Abstract
Intonation in many languages, including English, is realized most effectively by changes in fundamental frequency. It is important to investigate whether this relation holds true in a tone language, where F0 variation may affect lexical meaning. This paper reports the interaction of tones and intonation in a tone language, Mandarin Chinese, and calculates the effects of various intonation patterns as well as focus structures. The result is implemented and tested in a Chinese text‐to‐speech system. In general, the interrogative pattern in Mandarin Chinese is characterized by a high reference line and a high boundary tone at the end of a sentence. However, the resulting tone shape is not always rising as a result of the lexical tones. Focus is realized mainly by increasing the pitch range, but the exact implementation is complicated by some local tonal effects such as target shift. This paper will also explain the interaction of catathesis (pitch lowering triggered by specific tonal context) and focus in the direction of prosodic structure.
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