ABSTRACT
This chapter is twofold: first, to acquaint the reader with the basic properties of Beckman and Pierrehumbert's framework, and second to the principles of the ToBI tonal transcription system. The intonational structure proposed few explicit in separating phonological constituency and phonological feature specification from phonetic implementation the now broadly accepted autosegmental model introduced by Pierrehumbert and developed by Beckman and Pierrehumbert (B&P). It is well suited to provide the basis of a formal linguistic investigation. B&P's model of English intonation falls squarely into the levels tradition. The underlying phonological representation of a pitch contour consists of a series of phonemic tonal targets taken from a limited inventory of accent types. The Tones and Break Indices (ToBI) transcription system based on Pierrehumbert's model provides a more comprehensive, multi-tier prosodic description of spoken utterance tokens than necessary for the purposes; particular, features a tier separate from the tonal for the documentation of various levels of prosodic grouping.
