 "The position of intonation phrase boundaries shows a good
amount of variability. These have been studied in English on the
basis of positions of possible pauses within clauses (Selkirk 1984b,
Taglicht 1998 and references there) and positions of obligatory
pauses (Downing 1970). . . . The core result is that root clauses, and
only these, are bounded by obligatory intonation phrase breaks.
(Root clauses are clauses [CPs] not imbedded inside of a higher
clause that has a subject and a predicate.)" (Hubert Truckenbrodt,
"The Syntax-Phonology Interface." The Cambridge Handbook of
Phonology, ed. by Paul de Lacy. Cambridge University Press, 2007)