10th Weeks

STRESSING10th Meeting

ENGLISH PHONOLOGY

SITI AFNI AFIYANI, M.HUM

Wednesday, May 3, 2023

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STRESS

In linguistics,

stress is the relative emphasis that may be

given to certain syllables in a word. The

term is also used for similar patterns of

phonetic prominence inside syllables.

In speech, stress may be defined as the degree of intensity or loudness placed on a sound; that is, the amount of force one puts on a syllable or word to give it importance


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Syllables

To understand the stress, understanding syllables is needed . Every word is made from syllables.Each word has one, two, three or more syllables.


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Word Number of syllables

Dog Dog 1

Quiet Qui-et 2

Expensive Ex-pen-sive 3

Interesting In-ter-est-ing 4

Unexceptional Un-ex-cep-tion-al 5

The nature of stress

All stressed syllables are more prominent than unstressed syllables.

intensity or prominence given to one syllable rather than another.

Prominence is relative to the surrounding syllables, not absolute. (A stressed syllable that is nearly whispered will be quieter than an unstressed syllable that is shouted.)


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It would have been logically possible for

every syllable to have exactly the same

loudness, pitch, and so on.

human languages have ways to make some

syllables more prominent than others.

A syllable might be more prominent by differing

from the surrounding syllables in terms of:

loudness

pitch

length


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They’re1. Stressed syllables are louder than unstressed

syllables; (loudness)2. The pitch of the syllable: pitch in speech is

realted to the frequency of vibration of the vocal cords and to the musical notion of low and high pitched notes;

3. The length of syllables; If one syllable is longer than the others there is quite a strong tendency to hear it as stressed;


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How to pronounce word stress?

When a syllable is stressed, it is pronounced

longer in duration higher in pitchlouder in volume

e.g. teacher

How do you say teacher?

Longer teeeeeeeeeeee cher

Highertea

cher

Louder TEA cher

All three combined

TEEEEEEEEEEE

cher

Stressed Syllablebanana

ba NAAAA na Syllable 1 Syllable 2 Syllable 3 (short) (long) (short)

Unstressed SyllablesUnstressed Syllables

Stressed syllables are strong syllables. Unstressed syllables are weak syllables.

Strong and weak syllablesStrong and weak syllables

The vowel in a weak syllable tends to be shorter, of lower intensity and different in quality.

• ‘father’: the second syllable is shorter than the first, is less loud and has a vowel that cannot occur in strong syllables.

• ‘bottle’: the weak second syllable contains no vowel at all, but consists entirely of the consonant /l/. We call this a syllabic consonant.

STRESSING ARE

1. Word stress: import/import2. Sentence stress: I love you.


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1. WORD STRESS


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Type of stressTwo types of stress can be found in English: Primary stress refers to the strong emphasis a

speaker puts on the most important syllable of a particular word.

Secondary stress refers to a less strong emphasis on the next most important syllable.

Primary stress ----heavily stressed. Marked with a vertical stroke on the upper left hand corner of a syllable carrying the stress.

Secondary stress ----stressed but subordinate to the primary stress. Marked with a vertical stroke on the lower left hand corner of a syllable concerned, as in |contri|bution.Double stress /even stress----Certain English words have double stress or even stress. Double stress can be marked by a high vertical stroke before each of the stressed syllables, as in |fif|teen, |Ber|lin.


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Word Stress

A word stress means a prominent syllable

word pattern

tea.cher • .

beau.ti.ful • . .

un.der.stand . . •

con.ti.nue . • .

We should ask first: is the word simple, complex or a compound?


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Word Stress - GuidelinesSimple

Complex

Compound:

Word Stress - GuidelinesSimple : one morpheme: enter, deny, return,

cotton, potato

Complex

Compound


cotton, potato

Complex : it contains one or more bound morphemes= affixes (prefixes or suffixes): singer, goodness, unlock, capable, conversation or is a compound word

Compound


cotton, potato

Complex: it contains one or more bound morphemes= affixes (prefixes or suffixes): singer, goodness, unlock, capable, conversation or is a compound word

Compound: more than one unbound morpheme: greenhouse, handbag, overcast, whitewash

In order to decide on stress placement it is necessary to make use of some or all of the following information:

1.Whether the word is morphological simple or complex;

2.The grammatical category to which the word belong to (N, V, A, etc);

3.The number of syllables in the word;4.The phonological structure of those syllables.

1. SIMPLE WORDS

We have to consider the following:

the phonological structure of the syllable

the number of syllables

the grammatical category

2. Complex Words: suffixes

Suffixes:

1. Do not affect the stress pattern

2. Affect the stress pattern

3. Take the stress themselves


Suffixes:


2. Affect the stress pattern.

attract the stress to the syllable before the suffix

photo -graphy, perfect –ion, tranquil –ity

-eous, -ious, -ial, -ic, -ive


Suffixes:


2. Affect the stress pattern

3. Take the stress themselvesrefugee, mountaineer, Portuguese, cigarette, picturesque

3. COMPLEX WORDS:COMPOUNDS

General rules:1. If the first part of the compound is (in a

broad sense) adjectival the stress goes on the second element with a secondary stress on the first:If the first element is a noun (in a broad sense), the stress goes on the first element:

Word Stress Rule

Word typeWhere is the

stress?Examples

Two syllables

Nounson the first

syllable

center object flower

Verbson the last

syllable

release admit

arrange

Compound

Nouns (N + N)

(Adj. + N)on the first part

desktop pencil case bookshelf

greenhouse

Adjectives (Adj. + P.P.)

on the last part (the verb part)

well-meant hard-headed old-fashioned

Verbs (prep. + verb)

understand overlook

outperform

Word type Where is the stress? Examples

Phrasal Verbs on the particleturn off

buckle up hand out

Word with added ending

-icthe syllable before the

ending

economic Geometricelectrical

-tion, -cian, -sionTechniciangraduation

cohesion

-phy, -gy, -try, -cy, -fy, -al

the third from the last syllable

Photographybiology

geometry

-meterParameter

Thermometerbarometer

2.Sentence Stress

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Sentence Stress

Sentence stress refers to the word or words in a sentence that receive a strong accent.

Sentence stress is what gives English its rhythm or "beat". Word stress is accent on one syllable within a word. Sentence stress is the strong accent on certain words within a sentence.

Sentence stress is the music of spoken English. Like word stress, sentence stress can help you to understand spoken English, especially when spoken fast.

Examples of sentence stress

e.g. I am happy because I am with you.

I am happy / because I am with you.I am `happy because I am with you.I am happy because I am with `you.

Most sentences have two types of word:

content words structure words

Content words are the key words of a sentence. They are the important words that carry the meaning or sense. Structure words are not very important words. They are small, simple words that make the sentence correct grammatically.

If you remove the structure words from a sentence, you will probably still understand the sentence.

Content words are usually nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. •They give information about who, what, when, where, why, and how. •They express the main idea or content of the phrase or sentence. •They carry the message and therefore usually stressed.

Unstressed words are usually function words like articles, pronouns, possessives, prepositions, auxiliary verbs, and conjunctions. •These words connect the information words to form grammatical sentences.

Imagine that you receive the telegram message:


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SELL CAR GONE FRANCE

Will you SELL my CAR because I’ve GONE to FRANCE

SELL my CAR I’ve GONE to FRANCE

2 1 3 1

Will you SELL my CAR because I’ve GONE to FRANCE

Rules for Sentence Stress in English

The basic rules of sentence stress are:

1. content words are stressed 2. structure words are unstressed 3. the time between stressed words is always

the same

Classification of sentence stress

1. Sense Stress

2. Logical stress

3. Emotional Stress


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1) Sense stress

Sense stress is very common phenomenon in connected speech . The distribution of such stresses is subject to the meaning that the speaker wishes to convey. In normal speech we put stress on words semantically important. Such words are called content words; the unimportant ones are called form words, they are unstressed.

2) Logical stress

The distribution of logical stress is subject to the speaker’s will. The speaker puts stress on any word he wishes to emphasize. So a word logically stressed may stand at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of a sentence and it usually implies some idea of contrast. E.g.`We heard Mary singing upstairs. ( Not they heard .)Sometimes the idea of contrast is clearly pointed out . E.g.I bought it for `you , not for `him .They can’t do it, but `we can .


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3) Emotional Stress Emotional stress is a special kind of stress. In spoken English when the speaker wants to show strong emotion , he can put strong stress on the word he wishes to emphasize. But such kind of stress doesn’t imply any idea of contrast . The high –falling tone should be used in speaking or reading aloud such stressed word.

E.g.It’s `` wonderful ! We suc``ceeded.


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Content words - stressed

Words carrying the meaning Examplemain verbs SELL, GIVE, EMPLOY

nouns CAR, MUSIC, MARY

adjectives RED, BIG, INTERESTING

adverbs QUICKLY, LOUDLY, NEVER

negative auxiliaries DON'T, AREN'T, CAN'T

Structure words - unstressed

Words for correct grammar Examplepronouns he, we, theyprepositions on, at, intoarticles a, an, theconjunctions and, but, becauseauxiliary verbs do, be, have, can, must

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