Word accentual instability

The accentual patterns of words are liable to change. Considerable changes of this kind have taken place within the last 300 years, in addition to a large-scale stress shifts affecting French borrowings in ME. Thus, in the seventeenth century, and still in American English, a secondary stress with a strong vowel fell on the penultimate syllable of words such as necessary, adversary, momentary; the earlier distinction between the noun abuse (with primary stress on the first syllable) and the verb abuse (with primary stress on the second syllable) has been lost although in this pair of words a distinction is maintained by the occurrence of/s/ or /z/ finally; we no longer place the primary stress on the second part of revenue, illustrate, confiscate, character, etc., or on the first syllable of humidity, convenient, prosperity etc.

Hesitancy and variation of stress patterns occurring at the present time are the result of rhythmic and analogical pressures, both of which entail in addition considerable changes of sound pattern in words.

(1) Rhythmic changes. In some words containing more than two syllables there appears to be a tendency to avoid a succession of weak syllables, especially if these have /a/ or /i/. Thus, in words of three syllables, there is variation between [' - -] and [- ' -] patterns, e.g. exquisite ['ekskwizit] or [iks'kwizit], deficit ['dehsit] or [di'fisrt], integral ['mtigral] or [m'tegral], mis­chievous ['mistjivas] or ['mistjevas] (or even [mis'tjivias]), kilometer ['kilnmita] or [ki'romita], sonorous ['snnaras] or [sa'ra.ras], premature ['prematja] or [prema'tjua].

Similarly, in words of four syllables, there is variation between first and second syllable accenting, e.g. controversy ['krjntrav3:si] or [kan'trnvasi], hospitable ['hrjspitabl] or [htfspitabl], despicable [di'splkabl] or ['despikabl], formidable [fa'midabl] or ['fomidabl], capitalist ['kaepitalist] or [ka'pitahst], aristocrat ['aenstakraet] or [a'nstakraet]; variation in second and third syllable accenting in words such as centrifugal [sen'tnfjugl] or [sentn'fju:gl], metallurgy [ma'taelad3i] or [met^My]. Television now has the pattern [teh-Vt3h] predominantly, the variant [tehVi3n] being less common.

Longer words, too, often exhibit a tendency towards the alternation of accented and unaccented syllables with various rhythmic patterns, e.g. tuberculosis [,tju:b9kju'lausis] or [tju,b3:kju'lau'sis], articulator [a:'tikjolatn] or [,a:tikju'leitan], Caribbean [ka'nbian] or [кгеп'Ьюп], necessarily [hesasarah] or [.nesa'serili], inexplicable [miks'plikabl] or [m'eksphkabl].

Primary stress is also unstable in some compounds, e.g. camp-fire, life-size, man-handle, overcast. However, the number of truly unstable compounds is relatively small, although many maybe subject to the accentual shift, e.g. after'noon but 'afternoon tea. Many others may vary in their stress pattern between RP and GA, e.g. Adam's 'apple(RP) vs. 'Adam's apple (GA), peanut 'butter (RP) vs. 'peanut butter (GA), shop 'steward (RP) vs. 'shop steward (GA), stage 'manager (RP) vs. 'stage manager (GA), vocal'cords (RP) vs. 'vocalcords (GA), 'season ticket (RP) vs. season 'ticket (GA). As can be seen, most of these involve a shift from final stress in RP to initial stress in GA.

(2) Analogical changes. It sometimes happens that a word's stress pattern is influenced not only by rhythmic pressure but also by the stress structure of a related word of frequent occurrence. Thus, the analogy of the root forms apply [a'plai], prefer [pn'fs:], compare [kam'pea] is responsible for the realization of applicable, preferable, comparable as [a'plikabl, ргЛзтэЫ, kam'pearabl] instead of ['aeplikabl, 'prefrabl, 'квтргэЫ]. Again, the existence of contribution, distribution [krjntn'bju:Jn, distn'bjuijh] may account for the pronunciation ['krtntnbjuit, 'distnbju:t] (contribute, distribute) instead of more usual [kan'tnbju:t, dis'tnbju:t], where the first syllable is totally weakened and the last retains only a certain qualitative prominence. The case of a word such as dispute (п.), for which [di'spju:t] is now more common than ['dispju:t], illustrates stress patterning of the noun by analogy with the related verb (see the stressing of pairs of disyllabic nouns and verbs like ['aeksent] and [aek'sent].

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11