Prosodic Features

those rhythmic and intonational elements of speech (melodies, relative intensity of pronunciation of words and their parts, correlation of speech segments according to length, overall speech tempo, pauses, and general timbre coloration) essential to the sounds of speech. Prosodic features are relatively independent of the quality of speech sounds; they organize speech by contrasting certain segments of a spoken chain with other segments. Prosodic features are correlated with units larger than sounds, that is, with syllables, words, syntagms, and sentences; they are organized into autonomous systems, of which the most important are tone, stress, and intonation.