:Tonicity:

Pronunciation GB: təˈnɪsəti, GA: təˈnɪsət̬i

An intonational system which involves the choice as to which items in an utterance to mark as accented. For example, the English sentence My brother is leaving tomorrow could be produced in (at least) the following ways:

My brother is leaving tomorrow
My brother is leaving tomorrow
My brother is leaving tomorrow
My brother is leaving tomorrow
My brother is leaving tomorrow

where underlining indicates the place of the nuclear accent. The above utterances differ in tonicity.