Differences in intonation among languages and dialects are readily noticed but less easily described. What is the ‘shape’ of phrasal pitch contours, analyzed in terms of their component phonological features or in acoustic F0 measurements? How does intonation function to mark the structure of phrases and larger discourse units, or distinctions in semantic or pragmatic meaning? The goal of a linguistic theory of intonation is to establish a framework in which the form and functions of intonation can be analyzed and compared across languages and speakers. This is a surprisingly difficult task. Analyzing the function of intonational expressions calls for preliminary decisions about segmentation, measurement and encoding– which interval(s) of a continuous pitch signal are associated with a particular meaning or structure, which aspects of the dynamic F0 signal encode that function, and what are the features of encoding? Even for English, arguably one of the most studied intonation systems, there is ongoing debate over these very questions, resulting in a knowledge bottleneck that stymies scientific progress on intonation and its communicative function.

In this talk I report on my recent work addressing this central challenge for American English: What are the characteristics of phrasal pitch patterns that are reliably perceived and produced as distinct and interpreted differently, by speakers of the language?  I present work (with Jeremy Steffman, U Edinburgh) from a series of studies that examine intonational form through imitations of 16  intonational “tunes” of English, under varying task conditions that tap memory representations of model tunes presented auditorily. Analyses of dynamic F0 patterns from five experiments converge on finding a primary dichotomy between high-rising and low-falling tunes, with secondary distinctions in meaning corresponding to F0 shape variation within the two primary tune classes. Time allowing, I will briefly discuss related findings from parallel streams of research in my lab investigating intonational form and its pragmatic function related to interpretations of asking/telling and scalar ratings of speaker surprise (work with Thomas Sostarics and Rebekah Stanhope). Implications of the joint findings from these studies are discussed for a theory of categorical and gradient associations of intonational form and function.