Segmentals
Individual phonemes (consonants & vowels) and their coarticulation.
Example: /p, m, t/ in /ˈpɝɪt/
This is what most phonetic transcription focuses on
Suprasegmentals
Features above and beyond individual sounds.
Include: stress, timing, intonation, pitch.
Seen in connected speech where sounds are modified by context.
Interacts with segmentals (e.g., syllable stress can change vowel quality).
Suprasegmentals & Meaning
Not individual sounds, but affect meaning.
Examples:
Stress: record (noun vs verb)
Intonation: question vs statement
Timing/pitch: emphasis, intent
Crucial for understanding speech.
all 4 types of suprasegmentals, and which 2 do we care about because they’re in english
stress, intonation
also tone and length
4 types of stress
lexical, grammatical, sentence, contrastive
lexical stress, how does the stressed syllable sound
It’s the stressed/unstressed we’ve been talking about all semester, where a stressed syllable is:
-longer
-louder
-higher pitch
grammatical stress
It’s the words that change stress based on their part of speech (noun vs verb)
- record and record
sentence stress
The rhythm of stress in a spoken sentence with neutral intention (no specific emphasis)
contrastive
It’s how a specific speaker chooses to emphasize whole words based on desired meaning. (intentional)
short form to remember stress
lexical -> multi-syllabic words
grammatical -> word pairs
sentence -> conventional/intrinsic rhythm
contrastive -> speaker emphasis
typical rules for grammatical stress
2-syllable noun and adjective primary stress is on the 1st syllable
2-syllable verb primary stress is on the 2nd syllable
in sentence stress, which words are emphasized, which are just “filling in”
content words emphasized, function words filling in
slide 16?
which words get reduced in casual speech
function words
does it take longer to say a sentence w more function words? with content words?
doesn’t take longer with more function words. does take longer w more content words
New vs. Old Information emphasis
new info in a conversation is normally emphasized
definition of intonation
The continuous modification of vocal pitch in continuous speech.
what does pitch modification cue a listener to
what type of utterance is being spoken (a statement, a question, exclamation, emotional state)
pattern for falling intonation
-unemotional
-declarative
-“wh” questions
which ones have the pattern for raising intonation
- yes/no questions
-incomplete utterances (“holding a conversational turn”)
-upspeak
-surprise statements
how do you mark intonation
Intonation patterns are usually described in writing, not with IPA symbols.
- could draw a line underneath
how does intonation in declarativce statements sound
fall at the end, but raised over the important word
‘wh’ question intonation pattern
“Wh” questions begin with: where, what, why, when, which, how, and they often have the rise-fall pattern at the end.
how does intonation in upspeak sound
the declarative statement starts rather high and continues to rise with an
uptick at the end.
- could be used to hold onto a conversational turn
