Tone (linguistics)

Tone is the use of pitch distinctions to differentiate words or grammatical forms in a language. A tone may be defined by its pitch level, contour, or movement.

Lexical tone: The use of pitch differences to distinguish words or morphemes in a language. It is the word-distinguishing function of tone.
Fundamental frequency: The lowest frequency of a periodic sound wave, perceived as its pitch under ordinary conditions. It is the main acoustic correlate of pitch in voiced speech.
Mandarin Chinese phonology: The sound system of Mandarin Chinese, including four lexical tones and a neutral tone. Mandarin provides a widely studied example of lexical tone.
Intonation: The organization of pitch across phrases and utterances, conveying meanings such as questionhood or focus. Intonation operates mainly over phrases, unlike word-level tonal contrasts.
Register tone: A tone distinguished chiefly by its relative pitch height. It contrasts with contour-based tone through level pitch targets.
Syllable: A speech unit organized around a vowel or other sonorous nucleus, often with surrounding consonants. Many languages associate tones with syllables.
Yoruba language: A Niger-Congo language with three level tones that distinguish lexical and grammatical forms. Its level-tone system demonstrates contrasts without requiring contour tones.
Pitch accent: A prosodic system in which pitch prominence is associated with particular syllables or words, with limited contrastive patterns. It occupies an intermediate typological position between tone and stress systems.
Contour tone: A tone whose pitch rises, falls, or follows another movement within a syllable. Its pitch movement supplies contrasts beyond simple high and low levels.
Mora: A unit of syllable weight that can determine timing and phonological patterns. Some languages assign tone to morae rather than whole syllables.

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