Segmental vs. Suprasegmental

Segmental vs. Suprasegmental

1. Intonation

   • In intonation, the frequency of vibration of the vocal folds is modulated in order to achieve particular effects on the speaker
     • rising intonation contour
       • Do you know ↗French?
     • falling intonation contour
       • Nobody wants to ↘buy them.
     • rising or level tone
       • Well, ↘ not ↗ everyone.

2. Word Stress

   • Stress, in phonetics, intensity given to a syllable of speech by special effort in utterance, resulting in relative loudness. This emphasis in pronunciation may be merely phonetic.
     • “insult” /ɪnˈsʌlt/ (verb), /ˈɪnsʌlt/ (noun)
     • “contrast” /kənˈt(ʃ)ɹæst/ (verb), /ˈkɑnt(ʃ)ɹæst/ (noun)

3. Segmental

   • In linguistics, a segment is "any discrete unit that can be identified, either physically or auditorily, in the stream of speech". The term is most used in phonetics and phonology to refer to the smallest elements in a language, and this usage can be synonymous with the term phone.
     • “bit” /b/ /i/ /t/
     • “sea” /s/ /e/ /a/

4. Suprasegmental

   • Suprasegmental, also called prosodic feature, in phonetics, a speech feature such as stress, tone, or word juncture that accompanies or is added over consonants and vowels; these features are not limited to single sounds but often extend over syllables, words, or phrases.
     • The noun “import” differs from the verb “import”
     • The noun “song” differs from the verb in past “sang”