Relationship between pronunciation and intonation

[carrottop]

A question--if I may. If you had to give a rise to one word and a fall to another in the minimal pairs below, how would you do it?

rice lice
race lace
free flee

I've asked a few native speakers around me this, and some say the pairs have the same intonation, but when they are forced into assigning a rising or a falling intonation to the words, they all do it in the same way. My contention is that if you simply correct the intonation of someone learning English (Japanese, in my case), then their pronunciation corrects itself. Any comments about this off-the wall approach? Does anyone know of any studies done on the relationship between pronunciation and intonation?

[Tdol]

I'd rise on the first word.

[Mister Micawber]

.
The conundrum is, I think most native speakers would give a rising tone to the first word merely because it is the first word of a two-word 'phrase'. If I re-organize to--

lice rice
lace race
flee free

-- then I still put a rising tone to the first word of the pair, and a falling tone to the second.
.

[Tdol]

I agree with that- I'd rise on the order regardless of which word was there.