Developments and paradigms in intonation research

Abstract

The present tutorial paper is addressed to a wide audience with different discipline backgrounds as well as variable expertise on intonation. The paper is structured into five sections. In Section 1, “ Introduction”, basic concepts of intonation and prosody are summarised and cornerstones of intonation research are highlighted. In Section 2, “ Functions and forms of intonation”, a wide range of functions from morpholexical and phrase levels to discourse and dialogue levels are discussed and forms of intonation with examples from different languages are presented. In Section 3, “ Modelling and labelling of intonation”, established models of intonation as well as labelling systems are presented. In Section 4, “ Applications of intonation”, the most widespread applications of intonation and especially technological ones are presented and methodological issues are discussed. In Section 5, “ Research perspective” research avenues and ultimate goals as well as the significance and benefits of intonation research in the upcoming years are outlined.