Ch 6 - Phonetics

Suprasegmentals

Speech features extending beyond individual sounds to syllables, words, phrases, and sentences.

Prosody

Linguistic, grammar-governed aspects of suprasegmentals like intonation, stress, and timing.

Prosody is purely linguistic; suprasegmentals include both prosody and non-grammatical paralinguistic influences.

Difference between suprasegmentals and prosody

Intonation, stress, and timing.

Major components of prosody

Syllable

A unit of speech organized around a sonority peak (usually a vowel).

Rhyme (of a syllable)

The nucleus and coda of a syllable.

Nucleus

The vowel or syllabic sound forming the core of a syllable.

Coda

Consonants that follow the nucleus in a syllable.

Onset

Consonants that occur before the nucleus of a syllable.

Sonority

The relative loudness or prominence of a speech sound determining syllable structure.

Sonority Sequencing Principle

Sonority must rise toward the syllable nucleus and fall after it.

Example of correct sonority sequencing

/triz/ (sonority rises from /t/ to /r/ to /i/ then falls to /z/).

Example of incorrect sonority sequencing

/rtiz/ (sonority decreases before reaching the vowel).

Vowels → Glides → Liquids → Nasals → Voiceless Fricatives → Voiced Fricatives → Voiced Stops → Voiceless Stops

Highest to lowest sonority ranking

Intonation

The pattern of pitch changes across spoken language.

Pitch level

The overall high, medium, or low pitch used during an utterance.

Pitch declination (sentence declination)

The gradual decrease in pitch throughout a sentence.

Lexical stress

The word-level stress pattern that distinguishes meaning.

Example of lexical stress

REcord (noun) versus reCORD (verb).

Rhythm

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in speech.

Phrasal stress

Stress assigned beyond individual words to phrases, clauses, or sentences.

Contrastive stress

Stress placed on a word to emphasize or contrast information.

Example of contrastive stress

"The paper is due Friday, not Monday."

New information

Newly introduced conversational information that typically receives greater stress.

Given information

Already known conversational information that typically receives less stress.

Timing

The temporal organization of speech, including tempo and pauses.

Tempo

The overall speaking rate, measured in syllables or words per minute.

Factors affecting tempo

Emotion, speaking environment, communicative purpose, and speaking style.

Pause (Juncture)

A temporary break in speech.

Three functions of pauses

Mark boundaries, allow cognitive planning, and create anticipation or emphasis.

Paralanguage

Nonverbal vocal characteristics related to emotion and speaking style.

Paralinguistic features

Vocal and nonvocal cues like facial expressions, body language, and emotional tone.

Motherese (Parentese/Infant-directed speech)

Speech to infants using higher pitch, exaggerated intonation, and repetition.

Characteristics of motherese

Higher pitch, exaggerated intonation, slower rate, and repetition.

Clear speech

A speaking style used to improve intelligibility in difficult listening environments.

Characteristics of clear speech

Greater pitch variation, slower rate, stronger consonant releases, and larger vowel movements.

Speech disorders associated with prosodic impairment

Autism, Down syndrome, dysarthria, childhood apraxia of speech, and language impairment.

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS)

A motor speech disorder often characterized by impaired prosody and lexical stress.

Prosodic characteristics of CAS

Incorrect lexical stress placement and syllable segregation.

Impaired lexical stress in CAS

Primary stress placed on the wrong syllable or equal stress across syllables.

Syllable segregation

Producing syllables separately instead of blending them smoothly together.