IN THE FIRST PART OF THIS STUDY, A SET OF MEANINGLESS SENTENCES USING ONLY THE SYLLABLE "PA" BUT IMITATING THE INTONATIONAL CONTOUR OF THE SENTENCE "IL VIENDRA ME VOIR DEMAIN MATIN A SEPT HEURES" WERE USED TO PROVIDE SYLLABLES TO BUILD UP 12 SEMI-ARTIFICIAL NONSENSE WORDS. THIRTY-TWO NATIVE SPEAKERS WERE REQUESTED TO (1) SAY WHICH WAS THE ACCENTED SYLLABLE IN EACH OF THE WORDS, AND (2) WHETHER THE ACCENT WAS DUE TO PITCH OR TO AMPLITUDE. SUBJECTS' ANSWERS SHOW THAT PITCH IS THE PERTINENT ELEMENT BUT THAT AMPLITUDE BECOMES PERTINENT WHEN THE PITCH CUE IS MISSING, IN WHICH CASE AN IMPORTANT PERCENTAGE OF THE SUBJECTS STILL ATTRIBUTE THE ACCENT TO PITCH. FOR THE SECOND PART OF THE STUDY, 11 NATIVE SPEAKERS LISTENED TO A RECORDED EXCERPT FROM THE WRITINGS OF ROUSSEAU AND WERE ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT ITS INTONATIONAL CONTOURS. THE RESULTS ROUGHLY AGREED WITH THE FINDINGS OF THE FIRST PART. DISCREPANCIES MAY REASONABLY BE ATTRIBUTED TO THE FACT THAT IT WAS A LITERARY TEXT. (AUTHOR)