Analyzes the nature of punctuation, its functions (syntactic, suprasegmental, and semantic), its role in written language, and punctuation as grapheme. (AM)

Defines speech melody, with special attention to the distinction between its prosodic and paralinguistic domains. Discusses the role of the prosodic characteristics (stress, center, juncture, pitch direction, pitch height, utterance unit, and utterance group) in producing meaning in speech. (JMF)

This paper considers four levels of analysis in the observation of the prosodic features of pause in speech: phonetic; syntactic; semantic; and informative. On the phonetic level, a pause is related to length and intonation, and intonation in turn, being a result of the speaker's meaning, constitutes an expression of his/her emotional state. On…