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I'm looking for examples of phrases & sentences whose meaning changes depending on the tone of voice used.

For example,

'Follow me.' (Said with a falling tone) would be understood as a command.

'Follow me?' (Said with a rising tone) would be understood as a question (ie. do you understand me?)

The longer and more grammatically correct the better!

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4  
Voting to close as "not constructive". Virtually any statement can be converted to a question using rising inflection. – FumbleFingers Dec 2 '11 at 17:14
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Lists of examples are not good questions for his site. – Mitch Dec 2 '11 at 17:16
@Mitch see this question (one of the top voted on the site), and this open question – Jim Dec 2 '11 at 17:20
Although I must admit the first link there does have the "locked question" disclaimer. – Jim Dec 2 '11 at 17:21
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@Jim: I was under the impression that, despite those two particular questions (which have come up in meta-discussions), list-like questions are not wanted here. I agree totally with FumbleFingers in that this one is particularly vaguely open-ended. – Mitch Dec 2 '11 at 17:24
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closed as not constructive by FumbleFingers, onomatomaniak, Mitch, Jim, Barrie England Dec 2 '11 at 17:41

As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, see the FAQ for guidance.

2 Answers

up vote 5 down vote

Practically all sentences have different meanings, or at least different intrepretations, when spoken with different stress and intonation patterns.

Most Garden Path sentences, for instance, while disturbingly difficult to process in written form, pose no troubles at all in speech because stress and intonation differentiates them effectively. Some examples:

  • The man who hunts ducks out on weekends.
  • The dog that I had really loved bones.

English orthography does not represent stress or intonation in any consistent way, and therefore has to resort to all kinds of artificial and ill-understood subterfuges, like punctuation, to try to represent at least a bit of it.

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up vote 1 down vote

Won't you forget it?

(normal question tone) Are you sure you will remember?

(angry tone, maybe kind-a question-y depending on the speaker) Drop it!

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Negated or not, I expect most sentences starting with variants of can, will, etc. toggle between actual query and demand/put-down depending on intonation. Can we leave it at that. (? :) – FumbleFingers Dec 2 '11 at 19:26

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