Segmenting is the process of what in phonology?

• A. Separating the individual phonemes, or sounds, of a word into discrete units
• B. Blending sounds to form larger units
• C. Counting syllables in a word
• D. Recognizing morphemes in a word

Answer: (B)

Segmenting means breaking a spoken word into its individual sounds, or phonemes. For example, when you say the word “cat” and listen carefully, you can identify three separate sounds: /k/, /æ/, and /t/. This skill helps learners map sounds to letters and supports decoding as they read and spell.

Think of blending as the opposite action: taking those separate sounds and putting them together to form a word, like /k/ /æ/ /t/ becoming “cat.” Counting syllables is a different task—it's about how many chunks of sound are in a word, such as “cat” having one syllable or “elephant” having three. Recognizing morphemes focuses on the smallest units of meaning, like the prefixes or suffixes that modify a word’s meaning.

So the process described by segmenting is isolating and identifying each phoneme in a word.