What Are Segmentals and Suprasegmentals

Segments consist of vowels and consonants while suprasegmental features are speech attributes that accompany consonants and vowels but which are not limited to single sounds and often extend over syllables, words, or phrases [8].

What is suprasegmental and examples?

In talking to a cat, a dog or a baby, you may adopt a particular set of suprasegmentals. Often, when doing this, people adopt a different voice quality, with high pitch register, and protrude their lips and adopt a tongue posture where the tongue body is high and front in the mouth, making the speech sound ‘softer. ‘”

What is Segmentals in phonetics?

In linguistics, a segment is “any discrete unit that can be identified, either physically or auditorily, in the stream of speech”. The term is most used in phonetics and phonology to refer to the smallest elements in a language, and this usage can be synonymous with the term phone.