ABSTRACT
A long tradition of intonation analysis in Britain has recognised that English utterances are divided into chunks, or intonational phrases — variously described as word groups, tone units, intonation-groups, or as I shall call them here, tone groups. Such groups tend to be associated with units of grammatical description, such as the clause, or the noun phrase, though not in a strictly predictable way. A tone group may be characterised as follows: within each group there is an obligatory 'nucleus', an accented syllable marked by rhythmic and pitch prominence; the nucleus initiates one of a set of 'nuclear tones', characteristic pitch configurations which may be realised entirely on the nuclear syllable, or be optionally extended over a succession of subsequent unaccented syllables, the 'tail'; the completion of this contour signals a tone group boundary. Any accented material preceding the nucleus will indicate the presence of a head, while any initial unaccented syllables will constitute a 'prehead'.
