The Utterance is the primary unit of reference for the analysis of spontaneous speech (Izre’el et al. 2020; Miller &Weinert 1989; Biber et al. 1999). According to the tradition of pragmatic studies, the utterance is assumed to be the counterpart of a speech act (Austin1962) and is considered the minimal linguistic unit that can be pragmatically interpreted within the flow of speech (Quirk et al.1985; Leech 2014). The Language into Act Theory (L-AcT, Cresti 2000; Moneglia & Raso 2014; Cresti & Moneglia 2018) assumes that prosody is the necessary interface linking the pragmatic value of the utterance and its locutive content.⠀ In this talk we will argue that prosody constitutes the core cue to be considered for the analysis of spontaneous speech corpora, allowing their exploitation for both linguistic studies and pragmatics. To this end we will present evidence taken from Romance corpora focusing on the various levels where the information conveyed by prosody plays its role; i.e. segmentation of the speech flow into utterances, the definition of their information structure and finally identification of the specific speech act type accomplished by each utterance.⠀ From a methodological point of view the different levels and functions on which prosody operates must be distinguished. They can be synthesized as follows:

⠀ • The utterance boundaries and its internal segmentation is entrusted to prosodic breaks, respectively terminal and non-terminal, and this property is defined at the perceptual level;⠀

• The assignment of a specific illocutionary value to each utterance pertains to the formal categorization of prosody and it’s a matter of categorization.