An overview of Gevey intonation

The Gevey language is a syllable-timed language, unlike Ramajal which is stressed-timed. What this means in practical terms is that whereas a stress-timed language evenly spaces its stressed syllables as a sentence is spoken, forcing syllables between the stress points to shorten and weaken, Gevey expects each syllable in a sentence to be given roughly equal amounts of time as they are spoken.

Stress patterns within the Gevey word

Gevey words do posess stressed syllables - syllables that are given an elevated pitch and tone over other syllables, but there is no significant degredation of vowels or consonants in unstressed syllables, and no significant shortening of the time taken to utter them.

In general, Gevey words are stressed on the initial syllable and, for words of four or more syllables, on the penultimate syllable. A few (irregular) words are stressed on their second syllable:

vae.yu (town)
fui.stu (cabbage)
dje.vi.smu (hearing)
ma.be.tcyu xduu.gyi.xu (honey)
ye do.na.teir (tailor)
áo.sli.fli.xe (over-friendly)
snon.dom.gvoi.zu (magnet)
taelj.gaop.ma.ri.xe (weight)
glou.nex.li.ste (refurbisher, nominative case)
ye glou.nex.list (refurbisher, accusative case)
hae.tai.zue (pleased to meet you - irregular stress)
da.kai.zue (no, thank you - irregular stress)
fe.selj (we - irregular stress)

For oblique nouns, stress is not changed with the addition of the prepositional prefix, unless the preposition is being emphasised - in which case the stress shifts to the preposition (monosyllabic prefix) or the first syllable of the preposition (polysyllabic prefix) gains stress; moving the initial stress forward onto a preposition will not normally trigger the appearance of a penultimate stress in a word. The same rule applies to intransitive verbs where the preposition is prefixed to the verb:

di.vae.yuks (away from the town)
ba.vae.yuks (near the town)
ba.vae.yuks (near the town - preposition stressed)
do.stavae.yuks (out of the town)
do.stavae.yuks (out of the town - preposition stressed)
ta.taa.bwja.se (lives in)

Adding grammatical suffixes can lengthen a word sufficiently to introduce the penultimate stress, as long as there's an unstressed syllable between the initial stress and the new penultimate stress:

di.trje.syee.fups (away from the office)
di.trje.syee.fup.sec (away from the offices)

In general dissociated noun complexes, particles, conjunctions and other structural words are not stressed except where they introduce a new clause, or are being emphasised (though an alternative method of emphasising these words is to double the length of the initial syllable of the particle); particles of more than one syllable will stress their initial syllable, but not as strongly as for normal stress. Interrogative words and particles are stressed fully, even when monosyllabic:

dak, yu ë.mie.gev gie.dxa.so ta.tiy do
pass me the sugar, please
ye trja.te.dxeirj Dxo.ne tatj te noi.cloek.ta.te
John and I had a good time
yu ken yierj Dxo.ne glaa fo.sa.se, lo.yant yu sond bao noi.ke.sna.sye fe.selj
now that John has finished eating his cake we can start painting the room

Pitch contours across phrases, clauses and sentences

Gevey uses pitch contours to emphasise the emotional content of an utterance; these are almost always accompanied by the appropriate facial expression. Dislocation between expression, pitch contour and content are the marks of irony, sarcasm or dishonesty.