intonation contour

collocation in English

meaningsofintonationandcontour

These words are often used together. Click on the links below to explore the meanings. Or,see other collocations withcontour.
intonation
noun
uk
/ˌɪn.təˈneɪ.ʃən/
us
/ˌɪn.təˈneɪ.ʃən/
the sound changes produced by the rise and fall of the voice when speaking, especially when this has an effect on the meaning of what ...
See more atintonation
contour
noun[C]
uk
/ˈkɒn.tɔːr/
us
/ˈkɑːn.tʊr/
the shape of a mass of land or other object, especially its curved surface or the curved shape formed by its ...
See more atcontour

(Definition ofintonationandcontourfrom theCambridge English Dictionary© Cambridge University Press)

Examplesofintonation contour

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.
Chafe 1994 ties prosodic phenomena such as types ofintonationcontourto cognitive processes taking place during verbalization.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Additional evidence for this interpretation is the preferredintonationcontouron children's repeats.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Utterance boundaries were based primarily onintonationcontourand secondarily on pause duration.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Utterance boundaries were based primarily onintonationcontourand, secondarily, on pause duration.
From theCambridge English Corpus
The adults manipulated the length of pink and green, the accompanyingintonationcontourand the pauses following them, to indicate the grouping of the blocks.
From theCambridge English Corpus
The tester presents items with broad focus, using anintonationcontourthat does not highlight either the colour or the vehicle.
From theCambridge English Corpus
In the second version, each brand is accentuated with a breath pause and newintonationcontour.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Utterance boundaries were based primarily onintonationcontour, and secondarily on pause duration.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Phoneme-monitoring reaction time as a function of precedingintonationcontour.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Using the contrasting pitch accent, the teacher refocuses the stress to wouldn't and uses a risingintonationcontouron electrocuted.
From theCambridge English Corpus
The period indicates a falling, or final,intonationcontour, not necessarily the end of a sentence.
From theCambridge English Corpus
We cannot attribute a different tone orintonationcontourto spoken utterances we hear; but we can do that, and far more, while reading.
From theCambridge English Corpus
The preponderantintonationcontouracross all types of utterances and all data points is a falling or rise-falling one.
From theCambridge English Corpus
An utterance was separated from a subsequent utterance primarily onintonationcontour, but also on pause duration.
From theCambridge English Corpus
In the third version, the three brands are rattled off together between breath pauses and oneintonationcontour.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Theintonationcontourof such utterances is mostly falling.
From theCambridge English Corpus
These two coordinated possible clauses in a sentence are not separated by any kind of prosodic break; on the contrary, they are integrated into one prosodically cohesiveintonationcontour.
From theCambridge English Corpus
For example, in contrast to successive single-word utterances, ' real ' two-word utterances are supposed to be characterized by a unifyingintonationcontourand a lack of an intervening pause.
From theCambridge English Corpus
The shortcomings of this chapter lie first of all in its diffuse structure, and second in the failure to contextualize theintonationcontourin terms of previous literature.
From theCambridge English Corpus
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.
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