The fall and rise of the level tone in English

The paper presents an observation of an intonation pattern that is current in British and American English but which has not received any attention in standard descriptions: a low pitched pretonic followed by a mid level tone. The proposal to be made here is that it systematically carries the meaning of a routine listing of items presented as unquestionably self-evident information to substantiate an argument. The description of the pattern is based on broadcast material. The study presents this pattern in a historical context and claims that it is of recent origin. It also presents it as an additional option in the English tone system, and makes the claim that this new pattern is not confined to RP intonation.