Czech intonation: A tonal approach
Czech intonation: A tonal approach

Summary/Abstract: In this article we describe a model of Czech intonation that is based on Daneš’s system of nuclear contours (1957), though, unlike Daneš’s system, it is formally inspired by autosegmental (tone-based) theory. After discussing the fundamental principles of the stylisation (prosodic phrase, types of tonal events, their scaling and their functions) we present and illustrate the inventories of prenuclear accents, boundary tones and nuclear contours. The findings of our analysis are based on two types of speech recordings (read newspaper texts and literary dialogues). Issues relating to the application of tonal events to prosodic phrases (alignment of nuclear contours, intonational homonymy and synonymy, structure of the phrase) are also discussed. We conclude the article by providing a general typological overview of Czech intonation.

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