Editing Vowel (section)

== Prosody and intonation ==
{{Main|Prosody (linguistics)|Intonation (linguistics)|Vowel length | l1=Prosody|l2=Intonation}}
In addition to variation in vowel quality as described above, vowels vary as a result of differences in [[prosody (linguistics)|prosody]]. The most important prosodic variables are [[pitch (music)|pitch]] ([[fundamental frequency]]), [[loudness]] ([[sound intensity|intensity]]) and [[vowel length|length]] ([[length (phonetics)|duration]]). However, the features of prosody are usually considered to apply not to the vowel itself, but to the [[syllable]] in which the vowel occurs. In other words, the ''domain'' of prosody is the syllable, not the segment (vowel or consonant).<ref>Lehiste, Ilse, ''Suprasegmentals'', M.I.T 1970, pp. 42, 84, 147</ref> We can list briefly the effect of prosody on the vowel component of a syllable.

* Pitch: in the case of a syllable such as 'cat', the only [[Voicing (phonetics)|voiced]] portion of the syllable is the vowel, so the vowel carries the pitch information. This may relate to the syllable in which it occurs, or to a larger stretch of speech to which an intonation contour belongs. In a word such as 'man', all the segments in the syllable are [[sonorant]] and all will participate in any pitch variation.
* Loudness: this variable has been traditionally associated with linguistic [[stress (linguistics)|stress]], though other factors are usually involved in this. Lehiste (ibid) argues that stress, or loudness, could not be associated with a single segment in a syllable independently of the rest of the syllable (p.&nbsp;147). This means that vowel loudness is a concomitant of the loudness of the syllable in which it occurs.
* Length: it is important to distinguish two aspects of [[vowel length]]. One is the [[phonology|phonological]] difference in length exhibited by some languages. [[Japanese language|Japanese]], [[Finnish language|Finnish]], [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]], [[Arabic language|Arabic]] and [[Latin]] have a two-way phonemic contrast between [[vowel length|short and long vowels]]. The [[Mixe language]] has a three-way contrast among short, half-long, and long vowels.<ref>Ladefoged, P. and Maddieson, I. ''The Sounds of the World's Languages'', Blackwell (1996), p 320</ref> The other type of length variation in vowels is non-distinctive, and is the result of prosodic variation in speech: vowels tend to be lengthened when in a stressed syllable, or when utterance rate is slow.