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How does tone in Chinese differ from intonation in English?

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Diagram of a human head in profile showing the location of vocal organs and possible places of articulation for speech sounds, with labels for lips, teeth, tongue, palate, uvula, pharynx, and vocal cords, and numbered regions corresponding to types of articulation such as bilabial, alveolar, and velar.
pronunciation Diagram depicting the location of human vocal organs and possible places of articulation used for speech.

In linguistics, the primary difference between tone in Chinese and intonation in English lies in their function and scope within the language.

Tone
In Chinese, tone is a property of individual words or syllables. It uses variations in pitch to distinguish between words that are otherwise identical in their consonants and vowels. For example, in Mandarin, the same syllable can have entirely different meanings—such as "deceive" or "slow"—depending on the pitch applied to it. Because pitch is used to differentiate lexical meaning, Chinese is classified as a tone language.12

Intonation
In contrast, intonation refers to the melodic pattern of an entire utterance. Rather than changing the identity of a word, intonation conveys expressive meaning (such as surprise or delight) and serves grammatical functions, such as distinguishing a statement from a question. While tone is a property of the syllable, intonation operates over phrases or sentences to provide context and intent.3

In summary, while both involve pitch modulation, tone is a lexical feature that defines what a word is, whereas intonation is a suprasegmental feature that defines how a sentence is interpreted.13