Theory of phonetics

4) From the larynx the air-stream passes to supraglottal cavities, that is to the pharynx, the mouth and the nasal cavities. The shapes of these cavities modify the particular speech sound.
III. Segmental and suprasegmental phonetics.
Practical (or normative) phonetics studies the substance, the material form of phonetic phenomena in relation to meaning.
Theoretical phonetics is mainly concerned with functioning of phonetic units in the language. It regards phonetic phenomena synchronically without any special atten-tion paid to the historical development of English.
Phonetics itself is divided into two major components: segmental phonetics, which is concerned with individual sounds that are singled out in a speech sequence but recognizable by its characteristic features without taking into account such features as tone, voice, rhythm etc. (i.e. “segments” of speech; [d][L][t][q] – if a sound isn’t identified it means that it was mispronounced and the characteristic features were not there) and suprasegmental phonetics whose domain is the larger units of connected speech: syllables, words, phrases and texts. Segment – is the same total of articulatory features. On the segmental level we only take into a count articulatory aspects of speech sounds. Articulation of speech sounds doesn’t include supra segmental features. We see how organs work.
We can’t speak in segments, in transcription symbols. In a live conversation what we see in dictionaries as transcription are modified by other factors like tempo, timbre (or voice quality), melody, rhythm, and so on. A segment becomes alive only when it is supplemented by suprasegmental features or the features that are imposed on the segments.
For example, [kxntJn] – a set of segments. At this stage we can not even decide what
the stress pattern is and how the word should be actually pro-
nounced. The reason is that we can’t pronounce it properly.
Stress is a suprasegmental feature because it organizes the
segments.