Why are English intonation and pitch so complicated?
Understanding the uses of intonation is one of the most complicated aspects of spoken English for a number of reasons. • Research on intonation is difficult to conduct. Due to the differing nature of vowels and consonants, and voiced verses unvoiced consonants, even computers still have difficulty measuring human pitch accurately. • Intonation does not occur in steps, like a ladder, but rather by gradation, with one tone blending into the next. • Intonation is relative. One person’s high pitch may be another person’s mid-range pitch. • In English speech, intonation does not have syntactic rules governing its use. Vocabulary and grammar are relatively rigid in English, but intonation is not. • Intonation is emotional, and therefore difficult to measure.
