"Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things."

Flora Lewis

The Nuclear Tone

The nuclear tone is the most important part of the intonation pattern without which the intonation cannot exist. Phoneticians single out from 4 to 12 nuclear tones, but the majority of them agree that the following nuclear tones are most frequent and make up core intonation:

- The Low Fall (LF)
- The Low Rise (LR)
- The High Fall (HF)
- The High Rise (HR)
- The Fall-Rise (FR)
- The Rise-Fall (RF)
- The Rise-Fall-Rise (RFR)
- The Mid-Level (ML)

These tones are called kinetic or moving because the pitch of the voice moves upwards or downwards.

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Published in Guidelines for Phonetics
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