INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS TSL 3101

Introduction to Suprasegmental features.

What is suprasegmental features?

Suprasegmental (also called Prosodic Feature in phonetics) is a speech feature stress, rhythm and tone (intonation).

Stress

There are three types of stress - primary stress - secondary stress - zero stress (unstressed)

Primary stress - describes the strong, emphasis a speaker puts on the most important syllable of a particular word. Secondary stress - refers to a less strong emphasis on the next most important syllable Zero stress - refers to any syllable that receives no stress (also referred as an unstressed syllable)

Word stress
refers to the process whereby particular syllables (or parts of words) are stressed within an overall word. Example: (i) riddle (vi) pretend (ii) button (vii) contain (iii) manage (viii) remind (iv) person (v) zebra

Sentence stress
refers to the process whereby particular words are stressed within an overall sentence. Certain words in a sentence will usually receive emphasis or stress depending on: - the level of importance of that word in the sentence (i.e., content vs. function words) :: content words - carry the content of the sentence. :: function words - help the sentence functionaccording to the grammatical arrangement of words in a sentence (syntactically).

- the speakers intent of the message being conveyed Example: (i) I like his style. (ii) Bill and Jane went home. (iii) If I get caught, I will get in trouble.

Sentences with a different stress. Example: (i) I want two return tickets to London. (ii) I want two return tickets to London. (iii) I want two return tickets to London.

Primary and secondary sentence stress

Example: (i) The boys jumped into the pool. (ii) The boys jumped into the pool. (iii) The boys jumped into the pool.

Content words (usually stressed) - nouns - verbs (excluding be, have, do) - adjectives - adverbs (including not) - demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those) - interrogative pronouns (who, when, why, etc.)

Function words (usually unstressed) - articles (a, an, the) - simple prepositions (to, of, in, etc.) - personal pronouns (I, me, he, him, it, etc.) - possessive pronouns (my, his, your, etc.) - relative pronouns (who, that, which, etc.) - conjunctions (and, but, that, as, if, etc.) - the verbs be, have - auxiliary verbs (will, would, shall, should, can, could, may, might, must, etc.)

Rhythm
The occurrence of stressed syllable at regular intervals of time. Example: (i) The boy is interested in enlarging his vocabulary. (ii) Great progress is made daily.

English is a stressed-time language. This means that the time between stressed syllables remain fairly steady the unstressed syllables have to crowd between them.

PronunciAtion is FAScinating.

Tone (intonation)
Intonation consists of pitch contour speaking on the stressed syllable of the last content word in each phrases. Pitch contour related to the height or lowness of a tone in comparison to the surrounding tones. Example: Really?!

Transcription of intonation / rise \ fall /\ rise fall \/ fall rise /\/ rise fall rise \/\ fall rise fall

Example: (i) Have you seen Ann? Yes. ( \ ) (ii) Do I have to clean my room? Yes! ( /\) (iii) Ann and Peter were on good terms at the party. Oh yes? ( \/)

Strong and weak form in connected speech.

Strong form of a word - used when the word is said in isolation, or in connected speech in which the word should be stressed. Weak form - used only in unstressed positions.

Strong form
Used when the word is stressed. Example: They dont believe, do they?

You must choose us or them.

When the word is at the end of a sense group or sentence, even when they are unstressed. Example: Who is on duty today? I am.

What are you looking at?

Weak form
English is a stressed timed language in trying to make the intervals between stressed syllables equal, to give the phrase rhythm, we tend to swallow non-essential words. Thus, conjunctions, pronouns, prepositions, auxiliaries and articles are often lost.

Example: (i) and fish and chip (fish n chip) a chair and a table (a chair n a table) (ii) She can speak Spanish better than I can. (first can weak form.) (second can strong form.)