what is intonation
Although intonation is primarily a matter of pitch variation, it is important to be aware that functions attributed to intonation such as the expression of attitudes and emotions, or highlighting aspects of grammatical structure, almost always involve concomitant variation in other prosodic features.andarin Chinese is a tonal language, meaning that pitch contours within a word distinguish the word from other words with the same vowels and consonants. Nevertheless, Mandarin also has intonation patternsâpatterns of pitch throughout the phrase or sentenceâthat indicate the nature of the sentence as a whole.