Word stress

Stylistic and attitudinal function.

Semantically distinctive function.

Syntactically distinctive function.

Sentence stress.

Sentence stress is a greater prominence of words, which are made prominent in an intonation group. The special prominence of accented words is achieved through the greater force of utterance and changes in the direction of voice pitch.

The difference between stress and accent is based on the fact that in the case of stress the dominant component is loudness. In the case of accent is pitch. Nuclear stress is the strongest- it carries the most important information. Non-nuclear stresses are subdivided into full and partial. Full stress occurs only in the head of an intonation group, partial stress occurs also in the pre-head and tail.

Stresses in an utterance provide the basis for understanding of the content, they help to perform a distinctive function of intonation.

- Do you know his schoolmate Herry? In this case the word Herry is a tail, it’s not stressed.

- Do you know his schoolmate, Herry? – is stressed.

Thus function is performed jointly with the pitch component of intonation.

Shifting the stress changes the meaning of the sentence.

- You forget yourself. If the word “yourself” is stressed, it sounds friendly. If “forget” is stressed, it is some kind of reproach.

We may display a large variety of feeling: despair, joy, contempt and enjoyment.

Sentence stress plays a great role in the process of communication. Different sentence stresses are used in different spheres of communication.

Sentence stress plays an important role in functional sentence perspective. Sentences may be divided into: theme and rheme. Theme is supposed to be known to a reader. Rheme is something new.

- I saw my friend yesterday.(saw-theme, friend-rheme)

Sentence stress organizes a sentence into a linguistic unit, helps to form its rhythmic and intonation pattern, performs its distinctive function on the level of a phrase.

Word stress can be defined as the singling out one or more syllables in a word, accompanied by the change of the force of utterance, pitch of the voice, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the sound, which is usually a vowel.

Different types of word stress are distinguished in different languages.

1.If special prominence in a stressed syllable or syllables is achieved through the intensity of articulation, such type of stress is called dynamic or force stress.

2.If special prominence in a stressed syllable is achieved through the change of the pitch or musical tone, such accent is called musical or tonic. It is characteristic of the Japanese, Korean and other oriental languages.

3.If special prominence in a stressed syllable is achieved through the changes in the quantity of the vowels, which are longer I the stressed syllables than in the unstressed ones, such type of stress is called quantitative. (e.g. idea, railway)

Qualitative type of stress is achieved through the changes in the quality of the vowel under stress.

English word stress is defined as dynamic. All English vowels my occur in accented syllables, the only exception is neutral sound, which is never stressed.

Stress can be characterized as fixed and free. In languages with fixed type of stress the place of stress is always the same. For example in French – the last syllable is usually stressed.

In English and Russian word –stress is free (unfixed) it may fall on any syllable in a word.

On the first – mother- мама

On the second-occasion-возможность

On the third-detonation-детонация

Stress in English is not only free but also shifting. The place of stress may shift, which helps to differentiate different parts of speech. (‘Import-to im’port)

In spite of the fact that word accent in the English stress system is free, there are certain factors that determine the place and different degree of word-stress V.A. Vassilyev describes them as:

1.Recessive tendency

2.Rhythmic tendency

3.Retentive tendency

4.Semantic fact

Recessive tendency results in placing the word-stress on the initial syllable. It can be of two subtypes:

1/Unrestricted recessive accent, which falls on the first syllable(father, mother)

2.Restricted recessive accent, which is characterized by placing the word accent on the root of the word if this word has a prefix, which has lost its meaning (become, begin) especially the words of Germanic origin.

Rhythmic tendency results in alternating stressed and unstressed syllables (e.g. pronunciation)

Retentive tendency consists in the retention of the primary accent on the parent word (e.g. person-personal) more commonly it is retained on the parent word as a secondary accent. (Similar-similarity)

Semantic factor is observed in compounds. When the first element of the compound is most important (e.g. ‘birthday)

V.A. Vasillyev considers that there are three degrees of word-stress in English.

Primary-strong

Secondary-partial

Weak- in unstressed syllables. For example “certification” – the second and the third syllables have weak stress, which is not marked. Most English scientists place the stress marks before the stressed syllables and don’t mark monosyllabic words.

9. Rhythm, Tempo, Pausation & Voice Quality & their main functions

Rhythm – the regularity of stressed syllables in time. (in English – strong tendency to pronounce stressed syllables at equal intervals of time)

R. – a kind of framework of speech organization

R. as a linguistic notion is realized in lexical, syntactical & prosodic means & mostly in their combination

R. depends on the language: * stress-timed (English, German)* syllable-timed (Spanish, French)

R. has the immediate influence on vowel reduction & elision

Rhythmic unit – rhythmic group – a speech segment which contains a stress syllable with preceding (proclitics) or/and following unstressed syllable (enclitics) attracted to it

* enclitic tendency

Functions:

Distinguish different styles of literature

Attitudinally distinctive function (diff degrees of emotions)

Syntactically distinctive function (takes part in forming sentences)

Tempo – the rate of the utterance & pausation

Normal, slow (important parts), fast (unimportant)

Semantically distinctive function (semantic importance)

Syntactically distinctive function

Pause – a complete stop of pronunciation

Short – separate intonational groups within phrase

Long – the end of the phrase

Very long – separate phonetic wholes

Potential (extremely short or absent) – the delimitation of a sense-group is on the change of the pitch of the voice

Functional division:

Syntactic p. – separates phonopassages, phrases, intonational groups

Emphatic p. – makes especially prominent certain parts of the utterance

Hesitation p. – spontaneous speech – gains yime to think

* silent

* filled

Voice Quality (= Timbre) – specific colouring of the speaker’s voice(Flat, resonant, creaky, husky, bright, dark, soft, furry…)

Stylistically distinctive function

Attitudinally distinctive function

Sociolinguistic function (professional belonging)

personal characteristics

10. Distinctive & non-distinctive featires of En vowels

Distinctive & non-distinctive featires of En vowels The system is based on the following articulatorz features (7):

- The tongue height

- The tongue advancement

- The stability of articulation

- The degree of tenseness

- The length

- The position of the lips

- The character of the end

1) According 2 the horisontal movement of the tongue the vowels are front, front-retracted, back-advanced & back).

According to the vertical movement of the tongue vowels r close (high), mid-open (mid), open (low).

You can find such a contrastive min pair where only the horizontal/vertical movement of the tongue will lead to the changing of the meaning (feed vs food), so tongue height (week vs work) & tongue advancement (bed vs bird) can function as distinctive features

2) According 2 the stability of articulation vowels r monophthongs (10), diphthongs (9) & diphthongoids (2).

The stability of articulation can be regarded as a distinctive feature (monophthongs r contrastive 2 diphthongs)

3) According 2 the degree of tenseness vowels r lax & tense.

The degree of tenseness does not function as a distinctive feature cuz not a single min pair in En can form a contrastive opposition based on this feature

4) Accrording to length vowels r short & long.

Length functions alongside with height & advancement of the tongue. Traditionally all En vowels r long and short but the opposition (ship vs sheep) is based not so much on length but on the tongue height/advancement. Linguists found out that length varies depending on the following sound environment that is called phonetic context. It also depend on the sullable position in the phrase (the same vowel is the longest in the open 1 & it is shorter when followed by a lenis consonant & it is the shortest when followed by a fortis consonant). When actual length was measured by means of instruments it appeared that the length of the historically long vowel is equally sumtimes 2 the length of a historically short vowel. Thus the length does not function as a distinctive feature in En cuz it is determined by the position of the sound and the context.

5) According 2 the position of lips vowels r rounded & unrounded.

The position of the lips is not distinctive either cuz it is also determined by the environment. Under the influence of the bilalbial sonorant w unrounded vowels can become rounded. The character of the end depends on the stress and the following consonant and thus may not be considered a distinctive feature.

So in the En vocalic system there r 3 distinctive features:

- the tongue heigth/the vertical movement of the tongue

- the tongue advancement/the horisontal movement of the tongue

- the stability of articulation

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