Segmental vs.

Suprasegmental
© Martin Weisser 2005; last edited: 02-Nov-2013 12:06:15
So far, we have mainly been looking at features concerning individual sounds or phonemes. If we
investigate phonetic or phonological detail in this way, we are working on the segmental level since
2.1. The segmental structure of speech
each phoneme is usually assumed to be one segment of speech. Once we move on to look at larger All the communication layers defined above are perceived in four domains: quality, duration, pitch
chunks of speech that span a number of segments, such as whole words or phrases, etc., we are and loudness (Laver 1994:27). In order to analyse the voice quality in those domains it is necessary
dealing with features on the suprasegmental level. As suprasegmental phonetics & phonology to describe sounds in a well-organized manner. It is thus it is necessary to distinguish a set of
represent fairly complex areas of research, we can only explore them very superficially here by phonetic units. Following Laver's description those units are: feature, segment, syllable, setting,
taking a brief look at the two phenomena of word stress and intonation. utterance and speaking-turn (ibid.:110).

Word Stress
In polysyllabic words, one or more syllables tend to have a higher emphasis on them than others.
This penomenon is known as word stress, as opposed to emphasising particular words within a
larger unit, such as a clause, which is usually referred to as sentence stress. Word stress can
sometimes be used distinctively, e.g. in distinguishing between homograph verbs and nouns, such
as /ˈpɜ:mɪt/ and /pəˈmɪt/. Most systems usually at least distinguish between three levels of stress, The set of phonetic features constitutes the minimum set of descriptive parameters used in order to
primary (indicated by ˈ), secondary (indicated by ˌ) and unstressed, but a few also include a tertiary account for the phonological differences between phonetic units (Laver 1994:110-112, Clements &
level. Hume, 1995) of a language. The features may be articulatory features (defined in terms of the
action of the organs of speech), acoustic features (defined in terms of the physical properties of the
Exercise
Think of some further examples of words that may be distinguished through their stress patterns. speech sound relevant to the feature) or perceptual features (defined in terms of the perception of
the given sound by the ear and the brain) (Clark & Yallop, 1995:ch.10). For example, the feature
Intonation
In intonation, the frequency of vibration of the vocal folds is modulated in order to achieve "voice'" (also called "glottal stricture") in Ladefoged's feature system describes glottal activity and
particular effects on the speaker. These effects may be attitudinal, in that e.g. a relatively level has five values: glottal stop, laryngalized, voice, murmur and voiceless (Ladefoged, 1975). In the
intonation may convey boredom, or serve to distinguish between syntactic units of Lindau (1978) feature system "voice" refers to different shapes of the glottis (with the values of
declarative/imperative vs. interrogative nature. In the latter case, the ‘declarative’ types are often "glottal stop", "creaky voice", "voice", "murmur" and "voiceless"). The set of all features forms a
assumed to be signalled by a falling intonation contour, whereas a rising contour is said to convey model of a language and its structure.
an interrogative character, although this is certainly not true for all accents of English. A further
The portion of speech with relatively constant phonetic features is called a phonetic segment. A
function of intonation is to convey incompleteness (rising or level tone), e.g. in lists, as opposed to
given feature may be limited to a particular segment but may also be longer (as a suprasegmental
finality (falling tone), which can be used as structuring devices.
feature) or shorter (as a subsegmental feature). Segments, usually phonological units of the
Further Reading: language, such as vowels and consonants, are of very short duration.
For further information on word stress, see the Stress & Prominence page, and for intonation, the
Intonation page of my Phonetics & Phonology course.
Utterances are then built of linear sequences of segments. Typically, a speech segment lasts Acrolectal:The variety of speech that is closest to a standard prestige language, especially in an area
approximately 30 to 300 milliseconds. in which a creole is spoken. For example, Standard Jamaican English is the acrolect where Jamaican
Creole is spoken.
Phonetic segments form a syllable. The syllable can also be defined in phonological terms and itself
represents a level of higher linguistic organization. Crucial to sociolinguistic analysis is the concept of prestige; certain speech habits are assigned a
positive or a negative value, which is then applied to the speaker. ... The terms acrolectal (high) and
Another category of phonetic description is the phonetic setting. It was explicitly proposed and
basilectal (low) are also used to distinguish between a more standard dialect and a dialect of less
defined in the following way by Laver (1991:184):
prestige.
"There is an alternative, wider approach to the task of articulatory description, that concerns itself
Mesolectal:Any variety of language in a creole continuum that is intermediate between the basilect
with both differences and similarities in vocal performance in speech and sees individual segments
and the acrolect.
as momentary actions superimposed on a long-term SETTING of the vocal apparatus. The setting
accounts for the similarities and the segments for the differences, as it were. A setting gives a Basilectal:The variety of speech that is most remote from the prestige variety, especially in an area
background, auditory colouring to sequences of short-term segmental articulations." where a creole is spoken. For example, in Jamaica, Jamaican Creole is the basilect whereas Standard
Jamaican English is the acrolect or prestige language.
A setting could be as long as a whole utterance but it could also describe only a short part of an
utterance, as short as one phonetic segment. After the seminal works of Laver (1991, 1994) it has
become a convention to describe voice quality using the features of setting. Laver (1994:396)
defines phonetic settings more stringently as the coordinating tendency underlying the production
of the segments in the chain of speech while maintaining a particular configuration or a state of the
vocal apparatus. The settings in this sense share common features across the successive segments
or syllables; they give an impression of a feature characteristic of a particular speaker or his/her
behavior during conversation. The phonetic settings are very useful in describing human voices
thanks to their power in describing similarities of speech production in longer portionsof speech. “Friendship continuum“
Applying a linguistic term (“continuum”) to friendship might seem awkward. I was about to
The settings are used at every stage of the description of the speech production.
say that continuum was a concrete term for a linguist, but it’s hard to say so. It’s neither
To complete the framework of speech segments the utterance may be defined as a stretch of
absolutely abstract, neither completely concrete.
speech by a single speaker delimited by silence and containg no internal pauses whereas the Let me explain: a linguistic continuum can be represented as a triangle: the horizontal
speaking-turn consists of one or more utterances and denotes one speaker's contribution to a
variation corresponds to regional variation, and the vertical variation corresponds to social
conversation (ibid.:116).
variation (I hope I’m clear enough). So at the top of the triangle, you have what is called
Linguistic features and phonetic settings are brought together in the process of speech production. the Acrolect, for instance, in British English, the Queen speaks a “perfect” RP, the Acrolect,
it is the language spoken by the “elite”, and that is taught to foreigners. At the very very
top of the social line, there are no regional variations (the horizontal line) (by the way,
RP means “Received Pronunciation”, so the Standard British English, although the majority
of the inhabitants of Great Britain DO NOT speak RP).
Then, you have the Mesolectal level: it’s the big middle part of the triangle, and let’s say,
it’s “normal” people. Here, there are more regional variations (for instance, I’m living with
two women that come from different parts of France than me, and even though we speak
the same way, almost, there are some words or expressions we use that are regional
expressions, and we didn’t know it before). There are also different social variations here Now you (more or less) understand the term continuum, perhaps you know what I meant

(i.e. in French, although it is not “officially” correct, there are two ways for negation: “Je ne in the beginning. Well, I do not mean that I classify, or arrange my friends by region and

peux pas” or “je peux pas” for “I cannot / I can’t”). social status. I just meant that I have a kind of friendship continuum. I can’t say who is my
Finally, the bottom of the triangle: the lower classes, the Basilectal level. It is where you bestfriend. I just have very few best friends, some very good friends, and a lot of
can find the most regional variations (actually, I have difficulties understanding my own acquaintances. But this continuum, as the linguistic one, has a variation that you have to
grand father, I have to be very concentrated, and I must ask him the meaning of words take into account: it’s time.
time to time. Some friends of mine don’t understand him at all).
In fact, I understand better when I can actually see what we’re talking about. So let me For language as for friendship, time can do a lot of things. Time makes things disappear,

show you two things: first an exemple of this three level with Jamaican English (hey, this is friends and languages. But at the same time, it is inevitable, and it

an opportunity to learn something interesting, so learn!), and second, a representation of leads to a lot of other things, neither bad nor good, it is just like

the linguistic continuum triangle stuff. The sentence for the example is “I am eating”. As that. Sometimes, you are closer to a friend than to another, but

you can see, it is not that different from the Jamaican Acrolect. But the lower you go with time, it turns out that one might disappear, and the other one

through the level, the more it differs from the norm. might turn to be a very strong relationship (as sometimes one word
ACROLECT = Jamaican Standard English that seems weaker at the beginning turns out to take up a well-established word).
I am eatin’
MESOLECT Sometimes, you have people near you for a long time before realizing that you really get
I is eatin’ along with them and that you should call them sometimes. Even for the one you have for a
I eatin’
Me eatin’ long time, sometimes you have to force yourself to be there (yeah, I’m saying “you”, but
Me a eat you can guess that I’m talking about me).
BASILECT = Broadest Creole I’m a crappy friend. A shitty friend. Une copine en carton. I don’t call people, I don’t text, I
Me a nyam
I won’t talk about all the different stages that take place in all that, but now you know don’t email, I don’t skype, I don’t twitter. I only call when I know that I have an opportunity

what it is. For real. With words. And you learn some stuff. You should be thanking me. to see the person. Or for very very important moments (wedding, illness, death, but don’t

You’re welcome. Now, the famous triangle. count on me for birthdays!). I’m identical with my family. I’m trying to change, to make
some efforts, but I guess that’s just the way I am. it doesn’t mean that I don’t love my
friends or family, I truly and deeply do, but I don’t need to have news from them every The term back-formation was coined by Scottish lexicographer James Murray, the primary
editor of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1879 until 1915.
day. But I’m kind of an extreme case, because I can take no news for years (in some As Huddleston and Pullum have noted, "There is nothing in the forms themselves that
enables one to distinguish between affixation and back-formation: it's a matter of historical
extreme cases). formation of words rather than of their structure"(A Student's Introduction To English
I observed some of my own friends’ behaviours regarding contacts with each others. There Grammar, 2005).
are two main categories, as anyone would expect: like me, the one who don’t have or give Examples and Observations
news on their own, and others, who give and expect news. I don’t think you really choose
 singular noun pea from the older English plural pease
in which category you fall in, it’s just like that because of experiences you had, or your  the verb burgle from the older English noun burglar
 the verb diagnose from the older English noun diagnosis
relation with your siblings, or I don’t know what (I’m only a linguist and a contemplator).
 "He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually
Both categories have benefits and disadvantages. Going through all the benefits and disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled, so I tactfully changed the subject."
(P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters, 1938)
disadvantages would be impossible. These are a continuum too in a way. And it’s hard to  "Here I was maybe forty minutes ago, sort of claustrophobed in the gap between
the kickass movie world where Lila dumps the guy with the smarmy mustache and
have friends that do not belong to the category you’re in: it requires mutual the obvious one where it just keeps getting later."
(Daniel Handler, Adverbs. Ecco, 2006)
comprehension, and dialogue. You have to make the other understand, but you have to
 "Stripping the in- from inchoate is known as back-formation, the same process
understand too. Then, in the middle of the road, because each one has to make an effort, that has given us words like peeve (from peevish), surveil (from surveillance)
and enthuse (from enthusiasm). There’s a long linguistic tradition of removing
friendship can continue. Because if you don’t talk about it, this kind of friendships die. Or parts of words that look like prefixes and suffixes to come up with 'roots' that
weren’t there to begin with."
relationships. And each one must make an effort. When two people belong to the same (Ben Zimmer, "Choate." The New York Times, January 3, 2010)
category, it doesn’t mean that they will directly get along well. It just means that their
Suffix Snipping
relationship won’t be subject to this kind of communicative problems. But when you fix
 "Alan Prince studied a girl who . . . was delighted by her discovery
problems in a relationship, in a helpful and adult way, this relationship is even stronger. I
that eats and cats were really eat + -s and cat + -s. She used her new suffix snipper
love differences, because it makes you think differently, and it’s always good to think to derive mik (mix), upstair, downstair,
clo (clothes), len (lens), brefek (from brefeks, her word for
differently, just to know what you want to think at the end. breakfast), trappy (trapeze), even Santa Claw. Another child, overhearing his
mother say they had booze in the house, asked what a 'boo' was. One seven-year-
Back-formation is either the process of creating a new lexeme (less precisely, a new "word") by old said of a sports match, 'I don't care who they're going to verse,' from
expressions like the Red Sox versus the Yankees."(Steven Pinker, Words and
removing actual or supposed affixes, or a neologism formed by such a process. Back-formations are Rules: The Ingredients of Language. HarperCollins, 1999)
shortened words created from longer words, thus back-formations may be viewed as a sub-type of  "In many cases of back-formation a presumed affix is removed which is in fact
not truly an affix, as in the following words where the -or, -ar, and -er are not the
clipping. agentive suffix, but part of the root: orator - -er> orate, lecher + -er> lech,
Richard Nordquist peddler + -er> peddle, escalator + -er> escalate, editor + -er> edit, swindle + -
Updated July 05, 2018 er> swindle, sculptor + -er> sculpt, hawker + -er> hawk. These mistakes are
called back-formations. Note that some of them are colloquial or marginal, while
In linguistics, back-formation is the process of forming a new word (a neologism) by others are fully accepted."(Laurel J. Brinton, The Structure of Modern English: A
removing actual or supposed affixes from another word. Put simply, a back-formation is a Linguistic Introduction. John Benjamins, 2000)
shortened word (such as edit) created from a longer word (editor). Verb: back-form (which
is itself a back-formation). Also called back-derivation.
Back-Formation in Middle English

"[T]he weakening of the flexional endings during the early Middle English period, which
made possible the derivation from verbs of a multitude of nouns, and vice-versa, was also
as essential to the rise of and development of back-formation."(Esko V.
Pennanen, Contributions to the Study of Back-Formation in English, 1966)

Back-Formation in Contemporary English

"Back formation continues to make a few contributions to the language. Televisionhas

given televise on the model of revise/revision, and donation has given donate on the model
of relate/relation. Babysitter and stage manager have given babysit and stage manage for
obvious reasons. More remote was the surprising lase from laser(the latter an acronym for
'lightwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation'), recorded from 1966."(W.F.
Bolton, A Living Language: The History and Structure of English. Random House, 1982)

Filling a Void

"Backformations are more likely to occur with very strongly entrenched patterns and
they have the effect of filling an apparent void. The process has given us common verbs
such
as afflict (from affliction), enthuse (from enthusiasm), laze (from lazy), liaise from liaison),
aggress (from aggression), televise (from television), housekeep(from housekeeper), jell (fr
om jelly), and many more."(Kate Burridge, Gift of the Gob: Morsels of English Language
History. HarperCollins Australia, 2011)

Usage

"[B]ack-formations are objectionable when they are merely needless variations of

already existing verbs:

back-formed verb - ordinary verb

*administrate - administer
*cohabitate - cohabit
*delimitate - delimit
*interpretate - interpret
*orientate - orient
*registrate - register
*remediate - remedy
*revolute - revolt
*solicitate-solicit

Many back-formations never gain real legitimacy (e.g., *elocute, *enthuse), some are
aborted early in their existence (e.g., *ebullit, *evolute), and still others are of questionable
vigor (e.g., aggress, attrit, effulge, evanesce, frivol). . . .
"Still, many examples have survived respectably."
(Bryan Garner, Garner's Modern American Usage, 3rd ed. Oxford University Press, 2009)
Pronunciation: BAK for-MAY-shun