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 smal
A spectrogram of the word glass [glaːs], with four distinct segments: [g], [l], [a] (lengthened), and [s].
In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological process in which vowels assimilate to share certain distinctive features. Vowel harmony is often confined to the domain of a phonological word, but may ex
Finnish vowel harmony and case agreement exemplified by mahdollisissa yllättävissä tilanteissa ('in possible unexpected situations'): mahdollinen takes -ssa, yllättävä takes -ssä and tilanne, with a neutral vowel first but a back vowel second, takes -ssa.