Main rules of word stress

Functions of word stress

Stress patterns of English words.

English word stress is free, it means that it may locate on any syllable in the word. That is why free accentual variants should not be confused with orthoepically incorrect accentuation.

In languages with fixed stress the localization of stress is always the same. For example, in Slovak and Czech the stress is on the first syllable; in Polish and Welsh it is on the penultimate syllable; in French the stress falls on the last syllable in the word.

In spite of the fact that English word stress is free there are some most common stress patterns. G.Torsuyev distinguishes.

The most frequent are:

^| – (words with one primary stress);

^| – ^| – (words with two primary stresses);

_| – ^| – (primary and secondary)

^| – ^| – ^| – (USA)

^| – ^| – ^| – ^| – (USSR)

^| – ^| – _| – (^|un^|sea_|worthy) and so on.

Linguists agreed that there exist the following main accentuation tendencies in English: recessive, retentive, rhythmic and semantic.

1. The Recessive Tendency: Recessive stress in Modern English is of two types:

a) unrestricted recessive accent

It is this accent which is observed in the words of Anglo-Saxon origin and in the great majority of native English words of this type (wonder, husband, etc.): 74% of disyllabic words have the stress pattern ^| – –, – ^|– (26%); three-syllable words: ^| – – – (55%), – ^| – – (39%), – – ^| – (6%); four syllable words: ^| – – – (36%), ^| – – – – (33%), – – ^| – – (29%), – – – ^| – (2%).

b) restricted recessive stress

(among, before, between, withstand, forget, forgive, etc.).

2. The Retentive Tendency

e.g. ^| wonder, ^| wonderful, ^| wonderfully; ^| person, ^| personal, ^| personally.

3. The Rhythmic Tendency:

^| exquisite or ex ^| quisite, ^| sonorous or so ^| norous, ^| hospitable or ho ^| spitable.

4. The Semantic Tendency –

1. Constitutive –

2. Distinctive –

As we see stress in English is not only free, it is also shifting which and helps to distinguish different parts of speech. Such a suprasegmental phonological unit form is termed by Prof. V.Vassilyev as distinctive accenteme. When shifting stress serves to distinguish the meaning of different words, the term word-distinctive accenteme is used.

3. Identificatory, or recognitive function –

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Utterance stress /^|Vt^@r@ns "stres/

Words grouped into utterance are not equally important.

Depending on the context or the communicative situation some words contribute more information than others do. They are made prominent.

The is called utterance stress. Word stress and utterance stress are in close relation. Word stress is an essential part of word-shape, whereas utterance stress is a feature of the utterance.

On the auditory level the special prominence is achieved by....................................................

Acoustically,................................................................................................................................. The effect of utterance stress is created, as a rule, not by a single acoustic parameter, but by the interaction of different parameters.

The subsystem of utterance stress in English includes the following basic types:

..........................stress (marked by a kinetic tone),

.........................stress (often marked by static tones);

......................... stress (marked either by a dot (when a partially stressed word is pronounced after a rising tone in the rising tail) or a vertical bar (when the word that takes it follows a falling nuclear tone);

......................... stress (syllables are not marked as a rule as they are not stressed).

Each type of stress has functionally significant degrees depending on the modal and stylistic factors of speech and has different positional variants (pre-nuclear and post-nuclear partial stresses, etc).

The distribution of stresses in an utterance depends on the following factors:

...................................(which determines the placement, type and degree of stress), singles out the utterance semantic centre by this or that nuclear, or primary stress, carries the greatest semantic importance);

................................. (grammatical structure of the utterance also predetermines its accentual structure);

................................ (the distribution of stresses in an utterance is also affected by the rhythmical laws of English, e.g. notional words that are usually stressed may lose their stress under the influence of rhythm, and form words may take stress under the influence of rhythm). All these factors are closely linked, the factor being the most important.

Utterance stress fulfils the same three functions:

1.

2.

3.

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