Intonation describes how the voice rises and falls in speech. The three main patterns of intonation in English are: falling intonation, rising intonation and fall-rise intonation. Intonation is a complex system of meaning communicated through the rise and fall of a speaker's voice. English speakers use it to communicate many different types of meaning: grammatical meaning e.g. different types of questions and statements, status of information e.g. main or subordinate, finished or unfinished.