Intonation pattern in BODO and RABHA language

In this paper the tone structure of Bodo and Rabha language have been studied. These two languages have the syllable structures such as (V, CV, VC, CVC). The variation of pitch (Fo) contour of three types i.e. Rising, Falling and Flat has been considered. In the study the following observations have been made for Bodo language, in case of vowels, Fo contour is rising, except the high back un-rounded vowel (/w/) which shows a falling trend. But for vowels of Rabha language, Fo contour always show a rising. It is found that most of the pitch contour starts at a little higher position, (depending on speaker's initial vocal condition) and falls gradually to a low pitch and then shows a slight rise at the end of the syllable. If the nucleus is followed by tail syllables the falling part of the pattern is accompanied by the nucleus itself. The overall intonation pattern for both the languages, in case of sentences, are found to be composed of local rises and falls of tones across words or syllables i.e. the perceptions of a sentence is dependent on the tone pattern or pitch pattern of the syllables or words and intonation in general.