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The experimental work reported in this dissertation is aimed at investigating the perceptual relevance of pitch movement alignment to the characterization of the hat pattern, which is one of the most frequently used intonation patterns in Dutch. After a general discussion of the theoretical issues involved, the alignment of rising pitch movements in the hat pattern is examined by means of a 2AX discrimination experiment and associated labelling task. The results of these experiments provide no indication of a reliable discrimination of rise-alignment, nor do they provide evidence that the hat pattern is categorized on the basis of rise-alignment differences. Subsequently, the discrimination of falling pitch movements in the same intonation pattern is investigated. The results of this experiment are compatible with a categorization of falling movements in terms of an early and a late category. On the basis of these findings it is concluded that the precise location of the falls is relevant to the perceptual identity of the hat pattern. The specification of rise-alignment, however, is not relevant in this perspective. Finally, the just noticeable difference of both rise and fall-alignment is established by a discrimination experiment, which shows a differential discrimination threshold for both types of pitch movements. This threshold difference is accounted for in terms of pyscho-acoustic and linguistic factors. Two follow-up studies confirm this finding, but rules out some of the psycho-acoustic hypotheses.