Study Notes for Module 7: Suprasegmentals & Prosody

Segmental Level:
- Comprises consonants and vowels treated as discrete units.
Suprasegmental Level:
- Goes beyond consonants and vowels; involves features that are layered over phonemes.
- Key Features:
- Emphasis: Stress or prominence given to words within a phrase.
- Loudness: Variation in volume while speaking.
- Pitch: The perceived frequency of the voice; how high or low a sound is.
- Emotion: Expressing feelings through vocal prosody (e.g., happiness or sadness).

Melody:
- The contour and variation of pitch during speech.
Rhythm:
- The temporal arrangement of speech sounds.
Dynamics:
- Volume fluctuations during speech.
Duration:
- Length of segments and syllables, including silence and quantity.
Intensity:
- Related to amplitude and perceived loudness.
Pitch:
- Contour, range, and intonation are critical for meaning.
- Perceptual correlates:
  - Distinctive:
  - Lexical tone, stress, prominence.
  - Structural:
  - Grouping, boundary, sentence type, speaking style.
  - Paralinguistic functions:
  - Emotional expression, prosodic exaggeration.

Contrast in Meaning Using Prosody:
- "cat" vs. "mat"
- "I scream" vs. "ice cream"
- Emotional contexts:
- "I love exams. 😞" vs. "I love exams! 😊"
- Child’s vs. adult's expression (e.g., excitement over ice cream).

Segmental Level (Linguistic):
- Concerned with grammatical properties and meanings associated with words.
Suprasegmental Level (Linguistic/Paralinguistic):
- Implies non-grammatical properties, including intention, emotion, and sociocultural factors, which can sometimes be classified as extralinguistic or nonlinguistic.

Paralinguistic Phonetics:
- Encompasses:
- Intonation:
  - Variability in pitch movement.
- Pitch Range:
  - Extent of pitch variation.
- Pitch Contour/Pattern:
  - Overall shape of pitch through an utterance.
- Tempo:
  - Speech rate measured in syllables/second and words/minute.
- Accent:
  - Variation in emphasis on syllables.
- Quantity:
  - Length of syllables and pauses.
- Loudness:
  - Strength of the speech signal.

Intonation:
- The melodic contour of speech represented by patterns in pitch changes during utterances.
- Intonational Phrase:
- Defined as a group of words with a unified prosodic contour.
- Pitch Declination:
- Gradual decrease in pitch over the course of an utterance signaling new grammatical units; e.g., “She looked in her purse but couldn’t find it.”
Stress:
- Refers to the emphasis placed upon a syllable or word in speech.
- Characteristics:
- Higher pitch, intensity, and duration of the stressed syllable/word.
- Associated with articulatory tensing or increased muscular efforts.

Lexical Stress:
- Describes the pattern of stress in a word.
- Example:
- “SO-ccer” vs. “so-CCER”
- “PER-mit” vs. “per-MIT”
Contrastive Stress:
- Deviation from the typical stress pattern in a sentence to emphasize a particular word.
- Example:
- “He ate the apple.” (contrast is on 'ate')

Tempo:
- Measures the speed/rate of speech, often expressed as syllables per second or words per minute.
- Affected by emotional state and setting of the conversation.
Pause (Juncture):
- Emphasizes silence in speech; typically, there are no pauses between words.

Phrase-initial:
- Characterized by greater articulatory strength.
Phrase-final:
- Marked by a drop in pitch, lengthening of the final syllable, and potential pauses.

Definition:
- A syllable is a unit of speech used to construct words.
Structure:
- Composed of:
- Onset: Initial consonant(s)
- Nucleus/Peak: Core of the syllable, typically a vowel
- Coda: Following consonant(s)
Examples of syllable structures:
- V
- VC
- CV
- CVC
- C = one or more consonants.

Sonority:
- Refers to sounds that are perceptually prominent and characterized by strong acoustic energy with an open vocal tract and high respiratory and phonatory activity.
Sonorous Sounds:
- More likely candidates for acting as syllable nuclei, ordered from most to least sonorous:
- Vowels → Sonorant Consonants → Obstruent Consonants.

Definition:
- Describes how sonority inclines and declines smoothly to form syllables.
Examples:
- /blu/ (smooth inclination of sonority) vs. /lbu/ (disallowed sequence).
Phonotactics:
- Language-specific rules governing permissible phoneme and syllable positions.
- Example:
- /mp/ can function as a coda but not as an onset.

Dividing Syllables:
- Example: How to segment the word /hɛlɪkɑptɚ/?
- Possible divisions:
  hɛ|lɪ or hɛl|ɪ?
  okɑp|tɚ or kɑ|ptɚ?
Maximal Onset Principle:
- States that consonants should be classified as onsets unless they create a phonotactically illegal sequence.
- Example:
  /hɛ|lɪ|kɑp|tɚ/.

Lexical Stress:
- The specific stress pattern of a word.
Types of Lexical Stress:
- Primary Stress:
- Greatest emphasis (loudest, longest, highest pitch) associated with unreduced/full vowels in monosyllabic words.
- E.g., /əˈbɑʊt/, /ˈdɑktɚ/, /ɛdʒʊˈkeɪʃən/
- Tertiary Stress:
- Minimal stress with reduced/weaker vowels.
Secondary Stress:
- Intermediate stress between primary and tertiary stress; can include non-reduced vowels.

Definition:
- A foot is a grouping of syllables with one stressed syllable and optional unstressed syllables involved in stress patterns (strong [S] vs. weak [w]).
Types of Feet:
- Trochee:
- Strong-weak (S w) pattern
- Iamb:
- Weak-strong (w S) pattern.

Understanding suprasegmentals and prosody is crucial for analyzing speech patterns, communication, and the emotional context of spoken language.
Knowledge of how syllables are structured and how stress affects meaning underlies effective spoken and written communication.