Functions of word stress

Typology of word stress

There are two main types of word stress — fixed and variable. Languages of the fixed stress type have stress predominantly on a given location in a word. Languages with variable stress enjoy more freedom for stress placement.

A case when the stress obligatorily falls on the final syllable is Tatar, the Altaic language, the fifth largest language in Russia. French is another language where word stress is normally fixed on the last syllable. Other examples of fixed stress are Finnish and Chech, both with initial syllable stress, and Polish and Swahili, both with penultimate syllable stress. The Inal syllable stress is an areal characteristic of Turkic languages, Iranian languages and the Armenian language.

It was found that there is a relatively strong tendency (about 57 percent) for languages to prefer the trailing edge of words (final or penultimate syllables) for the location of fixed lexical stress. Such placement suggests that stress has a demarcative function indicating where the word boundaries are. The listener does not have to spend too much cognitive effort in calculating them. The same argument holds for initial stress placement at the leading edge of the word. The final, penultimate and initial syllable word-marginal positions together account for 94 per cent of 306 languages with fixed-stress systems {John Laver 1995).

A relatively small proportion of the languages of the world allow a range of different locations of stress: Dutch, English, Greek, Italian, Rumanian, Russian, Spanish etc. Here are some examples: English 'contact (n), con-tact (v), Russian 'правда, до'рога, само'вар.

Typologically, English has a hybrid stress-system: on the level of the word, stress rules are in many ways similar to those of Romance languages in that the pattern of stress is basically determined with reference to the right edge of the word (with stress on the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable); Germanic suffixes, however, such as -ing and -ly, generally do not affect stress, and com­pound words in English, as in other Germanic languages, are generally stressed on the initial element {Hirst andDi Cristo 1998:57).

Word stress and sentence stress (accent) have several different functions in English as they operate at different levels.

Word stress builds up the sound image of a word; it shapes a word by making one (or more) syllable(s) more prominent than the others. This organizing function of word stress is called (1) constitutive. To emphasize the idea that the stressed syllable (which is particularly true of Russian) constitutes the centre, the culmination point in a word, the function is called (2) culminative. The recurrent stress pattern of the word helps the listener to recognize (identify) it in the flow of speech, and the function is called (3) recognitive (identifying). And, finally, the data on fixed stress locations suggest that stress most commonly marks off the end or the beginning of a word, and therefore signals the end of a word; the function is called (4) demarcative.

Less common but still significant is the role of English word stress in signifying the morphological class of a word: there are over 300 minimal pairs (noun vs. verb) which are distinguished by stress placement: 'insult — to in'sult. Compound words also show the tendency for nouns to bear the primary stress on the first element and for the verbs and adjectives to have it on the second element: 'ballet-dancer, fair-haired, to down'step. This function may be called (5) morphological. Stress also has a (6) syntactic function in distinguishing between a compound noun, such as a 'hot dog (a form of food), and an adjective followed by a noun, as in the phrase a 'hot 'dog (an overheated animal). Compound nouns have a single stress on the first element, and the adjective plus noun phrases have stresses on both elements.

Sentence stress organizes information structure and rhythmic structure of larger units: intonation groups, utterances or texts. Besides this (1) structural, or constitutive, function there are ways of giving special emphasis to any word or to contrast one word with another by giving it a contrastive stress, focus. One can stress any word and thus change the meaning of the sentence. For example: "Some family. ("Та еще семейка.) There are students "and students. (Студент студенту "рознь.) I have "plans to leave. (Мне нужно оставить планы.) I have plans to "leave. (Я планирую уехать.) This function has many names: (2) semantic, pragmatic, etc.

A change in sentence stress placement may have (3) syntactical function:

This is my "lawyer, Dr Brown. This is my lawyer Dr "Brown.

English sentence stress possesses great potential in signalling expres­sivity and emotionality of speech. The function is normally associated with intonation as a whole and is termed (4) attitudinal (or expressive, emotional).

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