Level _yes_ no

This tone is certainly used in English, but in a rather restricted context: it almost always conveys (on single-syllable utterances) a feeling of saying something routine, uninteresting or boring. A teacher calling the names of students from a register will often do so using a level tone on each name, and the students are likely to respond with _yes when their name is called. Similarly, if one is being asked a series of routine questions for some purpose - such as applying for an insurance policy - one might reply to each question of a series (like 'Have you ever been in prison?', 'Do you suffer from any serious illness?', 'Is your eyesight defective?', etc.) with _no.

A few meanings have been suggested for the five tones that have been introduced, but each tone may have many more such meanings. Moreover, it would be quite wrong to conclude that in the above examples only the tones given would be appropriate; it is, in fact, almost impossible to find a context where one could not substitute a different tone. This is not the same thing as saying that any tone can be used in any context: the point is that no particular tone has a unique "privilege of occurrence" in a particular context. When we come to look at more complex intonation patterns, we will see that defining intonational "meanings" does not become any easier.