Pitch accent (intonation)

Pitch accent is a term used in autosegmental-metrical theory for local intonational features that are associated with particular syllables.

Languages vary in terms of whether pitch accents must be associated with syllables that are perceived as prominent or stressed.

[2] Languages also vary in terms of whether pitch accents are assigned lexically or post-lexically.

Post-lexical pitch accents are assigned to words in phrases according to their context in the sentence and conversation.

[3] It also differs from the American Structuralists' system, in which pitch accents were made up of some combination of low, mid, high, and overhigh tones.

[6] Pitch accents in English serve as a cue to prominence, along with duration, intensity, and spectral composition.

[7] Most theories of prosodic meaning in English claim that pitch accent placement is tied to the focus, or the most important part, of the phrase.

Some theories of prosodic marking of focus are concerned only with nuclear pitch accents.