Prosody (linguistics)

Timing, rhythm, and intonation of speech

In linguistics, prosody is the study of those elements of speech, including intonation, stress, rhythm and loudness, that occur simultaneously with individual sound segments: vowels and consonants. Often, prosody specifically refers to such elements, known as suprasegmentals, when they extend across more than one segment. Prosody reflects the nuanced emotional features of the speaker or of their utterances: their obvious or underlying emotional state, the form of utterance (statement, question, or command), the presence of irony or sarcasm, certain emphasis on words or morphemes, contrast, focus, and so on.

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