The current paper tests a range of predictions about the adequacy of analysing f0 modulations as a string of repeated contours differing in range but not in shape. Analyses of f0 in sentences of differing complexity supplied little evidence in favour of the existence of default contours.
Instead, our acoustic data revealed an array of f0 shapes associated with various prosodic anchor points, which are influenced in both range and shape by positional context and the presence or absence of focus.