lecture8

8. Suprasegmental Features

the phonological properties that occur in the sound units larger that one segment (phoneme), such as word sentence . They may include stress, tone, intonation, pause(juncture), etc.

1) Stree

the pronunciation of a word or syllable with more force than the surrounding words or syllables.

In English we have three kinds of stress:

Primary stress (marked with superscript)

Secondary stress (marked with subcript)

Unstress (unmarked)

Stress can be divided into word stress and sentence stress.

Word Stress

German, Finnish and Hungarian--- the first syllable of a word

French, Turkish and Polish---the last syllable.

English

'answer a'bove mana'gerial incompre'hensive industrali'zatio n

Word stress can distinguish meaning in English:

'import n describe the state

im'port v describe the action

present [p'reznt] adj being in the place in question

present [pri'zent] v give, submit

'blackboard black'board

White House white house

English teacher English teacher

Sick nurse 照看病人的护士sick nurse有病的护士

Sentence Stress

the kind of stress that falls on certain word or words in a sentence.

Sentence stress is not wholly random in English, there are some rules to follow:

1)Semantically important words usually have sentence stress.

She 'studies from 'morning till 'night.

'John has 'gone to the 'school.

2) Rhythm may influence the placement of the stress in the sentence.

She's 'fifteen years old. She's only fif'teen.

He 'went away. John went 'away

c) In certain syntactic structures, some words usually do not receive stress.

Has he gone to town this morning?

How do you do, Mr Smith?

"Yes" he said.

“Where are you going?” t he man asked

Sentence stress also distinguish meaning in language:

a) You may 'not go there

You 'may not go there.

b) John has ′plans to write.

----John has plans to be written.

John has plans to ′write.

----John intends to write something.

c) Her dress looks 'very nice.

Her dress 'looks very nice.

d) My friend looked up when he came in.

e) A: Bob and Mary were expelled from school.

B: Really? Bob …and Mary? You must be kidding.

f) 他'又把物理复习了一遍。(不止一遍)

他又把'物理复习了一遍。(先已经温习了别的功课)

g)“我们都三十多岁了”，“都”重读，意思是“全部”；轻读，意思是“已经”。

吃饭吃面他都无所谓。Noodles or rice doesn‟t make any difference to him.

吃饭吃面他都无所谓。He doesn‟t mind eating noodles or rice.

吃饭吃面他都无所谓。There is no difference to him whether to eat noodles or rice.

Tone

阴平阳平上声去声轻音

ma妈ma麻ma马ma骂ma吗

你没有看好那匹ma，让它踩乱一捆ma，挨了你ma一顿ma, 你说是ma?

3) Intonation

----the variation of the general movement of the pitch of the voice. Or the rise and fall of the voice when speaking. The frequently used types of intonation in English are as follows:

1) falling intonation----finality, definiteness, assertion, command, etc.

2) rising intonation----non-finality or continuation, implication, request, uncertainty,

reservation, encouragement, etc.

3) fall-rise intonation----doubt, hesitation, contradiction, concession, impatience, e.g

a) A: Do you know John Smith?

B: Yes.

A: Have you seen Mary?

B: No.

b)You are a student, aren't you?

(fall intnation, ask for confirmation)

You are a student, aren't you?

(rising intonation, ask for information)

It's lovely day, isn't it? (fall intonation)

c) Can you spare me a few↗minutes?

----Can you give me a few minutes of your time?

Can you spare me a few↘minutes?