pitch accent

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun linguistics A term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in pitch to give prominence to a syllable or mora within a word. The placement of this tone or the way it is realized can give different meanings to otherwise similar words.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun emphasis that results from pitch rather than loudness