In this video we are going to have a look at the three Ts of intonation: tonality, tonicity and tone as described by Wells (2006).

Tonality refers to how speech is divided up into chunks, also called tone units (= intonation phrase OR intonation unit – they all refer to the same). One grammatical sentence could consist of several tone units.

Tonicity refers to the location of the most prominent syllable of the tone unit, also called the tonic syllable – and remember: each tone unit has only one tonic syllable.

Last but not least, tone refers to the pitch movement within a tone unit. We could have a fall, rise, fall-rise or rise-fall. A new pitch movement starts on the tonic syllable.

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Reference: John C. Wells, English Intonation: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006