Prosody in speech

In linguistics, prosody is a term used to cover features of speech. It covers such matters as

• the stress patterns of utterances,
• the segmentation of utterance into phrases and the stress patterns in those phrases,
• the intonation (the tone patterns and 'tune' of natural speech),
• the timing of delivery and breathing,
• rhythm,
• pauses
• etcetera.

AWE - Academic Writing in English - does not aim to discuss prosody as it is used in linguistics. Our use of the term is limited to prosody in verse.