Compounds

Secondary stress

Prefixes

Prefixes are generally stress-neutral, e.g. de-, dis-, in- (and various as­similated forms like il-, im-, in-, ir-)_t mal-, pseudo-, re-, sub-, un-, e.g. defoliate, disin'genuous, inco'rrect, illiterate, imma'ture, malfunction, misreport, pseudoscien'tific, redesign, sub'standard, un'necessary. In general, such prefixes result in a doubled consonant when the prefix-final and the stem-initial consonant are identical, e.g. un'necessary is pronounced with a double length [n:]. (This rule does not apply to in- and its variants, so, for example, i'llogical is pronounced with only a single [1].)

When words have more than one syllable before or after the main stress, a general rhythmical pattern is often apparent, there being a tendency to alternate more prominent and less prominent syllables. Syllable made prominent in this way will retain a full vowel; additionally syllables before the primary stress will often receive the secondary stress involving pitch change.

If there is only one syllable before the primary stress, this is usually unstressed. E.g. a'pply, coricern, de'ceive etc. If there are two syllables before the primary stress, the first will often receive a secondary stress, e.g. yhodo'dendron, fnedteval, represent, jnagdzine. Indeed, primary stress shows a tendency to move to the position of the secondary stress, pro­ducing, for example, 'magazine in GA.

Where there are more than two syllables before the primary stress, a secondary stress will fall two or three syllables back according to the presence of a full vowel, e.g. inferiority, enthusiastically, but pircumlo'cution,,characte'ristically. As with everything concerned with a word stress in English, all of this section should be taken as indicating tendencies rath­er than rules that are without exception.

Compounds are composed of more than one root morpheme but function grammatically as a single word. In most cases the two roots are free morphemes themselves. Compounds are grammatically unitary when com­binations of the grammatical classes of the two elements would not nor­mally function as the type of constituents which the compound does, e.g. daybreak is composed of the noun day plus the verb breakbut such a com­bination does not always constitute a noun phrase functioning as the subject of a sentence as in Daybreak comes early in summer. A compound is semantically unitary because it has a meaning representing a specialized conjunction of the meanings of its two components, e.g. glasshouse is indeed loosely a type of house and is made of glass but the compound can­not be used to describe any sort of glasshouse.

Compounds may be written as one word as with daybreak and glasshouse, or with a hyphen as in clear-cut, or with the space between the two elements, as in working party: there is no systematic practice in the choice among these three ways, although there is a tendency for compounds with primary stress on the first element to be written as one word or with a hyphen, and for those with primary stress on the final element to be written as two words.

The primary stress in compound nouns is most commonly on the first element, e.g. 'daybreak, 'glasshouse, and in some cases this stress type will distinguish the compound from a more productive phrasal pattern, e.g. a 'glass 'house. Compound verbs and adjectives have the same pattern as phrases, i.e. with a primary accent on the second element: plear-'cut, stage-manage.

There are also differences between the stress patterns of compounds in RP and in GA, e.g. RP 'season ticket, compared with GA season 'ticket. Where the primary stress is on the second element, a secondary stress is usual on the first element. Where the primary stress in on the first element, a full vowel is usually retained in the final element.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11