WORD STRESS BY FILIMONOVA A. ELENA
The greater degree of special prominence given to one or more syllables as compared with that of the other syllable or syllables in one and the same word is known as word accent or word stress. • D. Jones gives a similar explanation of stress and its nature. "Stress may be described as the degree of force with which a sound or syllable is uttered. It is essentially a subjective action. A strong force of utterance means energetic action of all the articulating organs; it involves a strong 'push' from the diaphragm and consequently strong force of exhalation; this generally gives the objective impression of lоudness. "
HOW CAN WE INCREASE PROMINENCE? by pronouncing the stressed syllable. (a) on a different pitch or with a change of pitch direction in it (b) with greater force of exhalation and greater masculine tension. + an increase in the length of the sounds in the stressed syllable, especially its vowel, and by pronouncing the vowel very distinctly (without reduction) E. g. [ın’fınıtıv] • .
FUNCTIONS OF WORD STRESS • constitutive function. • identificatory (or recognitive) • distinctive function. e. g. 'import-import, ' billow - be' low.
EXPIRATORY STRESS THEORY The strongest syllable in a word (the stressed syllable) is made more prominent than the others by means of a stronger current of air, by a stronger expiration. Other linguists have pointed out that not only is the force of exhalation greater in a stressed syllable, but that the articulation of the syllable is more energetic. Consequently, the term “expiratory” has often been replaced by the term "dynamic".
DEGREES OF WORD-STRESS What are stressed syllables? What are unstressed syllables?
Primary Secondary Weak
strongly stressed syllables, weakly stressed syllables and unstressed syllables Prof. D. Jones shows that there are five degrees of stress in the word opportunity. • the phenomenon of level stress • words with primary and secondary stress • polysyllabic words with two primary and one secondary stress
PRINCIPLES OF DYNAMIC STRESS, MUSICAL STRESS, QUALITATIVE STRESS AND QUANTITATIVE STRESS A. Gimson, the effect of prominence is achieved by any or all of four factors: force, tone, length and vowel colour. The DYNAMIC STRESS implies greater force (greater muscular energy) with which the syllable is pronounced. (English, German, French, Russian) G. P. Torsuyev makes the supposition that the MUSICAL STRESS belongs to the sphere of sentence-stress since it is not inherent in the structure of an English word. The musical factor in word-stress cannot be observed analysed without the influence of intonation. The QUANTITATIVE PRINCIPLE of stress in its pure form manifests itself by a longer pronunciation of vowels in stressed syllables; unstressed vowels are short. The QUALITATIVE PRINCIPLE, in its extreme form, is based on the fact that vowels of full formation are a feature of stressed syllables only, and cannot occur in unstressed positions. Vowels in unstressed syllables are weakened and reduced to a greater or lesser degree.
FREE STRESS, FIXED STRESS AND WITH NO WORD-STRESS LANGUAGES • The term "free" stress - the position of stress is not fixed to a particular syllable in all words (Russian: насыпь, довольство, переход, организация, телевизионный) • In languages with fixed stress, the position of stress is the same in all words (Lettish - the stress falls on the first syllable). • Some languages have no word-stress. When a group of words is pronounced, all the words in this group are unstressed, and only the final syllable is stresse (French)
CONSTANT AND SHIFTING ACCENT • constant accent (wonderful, wonderfully) • shifting accent (Ber’lin – ‘Berlin streets; un’known - an ‘unknown writer) • Germanic origin: the first syllable (Norman French and French borrowings earlier than the 16 th century) • French borrowings: the last syllable
LEVEL STRESS • “Strong” prefixes • Compound adjectives Phrasal verbs • Words with particular prefixes or suffixes, e. g. ‘trus’tee, ‘Chi’nese, ‘i’llegal. • Numerals from 13 to 19 • Words with separable prefixes
TYPOLOGY OF ACCENTUAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH WORDS BY G. P. TORSUEV • according to the number of stressed syllables, their degree or character (the main and the secondary stress • accentual types and accentual structures are closely connected with the morphological type of words, with the number of syllables, the semantic value of the root and the prefix of the word
BASIC RULES OF ENGLISH WORD ACCENTUATION: 1) In most disyllabic words the accent falls on the initial syllable: ready, mother, colour, 2) In disyllabic words with a prefix which has lost its meaning the stress falls on the 2 nd syllable, that is to say, on the root syllable, e. g. become, begin, pronounce. 3) In disyllabic verbs ending in –ate, -ise, - -ize, -fy the stress falls on the last syllable, e. g. dictate, surprise. 4) In most words of three or four syllables the accent falls on the third syllable from the end of the word, e. g. cinema. The accent falls on the third syllable from the end of the word before the following suffixes: -logy (psychology), -logist (biologist), -graphy (geography), -grapher (geographer), -cracy (democracy)
5) The accent falls on the second syllable from the end of the word before the following suffixes: -ian (physician), -ience (experience), -ient (expedient), -cient (efficient), -al (parental), -ial (essential), -ual (habitual), -eous (courageous), -jous (delicious), -iar (familiar) 6) Most words of more than four syllables have two stresses primary (nuclear) and secondary. The primary stress falls either on the third or the second syllable from the end. 7) In most words the secondary stress falls on the syllable separated from the nuclear syllable by one unstressed syllable, e. g. recognition, occupation, academician, governmental. 8) In many derivative nouns the secondary stress falls on the same syllable which has the primary stress in the original word, e. g. peculiar - peculiarity.
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