Accentual Structure of Words in American English

Principal Peculiarities of GA Vowels and Diphthongs

1. No opposition between historically long and historically short.

2. /ı/ may be obscured as in rabbit /raebat/.

3. /e/ — lower than the RP /e/.

4. /æ/ — long, mostly nasalized, may turn into /e/ as in marry, carry, /æ/ may be used instead of /a:/ as in ask, past, dance.

5. /з/ — retroflex in medial and terminal position as in bird, better.

6. /į/ — "barred" /i/ in sister, parted, horses, in emphasized in, his,
with.

7. /a/ instead of /o/ as in doll, hop, rob, quality.

8. /o/ instead of /o:/ as in law.

9. / Λ / turns into /з^r/, e.g. /hз^ri/ — hurry.

10. In GA the distinction between monophthongs and diphthongs is
notvery consistent.

Closing, centring diphthongs and triphthongs are pronounced with weakend or lost glide.

aı → a; /tə daı/ = to die

eı → ε; /tə deı/ = today

aı → oı, e.g. high /hoı/

au → əu, ou → /əu/

auə = /au + ə/ → /a:ə/ → /a/

aıə = /aı + ə/ → /a:ə/ → /a/

ı/ə/ → /ır/ beer __________ b eer

/εə/ → /εr/ bare __________ b are

/oə/ → /or/ door __________ d oor

/uə/ → /ur/ tour __________ t our

This process was described in 1973 by Gimson and later in 1982, 1984 by Trudgill and Wells.

The glottal stop is observed at word and syllable juncture, e.g. /rı^?ælıti/, /ðæt'^?eıbl/. G.A /r/ is pronounced with rounded lips initially.

The major differences in the accentual structure between RP and GA are mainly with the use of the tertiary stress (the primary stress is tonic, the secondary stress is pre-tonic, the tertiary stress is post-tonic, unstressed syllables are weak).

The tertiary, or post-tonic stress in GA falls on the suffixes -ary, -ery, -ory, -mony, -arily, -ative, -on, e. g.

GA RP

´dictio˛nary /εrı/ ´dictionary /ərı/

´terri˛tory /orı/ ´territory /ərı/

´monas˛tery /εrı/ ´monastery /ərı/

The suffix –ile is an exception, e.g. GA ´agile /ıl/, /əl/, /l/, RP ´agile /aıl/.

Other differences between British and American word-stress comprise a) two, b) three, c) four, d) five syllable words:

GA RP

´vibrate vi´brate

´confi˛scate ´confiscate

´pri˛mary ´primary

In five syllable words the American secondary stress may fall earlier than the British:

GARP

ge'sticu˛lation ge˛sticu´lation

There are exceptions:

GA RP

a´risto˛cratic ˛aricto´cratic

The major differences in the accentual types of compound words in GA and RP are the following:

1) In RP compounds with primary and secondary stress are more common than in GA:

RP GA

˛Great ´Britain ´green card

˛New ´Scotland ´grind stone

˛green ´tea ´grizzly bear

2) Tertiary stress differences comprise compound place names end­ing in -borough, -burgh, -bury, -chester, -gate, -ham, -moor, -shire, -stead, -heath, -land, -mouth, -wood, -worth, e.g.

GARP

'Birming˛ham 'Birmingham

Stress differences do not always comprise words with the second com­ponent -berry, -body, -land, -penny, -day.

GARP

'any˛body 'anybody

'Sunday 'Sunday

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