Tendencies in the incidence of stress in English

Languages are also differentiated according to the place of word stress. The traditional classification of languages

concerning place of stress in a word is into those with a fixed stress and those with a free stress:

1.Fixed stress – all the words have a stressed syllable in one and the same position in relation to the beginning

or the end of the word. French- the main accent is tied to the last syllable of the word. Czech- the main accent falls

on the initial syllable of each word and gram. form of a word(+Finnish, Estonian, Polish)

2.Leng.with Free stress (E,R) – stress may occur on any syllable of the word.

1 constant accent- remains on the same morpheme in different grammatical forms of a word or in different derivatives from one root.

2 Shifting accent- falls an different morphemes in different gram.forms of the word: сад-сады, вода-водовоз.

The word stress in English as well as in Russian is not only free but it may also be shifting, performing the semantic function

of differentiating lexical units, parts of speech, grammatical forms. In English word stress is used as a means of word-building;

in Russian it marks both word-building and word formation, e.g. 'contrast — con'trast; 'habit — habitual 'music — mu'sician; дома — дома; чудная — чудная, воды — воды.

Languages are classified as to the place of sgress in order to decide on stress-placement it is necessary to take into consideration the following factors:

The word is:

1. morphologically simple, complex or compound

2. the grammatical category to which the word belongs (noun, verb adj.)

3. the number of syllables in the word

4. the phonological structure of the syllables (syl. wait)

English has a hybrid stress-system

Tendencies:

1.Recessive - in Germanic lang-s the word stress originally fell on the initial syllable of the root syllable of a word.

Words of anglo-sax. origin and French words borrowed bfore the 15^th cent are subjected to the recessive tendency.

If the word has a prefix which has lost its meaning the stress falls on the root syllable. (ago)

-Unrestricted recessive stress – falls on the initial syllable (if there is no a prefix which has lost its meaning)- father, mother, wonder.

-Restricted- falls on the root of native English words with a prefix which has lost its meaning: among, before, forget.

2. Rhythmical tendency- The rhythm of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables gave birth to the rhythmical tendency

in the present-day English which caused the appearance of the secondary stress in the multisyllabic French borrowings,

e.g. revolution, organi'sation, assimilation, etc. It also explains the placement of primary stress on the third syllable

from the end in three- and four-syllable words, e.g. 'cinema, 'situate, ar'ticulate. The interrelation of both the recessive

and the rhythmical tendencies is traced in the process of accentual assimilation of the French-borrowed word personal

on the diachronic level, e.g. perso'nal — 'perso'nal — 'personal.

historical rhythm- French borrowing with the stress on the last syllable: redicálàrádi,cal(+secondary stress)à radical.

In Eng there are many short words. Long fr. Words were pronounces with 2 stresses, then the second stress disappeared.

The result of this process in Modern Eng is that majority of 3-4 syllabic words with one accent are stressed on the third syllable from the end, and thus stress is called rhythmical.

3. Retentive - a derivative retains the stress of the original words (person- personal).

Semantic factor- compound numerals and adj and words with meaningful prefixes like ex-president have one and the same stress pattern.

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