Hi everyone and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation podcast.

My name is Mandy and this is our 58th episode.

For the last three weeks I talked about pitch words and how to interpret them.

Today, I'm going to continue talking about pitch, but I'm going to shift to talking about

pitch boundaries.

Remember, all this content is also available in my new book, Rhythm and Intonation of American English, as well as in our

online lessons at pronuncian.com. The book comes out May 15th, and you can pre-buy it now for a

discounted price. Download the book and audio files directly onto your computer for $32, or have the physical

book and CD audio sent to you for $42 plus shipping. The e-book and physical book are both available

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Now, let's get back to pitch.

First, I need to explain how a pitch boundary is different from a pitch word.

A pitch word is an individual word that a speaker chooses to set apart by raising or lowering the pitch of that word's stressed syllable.

Pitch boundaries happen at the end of intonation units and are really about keeping conversations going.

Pitch boundaries are not dependent on stressed syllables the way pitch words are.

Pitch boundaries mostly occur on the last syllable of the last word of an intonation unit.

Pitch boundaries have an organizational purpose and an emotional purpose.

Regarding organizing a conversation,

pitch boundaries are the way speakers tell their listener

that they're finished speaking and expect someone else to take a turn.

This is done with questions as well as statements.

When it comes to emotion, pitch boundaries express things like confidence and assertiveness or uncertainty.

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