INTONATION

Intonation is the use of changing vocal pitch

to convey grammatical information or to
convey a personal attitude such as
friendliness, enthusiasm or hostility.
 Pitch movement
There are five basic pitch movements:
• Falling
• Rising
• Slight/low rise
• Fall-rise
• Rise-fall
 Fall in pitch
• Statements: He’s English
• Wh-questions: What’s the time?
• Commands: Come here
• Exclamations: What an idiot!
• Question tags expecting agreement (not a
real question): The film was great, wasn’t it?
 Rise in pitch
High rise is used to elicit repetition

Low rise is used for:

• Yes/no questions: Are you Spanish?
• Wh-questions used to show interest or
politeness: How’s John?
• Expressing reassurance: He won’t bite you
• Disagreeing: Yes, it is/No it isn’t
 Rise in pitch
Question tags which do not expect agreement (we really want to know the answer): You
didn’t say that to him, did you?

Note the auxiliaries in these question tags.

Let’s go, shall we?
Give me a hand, will you?

Same way tags occur after affirmative sentences. The tag is positive. The speaker repeats
what he/she has just said to express interest, surprise, concern, or some other reaction.
So you’re Kevin’s sister, are you? You like pizza, do you?

Reinforcement tags
There is no inversion in the tag and it emhasizes the diea in the main clause by repeating it.
It is used to express that the speaker is very sure of what he/she is talking about.
She’s a clever girl, she is. You’re blind, you are.
 Fall-rise
• Pauses, reservation and hesitation: I don’t
know
• Apologizing: Sorry about that
• Irony: I love him
• Expressing differences of opinion
– I like tequila.
– Well, I don’t