SUPRA SEGMENTAL FEATURES
A Supra- segmental or prosodic feature is a vocal effect that extends over more than one sound segment (vowel and consonant) in an utterance, such as stress pitch, intonation or juncture pattern. Stress is the emphasis or loudness with which syllables are produced and pitch is the high or low quality of the voice caused by the rate of vibration of the vocal cords. The pitch of the voice rises and falls during an utterances, creating a melody or intonation contour. Juncture is the transition or mode of transition from one sound to another in speech to phonetics; juncture is the set of features in speech that enable a hearer to detect a word or phrase boundary (e.g. distinguishing I scream from ice cream.)
STRESS- Stress means greater articulatory effort. The word of English are made up of one or more than one syllable depending on the length of a word. Each syllable is a product of one chest pulse or breath force. When a particular syllable is produced with a strong breath force, it is considered to be stressed. Thus stress is that characteristics of sound which is realized when a particular syllable is articulated with a strong breath force. The content words that give the main idea of sentence are stressed whereas the function/ structure words which are required to perform grammatical function in a sentence are not stressed.
Two types of stress can be established:-
Word Stress (or accent)
Phrasal (or sentence )
WORD STRESS- in words made up of more than one syllable, some syllable stands out from others. In a word like Fable it is the first syllable that receives “stress” or more articulatory energy which results in its ‘sounding louder and longer than the other syllable’ the second syllable here. The distribution of stress over the word fable can be shown in this manner fa-ble.
In monosyllabic words- these words may contain more than one phoneme, but that doesn’t matter stress falls on the only syllable they contain:
I /ai/ (single phoneme word)
See /si:/ (two phoneme word)
Cat /kaet/ (three phoneme word)
Flame /fleim/ (four phoneme word)
Tract /traekt/ (five phoneme word)
PHRASAL STRESS- Words have more or less fixed stress in connected speech, the intonational and contextual imperatives guide a speaker’s choice of stress. Longer utterances, clauses and segments can show changes in stress pattern. This is accompanied by the rise and fall in the pitch level. For example sentence like-
Bring those chair closer
Different words can be stressed in the manner shown in below-
Bring those chairs closer.
Bring those chairs closer.
Each of the above examples conveys a different meaning. Normally content words receive the primary stress, grammatical words do not. As T. Balasubramanian says, ‘the choice of the syllable receiving accent depends on the meaning the speaker wants to convey’.
Stress features are thus divided into the following levels;-
Primary Stress.
Secondary Stress.
Tertiary Stress or Weak Stress.
1)-PRIMARY STRESS- Primary Stress is strongest degree of stress placed on a syllable in the pronounciation or word. Primary stress is represented by the half straight bar [ ` ]. Primary stress is syllable. For example- `apple, `father.
2)-SECONDARY STRESS- The stress is a word which is weaker than a primary stress is know as secondary stress. The [ ‘ ] is used to indicate the strongest degree of stress. For example- Educate {ediu’keit}.
The word understand carries a primary and a secondary stress indicated as { under ‘ stand}.
3)-TERTIARY STRESS OR WEAK- tertiary stress is weaker than secondary stress and close to weak or unmarked stress. It is somewhat to difficult to define and describe it.
RHYTHM- Rhythm is a musical quality of speech that intends to create a soothing impression on the mind of the listeners. The English language is marked with this rhythmic quality which is realized when we take into account the certain technicalities involved in it. We saw that content words are stressed and function words are unstressed in connected speech. Content words are stressed to make the meaning of sentence very clear. Look at this sentence- ‘Playes have ‘gone to’ Delhi. Here all the content words are stressed, marked with vertical bars, and structure/ function words- ‘have’ and ‘to’ are not stressed. These stressed and unstressed syllables together constitute rhythm units. Let us divide the stressed and unstressed syllables into such units which are also called foot.
As English is a stress- timed language, during the articulation of each of these units almost equal time should be taken by a speaker. This characteristics of English language gives it rhythm. The concept of rhythm is associated with time factor. Each of these feet is called rhythm unit or stress group.
INTONATION- Another significant supra segmental feature of English language is intonation or variation of pitch from one segment of an utterance to another. A lot of emotional meaning is conveyed by consciously varying intonation level. During the production of speed sounds, the vibration of vocal cords is a common phenomenon. The degree of vibration depends on the frequency with which vocal cords open and close per second. This relationship between frequency and vibration is directly proportional i.e more frequency results into more vibration. In continuous speech its frequency always keeps on changing. The rate of change of this frequency is called pitch. This change of pitch results into rise and fall of pitch movement is from low to high, it causes rising tone. When the pitch movement is from high to low, it causes falling tone. In some cases, it falls first and then rises and vice versa producing a falling- rising and rising falling tone respectively. Look at these sentences.
My father is a teacher (falling tone)
Are you going? (rising tone)
I come here sometimes (falling rising tone)
Is he sure it will work? (rising falling tone)
The mark (`) indicates falling tone, the mark (,) indicates rising tone, the mark (ˇ) indicates falling rising tone and the mark(ˆ) indicates rising falling tone.
Intonation as a phonological feature is used to serve some important functions in utterances. It helps in making the meaning of utterances clear by showing the emphasis of the speakers on specific words having tonic syllables. It largely indicates the mood and attitude of the speakers, as a rising tone in wh-question usually show the friendly gesture. It performs grammatical functions also. For instance, a statement with rising tone changes a declarative sentence into interrogative. Look at these sentences-
My friend is a teacher. (Declarative)
Mt friend is a teacher. (Interrogative)
Here, the first sentence is declarative simply because there is falling tone on the word “teacher”. The second sentence becomes interrogative due to rising tone on the same word where the speaker wants to be sure whether his friend is a teacher. Thus intonation plays a very important role in English sentences.
JUNCTURE- Juncture is that concept related to continuous speech in which the lack of recognizable pause between two words or syllables results into the complete difference in meaning of the expressions. Look at these groups of words-
I scream ( Ice Cream)
A name (an aim)
That stuff ( that’s tough)
In appropriate situations (inappropriate situations)
When these expressions are uttered without giving the required degree of pause between them, there is immense possibility of loss of communication. The expressions given in the brackets may replace the intended expressions leading to complete communication failure. The feature connected speech is studied under the heading juncture.
To sum up it is difficult to imagine human communication without these features. They invariably accompany our speech and lend the additional dimension on which is more immediately and directly understood. These features convey the speaker’s identity attitudes, emotional states and her evaluation of how she/he is being received.
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