Segmentals and suprasegmentals

Segmentals and suprasegmentals

1. Intonation

   • These effects may be attitudinal, in that e.g. a relatively level intonation may convey boredom, or serve to distinguish between syntactic units of declarative/imperative vs. interrogative nature.
     • In the latter case, the ‘declarative’ types are often assumed to be signalled by a falling intonation contour, whereas a rising contour is said to convey an interrogative character, although this is certainly not true for all accents of English.

2. word stress

   • In polysyllabic words, one or more syllables tend to have a higher emphasis on them than others.
     • Word stress can sometimes be used distinctively, e.g. in distinguishing between homograph verbs and nouns, such as /ˈpɜ:mɪt/ and /pəˈmɪt/.
       • This penomenon is known as word stress, as opposed to emphasising particular words within a larger unit, such as a clause, which is usually referred to as sentence stress.

3. If we investigate phonetic or phonological detail in this way, we are working on the segmental level since each phoneme is usually assumed to be one segment of speech.

4. Once we move on to look at larger chunks of speech that span a number of segments, such as whole words or phrases.

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