1. Suprasegmental features definition

Features that are found over a segment or a sequence of two or more segments are called suprasegmental features. These features are distinctive features.

2. Stress

• Stress is the perceived prominence of one or more syllabic elements over others in a word. Stress is a relative notion. Only words that are composed of two or more syllables have stress.

• If a word has three or more syllables, there is a primary stress and a secondary stress. In some languages word stress is fixed, i.e. on a certain syllable. In English, word stress is unpredictable.

3. Intonation

• When we speak, we change the pitch of our voice to express ideas.  Intonation is the variation of pitch to distinguish utterance meaning.

• The same sentence uttered with different intonation may express different attitude of the speaker. In English, there are three basic intonation patterns: fall, rise, fall-rise.

4. Tone

• Tone is the variation of pitch to distinguish words. The same sequence of segments can be different words if uttered with different tones. Chinese is a typical tone language.

5. The functions of stress and intonation

Stress and intonation generally occur simultaneously in utterance. When intonation contour falls on a syllable, the nucleus is stressed and the vowel is naturally lengthened a bit. In the meantime, there is a little pause after the syllable. This is simultaneous functioning o the features serves to highlight the information focus, or to eliminate ambiguity.

Every component of a sentence contains some information. It may or may not be highlighted in speech, depending on the speaker’s intention and the situation. Intonation contour can indicate the information focus of the sentence. Intonation and stress are very important in that they distinguish phrases and sentences.