Intonation changes meaning.

Thats why texting has so many miscommunications. People choose the tone they want to hear.

I don't have the sound turned on but I can hear this

I am 100% certain she thinks she stole her money.

well yeah, you told me she stole your car!

Fuck. English is a tonal language after all

This is WHY I type like this, tbh

What's the right way to do this? All caps? Italics? Bold? Underline? Combo? All of the above? Other?

In Hungarian you can put emphasis on a word by changing the order. Therefore the full meaning can be shown in writing too. In the age of Shakespeare english still had that feature. It is not there anymore. As a Hungarian, I like to listen to Shakespeare in ORIGINAL, because those are much better than the modernized versions.

This is why I don't listen to audio books. It's another brain's interpretation between the book and my brain. I've been reading books since before 1st grade and will never turn the experience over to another person's perspective. If the author does the audio I'd give it a listen.

That’s what it means for a language to be “stress timed”. This is to be contrasted with languages like Mandarin which are genuinely tonal. But to help learners of either language from the other - examples like that really help.

I understand. But I still fucking hate this exists.

This is not intonation but emphasis

Classic. I prefer the version “I didn't say I slept with your wife" has more depth imbued by intonation.

Similar causes for radically different humor responses between observers of the same thing. Not so much from intonation (although this can be a factor), but from often-subconscious assumptions across five gauges: Real/Fictional, Temporary/Permanent, Spontaneous/Prepared, Accidental/Intentional, and Meant/Not Meant. This last drives a particularly sharp distinction between Mockery and Teasing.

A humorous play on this very point:

Yep, the inevitable sequela of an uninflected language. I feel bad for people who have to learn English, especially those coming from language systems that actually follow their own rules, at least most of the time!

english is not a tonal language, but it sure puts power into different parts of the language for sure.

is this different in languages like chinese? it works the same in german, french, etc at least

Oh wow

It actually doesn't change meaning. It adds meaning. The sentence is a negative statement that contains many elements. At least one element is therefore false. The intonation implies which element is false. And putting the accent on "didn't" doesn't imply anything.

@belletristt

This is high context English. People in LA speak this.

That's why text communication was doomed from its very inception

You can make much funnier versions of this too. "I didn't fuck a cat!" "I haven't imagined Grandma showering!"

Do any TTS systems apply this to bold/italic/underlined text? That would be cool. Of course even today, with all their advancements, TTS mispronounces things and fails when things depend on context (is it "lead" the metal or "lead" the verb)

Reminds me of a sentence that went something like "Tony took his camera to the circus", and how placing the word "only" anywhere in the sentence is grammatically-correct, but has different meanings.

that's good and all, but the proper conclusion is meaning changes intonation.

German fixes this

Ive seen this with “I don’t remember shitting my pants” and it’s a lot more fun.

Its not intonation but accent on specific word which corresponds with the subject or action of intent.

Brilliant demonstration of the nuances of language and intonation! Love it.

She stole the fuckin money!!!!!

Ok now what if you don’t emphasize any word and what if you emphasize each word?

That's more of an emphasis but with questions intonation matters. "You're english." or "You're english?" Same in many languages.