> This really is key. "Tones" are hugely important in English. A simple sentence like "I didn't steal your money" has at least five different meanings depending on which word gets stressed.

Is this in Chinese or English?

I speak Mandarin (a bit of a Northeastern Accent, which the following is based on) and English. The idea that Mandarin does not express meaning via tones of individual words (despite being a tonal language) is not correct. It is simple emphasizing or changing the tone of a word which connects with changing the tone of all of the other words in the sentence.

The example sentence:

The 'I' or forcefulness, emphasizing the tone to exaggerate a word (choosing to starting a sentence with 'I' already suggests a self-centric perspective). For example: Deepening the 3rd tone for 'I' would exaggerate self; Raising the 3rd tone for 'I' would raise self questioning (often followed by a 可 but not necessary in speech and written context) or self-perspective (no 可 just, a heightened tone, just like English, but adding a 可 in in a rising tone emphasise this a lot);

'didn't' 没 a third tone (down-up) but the level of the single down-up is indecipherable compared to the difference of down-up depending on context. Rising again suggesting innocence and question asking, to a complete deletion of the rising part for complete denial. 3rd tones are a pain as they traditionally get augmented by tones before and after them, but the differentiation between the three possessive 'de's also got eliminated from examinations a few years back (的 adjective possessive, 得 verb possessive, 地 place possessive - not sure if this is a good thing).

'steal' again could probably go all over the place (flat short tone trying, for example, a child denying stealing chocolate to sound cute) to a rising tone giving denial, to a falling tone signalling finality.

'Your' 你 or 你的. Without the 的 a definite difference in meaning. Without it, it is very informal. As a personal pronoun, all kinds of tricks can be performed in tone to turn it from prejudicial to friendly.

'Money' 钱 at this point in a sentence, especially one of intentional display of where stress is necessary, it doesn't matter. The tone of the sentence is already established by the combination of _augmented_ tones of individual words. No one speak to each other like a computer dictionary of perfect tones, just like in English no one does hand recognition like an Apple Newton in 1995.

Chinese is a tonal language. But it is one that's spoken in sentences. Sentences make sense, static words don't. The greatest frustration I sometimes have is not understanding emotion or meaning, but when I flat-out say a noun or verb incorrectly because I screw up the tones, and then get met with confused looks. Tones crossed over words in modern Mandarin sentences are extremely close to English sentence tones. Speakers can choose to avoid this by using traditional (only 30-40 years ago commonplace) but today outside of official function, a little older (50+), or deliberate use, they don't.

Sorry for the verbose answer, it's 2am here. I found I just had to "just have to figure it out" when landing on a plane a few years ago.