Sound Segment and Suprasegmental in Phonetics

1. Segment
Segments are sound units or a minimal sound element that can be isolated in the chain
of speech, corresponding to a letter in alphabetic representation of speech. Segments are
called “discrete” because they are separate and individual, such as consonants and vowels,
and occur in distinct temporal order. For example, if you say the word 'sun,' you will hear
that there are three sound units, or phonemes, in that word: /s/ /u/ /n/.

Kinds of Segment :
a) Consonants
Consonant are produced with some restriction or closure in the vocal tract
that impedes the flow of air from the lungs. Or consonant is a sound that result
from the passage of air through restrictions of the oral cavity; any sound that is
not the dominant sound generally being a vowel.
Example:

b) Vowels
Vowels are sonorous, syllabic sounds made with the vocal tract more open
than it is for consonant and glide articulation. Or Vowel mean’s a sound
produced by the vocal cords with relatively little restriction of the oral cavity,
forming the prominent sound of a syllable.
In english, vowels are devided into two major types, simple vowels and
dipthongs. Simple vowels is also called monopthongs. Whereas, dipthongs is a
sequence of two sound which consist of vowel and glide, or it is a complex
vowel sound that begins with the sound of one vowel and ends with the sound
of another vowel, in the same syllable.
 Example:

c) Cluster
Cluster is a group of consonants. And A cluster is when two or more
consonants of different places of articulation are produced together in the same
syllable.
Example:

2. Suprasegmental
Some contrasive elements of speech can’t be easily analyzed as distinct segments but
rather belong to a syllable or word, these elements are called suprasegmental or prosodic
properties, which mean a vocal effect that extends. We will find stress, pitch, and length.
Kinds of Suprasegmental :
a) Stress
Stress is the rhythm of a language. In pronunciation, stress can refers to
words, part of words, or even one word in a group of words that receives the
most emphasis.
 Stress Symbols:

Here are some examples of how words are stressed:

Stressed - Unstressed - Unstressed Unstressed - Stressed - Unstressed
Animal Disgraceful

Unstressed - Stressed - Stressed Stressed - Unstressed - Stressed

Chicago Buffalo

Stressed - Stressed - Unstressed

Electric

b) Pitch
Pitch is an acoustic result from the speed of vocal cords vibration in
voice utterances. Two kind of controlled pitch movement found in human
language are called tone and intonation.

Tone Symbols : Intonation Symbols :

‘
 Example:

c) Length
Legth is also part of suprasegmental feature which have duration more
than normal. It is a phenomenon, when the articulation of both vowels and
consonants takes longer realtive to that of other vowels and consonants. And it
also helps to differentiate the meaning in english.
Example: