As always, thanks for your comments.
I was calling it an illocutionary act based on the possibly misguided interpretation of the SIL definition, here:
http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatIsAnIllocutionaryAct.htm
But anyway, if that term is confusing, I'll abandon it (but if not for "code-level structures", than how should a speech act be describable?)
That definition is fine, though it doesn't really illustrate the issue. The key is that illocution is the part of an utterance that constitutes an consequential action. So, if I say "Can you meet me for breakfast tomorrow?":
...the locutionary act is characterized by subject-verb inversion and raising intonation, characteristic of polar questions in English.
...the illocutionary act is what
directs you to provide me with information about tomorrow's plans.
In any language, there are strong conventions that link polar question syntax/prosody with requests for information, so in many circumstances we'll see something like rising intonation matched with a answer-seeking illocutionary act. But, that's not always the case. This morning I came downstairs and found my son eating sugar straight out of the jar with a spoon. I said, "Are you eating sugar straight out of the jar with a spoon?", to which he replied, "Yes", and continued doing it.
The thing is, I wasn't actually
directing him to give me information. I could see perfectly well what he was doing. Instead, I was
expressing surprise/dismay at a circumstance. But, since he's four, he didn't catch the illocutionary mismatch, and consequently he answered as if I were in fact asking for information (since, after all, that's what questions usually do).
So while there are clear correlations in aggregate between linguistic structures and illocutionary acts, there is no guarantee of any relationship in any particular instance.
If you're asking for a list of examples of prosodic structures and their meanings, that will be language specific. Are you asking about American English?
Yup, I should've specified so. I googled online but see now consensus... still, I reckon that there must (may? might?) be some basic categorization.
If you're looking for a quick fieldguide, your best bet is probably actually going to be an ESL site. The framings won't be perfect, but that's the nature of intonation. Linguists will be reluctant to catalog in any systematic way, since prosody is so closely linked to performance and (often self-conscious) sociolinguistic patterns that you won't get clear grammaticality rules or semantics.
