Segmental and Suprasegmental Phonology: An In-Depth Look

Segmental phonology is related to polysyllabic words. One or more syllables tend to possess a greater emphasis on them than others. This phenomenon is understood as *word accent*, as against emphasizing particular words within a bigger unit, like a clause, which is typically mentioned as *stress*. Word accent can sometimes be used distinctively, e.g. in distinguishing between homograph verbs and nouns, like /ˈpɜːmɪt/ and /pəˈmɪt/.

The differences are during a single sound (phoneme).

Words that differ during a single phoneme (either vowel or consonants) are known as *minimal pairs*.

Suprasegmental, also called *prosodic feature*, in phonetics, is a speech feature like stress, tone, or word juncture that accompanies or is added over consonants and vowels. These features are not limited to simple sounds but often spread over syllables, words, or phrases. In Spanish, the strain accent is usually used to distinguish between otherwise identical words: *término* means “term,” *termíno* means “I terminate,” and *terminó* means “he terminated.” In Mandarin, tone may be a distinctive suprasegmental: *shih* pronounced on a high, level note means “to lose”; on a small rising note means “ten”; on a falling note means “city, market”; and on a top-down note it means “history.” English “dripping beer” and “torn beard” are distinguished by the word juncture.

Accented syllables are stronger than the others, that is, the air leaves our lungs with more force; but they can also be longer or pronounced with a higher or lower pitch. Syllables that are not pronounced with such emphasis are usually called non-accented syllables and are not usually pronounced as clearly as the others.

Some longer words may have more than one “stressed syllable,” but one tends to stand out more than the other. They are called primary and secondary stress, the former being the strongest.

Stress is usually represented on the phonetic chart and in the transcript by the symbol /ˈ/ placed before the stress syllable. In words that have secondary stress, we include the symbol /ˌ/ before the corresponding syllable (for example, all: /ˈev.riˌbɒd.i/).

In intonation, the vibration frequency of the vocal cords is modulated to understand particular effects on the speaker. These effects are often attitudinal, within the sense that, as an example, relatively level intonation can convey boredom or serve to differentiate between syntactic units of a declarative/imperative vs. interrogative nature. Within the latter case, ‘declarative’ types are assumed to be indicated by a descending intonation outline, while an ascending outline is claimed to convey an interrogative character, although this is often never true of all English accents. An extra function of intonation is to convey incompleteness (ascending or level tone), as an example, in lists, as against finality (descending tone), which can be used as structuring devices.