Phonological and semantic aspects of German intonation

Abstract

This paper presents an outline of an autosegmental-metrical analysis of German intonation adopting Gussenhoven’s (1983, 2005) approach to Dutch intonation. A features-based interpretation of the phonological units is given, which is based on an analysis of tonal contrasts. This analysis suggests that tones of different tone classes bear semantic features that relate to the mutual belief space, information packaging, conversational structure, thematic structure, conceptual structure, and speaker attitudes.