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Accent (equivalent to pitch accent):
Prominence where pitch is involved. It is a property of a word in context, as a way to mark intonational prominence in order to highlight important words in the discourse.
Declination (equivalent to downdrift):
The fact that the pitch of the voice is most commonly lower at the end of a sentence than it is at the beginning.
Downstep:
A descent beyond normal declination that may apply to any series of high-pitched accents and that is relevant to the description of the intonation of the language.
Key:
Variation in the pitch range width over whole prosodic units principally for discourse purposes.
Nucleus:
The pitch accent that stands out as the most prominent in a prosodic group. In the majority of cases, the most prominent pitch accent is the last pich accent.
Phrasing (equivalent to prosodic grouping):
The division of connected speech into prosodic groups.
Pitch:
Physiologically, pitch is primarily dependent of the rate of vibration of the vocal cords within the larynx. The rate of vibration of the vocal cords is reflected in the acoustic measurement of fundamental frequency (F0). Pitch is used as a perceptual term, relating to listeners’ judgements as to whether a sound is “high” or “low”, whether a sound is “higher” or “lower” than another, and whether the voice is going “up” or “down”.
Range (equivalent to accent range):
Width of pitch movement, most commonly associated with the variation in the heigth of high-pitched accents.
Register:
Variation in the height of the pitch range that involves the overall shifting of the entire pitch range within which a speaker is speaking.
Rhythm:
Pattern of prominent and non-prominent syllables for a given language.
Stress (equivalent to word stress):
Syllabic prominence when compared with other syllables in the word. It is a structural property of a word. It marks a potential location for an accent to occur, if there is one.
Upstep:
An ascending feature that may apply to any series of low-pitched accents and that is relevant to the description of the intonation of the language.
