(Segmental and Supra Segmental phonology)

Segmental phonology is the study of the segments of speech such as

vowels and consonants and how they make up a syllable that can be
uttered. Suprasegmental phonology is a continuation of that study to
examine how those segments are superimposed with phonetic features
that affect their sounds. Segmental phonology is a process of isolation
of sound units or syllables. Suprasegmental, also known as prosody,
includes intonation patterns and stress placement, rhythm, and sounds
that extend over syllables, words, and phrases.
Segmental vs. Suprasegmental
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 each phoneme
is usually assumed to be one segment of speech. Once we move on to
look at larger chunks of speech that span a number of segments, such
as whole words or phrases, etc., we are dealing with features on the
suprasegmental level. As suprasegmental phonetics & phonology
represent fairly complex areas of research, we can only explore them
very superficially here by taking a brief look at the two phenomena of
word stress and intonation.
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,
primary (indicated by ˈ), secondary (indicated by ˌ) and unstressed, but
a few also include a tertiary level.
Exercise
Think of some further examples of words that may be distinguished
through their stress patterns.
Intonation
In intonation, the frequency of vibration of the vocal folds is modulated
in order to achieve particular effects on the speaker. These effects may
be attitudinal, in that e.g. a relatively level intonation may convey
boredom, or serve to distinguish between syntactic units of
declarative/imperative vs. interrogative nature. In the latter case, the
‘declarative’ types are often assumed to be signalled by a falling
intonation contour, whereas a rising contour is said to convey an
interrogative character, although this is certainly not true for all accents
of English. A further function of intonation is to convey incompleteness
(rising or level tone), e.g. in lists, as opposed to finality (falling tone),
which can be used as structuring devices.