{"id":10269,"date":"2024-03-04T13:35:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T13:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/speechneurolab.ca\/?p=10269"},"modified":"2024-03-11T20:53:13","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T20:53:13","slug":"what-is-prosody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/speechneurolab.ca\/en\/what-is-prosody\/","title":{"rendered":"What is prosody?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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You\u2019ve probably heard the sentence \u2018It\u2019s not what you said, it\u2019s how you said it\u2019. You may have heard it in a context where someone sounded angrier, ruder, or more sarcastic or dismissive than expected.<\/p>

This sentence is related to a property of language known as prosody. As we\u2019ve seen in previous blog posts<\/a>, language is made up of many components. To form a word, we need sounds, as well as morphemes<\/a> (the meaningful units that cannot be divided but can be combined with each other, such as swim <\/em>and -er<\/em>, which together form the word swimmer<\/em>). Words can then be combined into larger meaningful chunks called phrases (e.g., the skillful swimmer<\/em>) and sentences (e.g., the skillful swimmer won the championship<\/em>).<\/p>

So where does prosody fit in all of this? Prosody is a bit like the \u2018flavor\u2019 of verbal productions. It is connected to the intonation and the rhythm we assign to a phrase or sentence.<\/p>

For example, we know that questions in English usually involve including a question marker (such as do <\/em>or did<\/em>) or reversing the subject and the verb (in the case of the verb to be<\/em> or modals like would<\/em> and may<\/em>). However, we can also ask questions by changing the intonation of a sentence that uses declarative word order (i.e., the word order we use in statements).<\/p>

Think of the sentence I wrote an email<\/em>. If produced with declarative intonation \u2013 that is, when the pitch<\/a> of the sentence gradually lowers toward the end of the sentence \u2013, it\u2019ll probably be interpreted as the answer to a question such as \u201cWhat did you do<\/em>?\u201d or as a simple statement of a fact. See figure 1 (you can listen to the sentence below). <\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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https:\/\/speechneurolab.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/wroteD.wav<\/a><\/audio><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Figure 1. The sentence 'I wrote an email' produced with declarative intonation.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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But someone could also produce this sentence if they were unsure that they really wrote an email. In this case, the sentence is produced with interrogative intonation, with the pitch rising towards the end of the sentence. \u00a0See figure 2 (and audio file).<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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