Suprasegmentals

The term suprasegmental refers to those properties of an utterance which aren't properties of any single segment.

The following are usually considered suprasegmental properties:

stress
tone
intonation
length
organization of segments into syllables

Stress

What we've seen so far:

primary stress in marked with a raised vertical line
secondary (or medium) stress is marked with lowered vertical line
Both marks come at the beginning of the stress syllable -- they apply to the entire syllable, not to any single segment.

What does it mean for a syllable to be stressed?

It would have been logically possible for every syllable to have exactly the same loudness, pitch, and so on. (Some early attempts at speech synthesizers sounded like this.) But human languages have ways to make some syllables more prominent than others.

A syllable might be more prominent by differing from the surrounding syllables in terms of:

loudness
pitch
length

NB: Prominence is relative to the surrounding syllables, not absolute. (A stressed syllable that is nearly whispered will be quieter than an unstressed syllable that is shouted.)

Why?

Boundary marking

In normal speech, words and phrases simply don't have little pauses between them. Prominence can help indicate where the boundaries are, making life easier for the listener.

French usually gives prominence to the syllable at the end of a word or phrase.
Many other languages give prominence to the initial syllables of words (e.g., Icelandic, Hungarian).
There seems to be a bias for English listeners to interpret a stressed syllable as the beginning of a new word.
- Children will delete unstressed initial syllables more often than unstressed final syllables. (['næn] is more common than [b'næ].)

Additional contrasts

In many languages, changing which syllable is stressed can change the meaning of a word. For example,

Spanish:
término, 'end' (noun)
termíno, 'I'm finishing'
terminó, 'she/he finished'
English:
convert: vs.
console: vs.
permit: vs.

The realization of stress in English

In English, the three ways to make a syllable more prominent are to make it:

louder
longer
higher pitched (usually)

As well, there are major differences in the articulation of vowels between stressed and unstressed syllables.

E.g., Manitoba
Pitch tracing for 'Manitoba' Pitch
Energy tracing for 'Manitoba' Loudness

English typically uses all three kinds of prominence simultaneously. Other languages might use only one or two of them.

The cues can also be used differently is other languages. In Swedish, stressed syllables are usually lower in pitch -- one of the most noticeable features of a Swedish accent.

Kermit the Frog pretending he can speak Swedish.
Pitch trace Pitch
Loudness trace Loudness

Even in English, stress doesn't always mean higher pitch. In one of the intonation contours used to convey surprised disbelief, the most strongly stressed syllable of the utterance has the lowest pitch.

You're taking phonetics?!
Pitch trace for 'You're taking phonetics?!'

In English, vowels in unstressed syllables are systematically reduced. English speakers will not try to control the position of the tongue body during the vowel of an unstressed syllable. Instead, the tongue body will reach whatever point is convenient in getting from the preceding consonant to the following consonant. The average position reached is mid-central schwa.

Failing to reduce unstressed vowels is one of the major contributors to an accent in non-native speakers of English.

Reducing vowels inappropriately is one of the major contributors to an English accent in other languages.

In general, the differences between stressed and unstressed syllables are more extreme in English than in most languages.

Next: Hints for learning to hear stress
Previous: Vowels
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