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The melody and rhythm of speech
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14 July 2026

Gösta Bruce (1947-2010) was Professor of Phonetics at Lund University, Sweden
Translator: Merle Horne, Professor Emerita of Linguistics, Lund University, Sweden
Publisher’s note
List of illustrations
Foreword Jonathan Barnes
Translator’s preface Merle Horne
Author’s preface
1. What is prosody?
Introduction
Background
The study of prosody
Interest in prosody
Characterization of prosody
The functions of prosody
Alternative / simultaneous means of expression
Prosodic phonetics and phonology
Outline of the book
2. Lexical prosody
Introduction
Syllable structure
Quantity
Language typology
Quantity in Finnish
Quantity in Swedish
Stress
Language typology
Metrical phonology
Stress in Swedish
Non-compound words, lexicon, and morphology
Basic rules for non-compound words
Compound words
Final-element stress in North Swedish
Other areas
Tones
Language typology
Autosegmental phonology
Scandinavian word accent
Word accent in non-compound words in Swedish
Word accent in compound words
Stød in Danish
The marking status of word accents
3. Analysis of prosody
Introduction
Ear-phonetics and machine-phonetics
Production, acoustics, and perception of prosody
Scales for pitch curves
Microprosody
Analysis of pitch patterns
Analysis of rhythm, stress, and length
Consequences of microprosody
Citation form
Laboratory speech vs natural speech
4. Prominence and rhythm
Introduction
Rhythmic and tonal prominence
Prominence in Swedish
The question of degrees of stress
A model for prominence levels
Rhythm and stress
General aspects of rhythm
Speech-rhythm typology
Phrase-rhythm principles
The phonetic correlates of stress
Quantity
Summary
5. Tonal prominence
Introduction
Accentuation and focusing
Language typology
Tonal prominence in (Central) Swedish
Accent I and accent II
Simple and compound words
Conclusion
Emphasis and focus
Accentuation’s dialectal variation
Accentuation in Japanese
Accentuation in Somali
Chinese word tones
Word tones in Kammu
6. Prosodic phrasing
Introduction
The prosodic word
Linguistic structure and prosody
Grammatical and prosodic phrasing
Phrasing and accentuation
Phonetic correlates of phrasing
Phrase intonation in Dutch and French
Global and local intonation patterns
Prosodic phrasing in Swedish
One-word phrases (compounds) and two-word phrases
Three- and four-word phrases
Phrasing in somewhat longer utterances
Perception of phrasing
Prosodic phrasing in texts
Pausing and grouping
7. Prosodic transcription
Introduction
Transcription of speech sounds: generalities
Phonetic transcription
Phonological and phonetic transcription
The connection annotation – phonetic signaling
The International phonetic alphabet (IPA)
IPA’s objectives and principles
IPA’s prosodic symbols
Prosodic discourse transcription
Transcription with ToBI
Labeling with INTSINT
Basic prosodic transcription for Swedish
Tonal transcription of Swedish
Evaluating a transcription
8. Text and dialogue prosody
Introduction
Analysis of discourse and dialogue prosody
Analysis of discourse and dialogue structure
Prosodic analysis
Speech synthesis
Text- and paragraph prosody
Focus placement
Conversationa-topic structure
Division into speech paragraphs
Dialogue prosody
Speaking style and prosody
Dialogue intonation
9. Applied prosody
Introduction
First-language acquisition
Learning of word prosody
Second-language learning
Swedish as a second language
Swedish as source language
Prosodic dialect adaptation
Dysprosody
Dysprosody and ‘foreign accent syndrome’
Prosody and speech technology