Word stress

Key words and expressions:

accent, stress, loudness, force, pitch, length, sound quality, constitutive function, distinctive function, primary stress, half-stressed syllables, secondary stress, weak or unstressed syllables, recessive tendency, root syllable, accentual patterns, rhythmic tendency

One or more syllables of a polysyllabic word have greater prominence than the others. Such syllables are said to be асcented or stressed.

In English any or all of four factors — loudness (force), pitch, sound quantity (length), sound quality may render a syllable more prominent than the others. In similar phonetic contexts a vowel is perceived as a more prominent one if it is louder, longer and more distinct than the unstressed one.

Vowels of unstressed syllables are definitely not so long and tend to be reduced in the unstressed position.

Word stress arranges syllables in words thus fulfilling the constitutive function. Its distinctive function can be traced in the oppositions of words consisting of the same mor­phemes the meaning of which is differentiated by word stress, e.g. όbject (n) — objéct (v). In English there are three degrees of word stress: stressed syllables (primary stress), half-stressed syllables (secondary stress) and weak or unstressed syllables. A large group of polysyllabic simple words bear both the primary and the secondary stresses, e.g. conver'sation.

There are several large groups of words in English with two equally strong stresses. These words consist of two morphemes. The use of the second strong stress is caused by the semantic significance of both equally stressed elements of the word, e.g. 're'write, 'four'teen. Word stress in English as well as in Russian is free, in the sense that the primary stress is not tied to any particular syllable in all the words. But it always falls on a particular syllable of any given word.

The position of word stress in English is the product of its historical development. It has been influenced by the combination of different tendencies. The oldest of them is known as the recessive tendency, according to which the root syllable i.e. the semantic unit of the word is stressed. So the majority of words of Germanic origin have stresses on the first root syllable.

If words are formed with the prefixes with no referential meaning the stress is shifted onto the root syllable, which is not initial in this case, e.g. be'fore, be'gin, mis'take.

The second tendency is the result of the mutual influence of Germanic and French accentual patterns. It is known as the rhythmic tendency which manifests itself in stressing the third syllable from the end, e.g. 'situate, ar'ticulate.

Most disyllabic English words have recessive stress, e.g. 'finish, 'answer, 'marriage, be'hind, re'sult.

According to both tendencies words of three syllables generally have stress on the first syllable (which is the third syllable from the end), e.g. 'cinema, 'enemy, 'afterwards, 'recognize 'situate (but un'certain, re'lation).

Words of four syllables may have either recessive or rhythmic stress, e.g. 'architect, 'criticism, 'characterize, re'markable, ar'ticulate.

Rhythmic stress is especially common for verbs with the suf­fixes -ate, -fy, -ize, e.g. 'situate, 'qualify, 'centralize, ar'ticulate, per'sonify.

Some four-syllable words tend to have a three-syllable accen­tual pattern, e.g. 'dictionary, 'laboratory.

The secondary stress is manifested in polysyllabic words with the primary stress on the third or on the fourth syllable from the beginning.

In words with the primary stress on the third syllable the secondary stress usually falls on the first syllable.

If the primary stress falls on the fourth or fifth syllable the secondary stress is very commonly on the second syllable.

In some cases the position of the secondary stress is connect­ed with the type of the suffix which can influence the accentual pattern. But there is still no good ground for establishing regular rules in this case.

Дата добавления: 2015-05-31