Intonation contours in Danish

The current model of Danish intonation can be formalized as a mathematical function, where F of any stressed syllable is the result of a linear function with two independent variables: the position of the stressed syllable in the sentence and its position in the prosodic phrase. I have applied two similar functions to a small corpus of spontaneous speech. Whether F in the stressed syllables can be accounted for by a mathematical function has been tested by means of (a) multiple linear regression analysis and (b) multiple polynomial regression analysis. Only 14.1 % (a) or 34.1 % (b) of the variation in the observed F can be accounted for by these functions. The linear regression on read speech reaches 90.5%. 1