The accentual structure of english words

Accentual Structure of English Words

The syllables in a word are not pronounced identically. They have different degree of phonemes. The syllable or syllables that have greater prominence than other syllables are stressed. Different linguists single out different components of stress as the most important. For Daniel Jones this is force. For Bloomfield this is loudness. However, most scientists admit that word stress is based on the interaction of a number of components. It is a complex phenomenon that is marked by variations of:

• force
• pitch
• quality
• quantity

By force we understand greater breath effort and muscular energy that is applied when pronouncing the stressed syllable.

When pitch is involved it is the pitch level that make the stressed syllable more prominent than the others, but not the direction of the tone. We can pronounce the word with the falling or rising nuclear tone., the meaning will be unchanged.

As far as quality and quantity are concerned, we should mention the reduction of the phonemes in an unstressed position. Let’s take the word ‘car-park’. The first [a:] fully preserved its length and quality. The second is reduced due to the unstressed position.

 
Word stress – is singling out one or more syllables in a which are made prominent due to the force, pitch, quality and quantity.

In achieving special pronounce of stress all syllables in different languages 2 components usually play the reading role, thus all languages can be roughly divided into 2 groups that include:

• dynamic stress
• musical stress

The dynamic stress implies greater force with which stressed syllables are pronounced. European languages like English, German, French and also Russian have this type of stress.

The musical stress implied that the meaning of the word is effected by the pitch level and direction. This is the case with Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese and some African languages. One and the same word pronounced with level rising or falling tone has different meanings.

In some languages both types of word stress play an equal role. This is the case with Scandinavian languages.

Degree of stress

Degree of stress in a word may differ. As Васильев points out a polysyllabic word can have as many degreed of stress as there are syllables in it. As far as the degree of stress is concerned, the position of British and American linguists differ.

British phoneticians distinguish 3 degrees of stress in the word.

1. Primary – the main stress
2. Secondary – is the second strongest in the word
3. Weak stress – all he others.

So the syllables that have primary and secondary stresses can be called stressed. Those that have weak stress are called unstressed.

A different system is offered by American linguists. They distinguish 4 degrees of stress:

1. primary
2. secondary
3. tertiary
4. weak

It is quite clear that the difference between secondary and tertiary stress is subtle and subjective, and there are still no criteria to differentiate between them. For example, in the word “recognition” the 1st syllable has got secondary stress according to British linguists and tertiary stress according to Americans. In American English the words with suffixes –ory, -ate get the tertiary stress (“territory”)

Position of the stress

We can distinguish languages with fixed and free stress. In English and Russian the word stress is free. That means it may fall almost on any syllable and is not confined to any position in a word. In French and Polish the stress is fixed. In French the last syllable is usually stressed, in Finnish the first. The free stress in English has 2 subtypes:

• constant
• shifting

A constant stress is the stress that remains on the same morphemes in different grammatical forms and different derivates: “terror”, “terrible”, “terrified”. The stress is shifting when it may shift from one syllable to another in different parts of speech and different forms of the same word: “ignore”, “ignorant”; “politics”, “politician”

In spite of the fact that both Russian and English are characterized by free stress. The placement of stress in Russian is unpredictable. In English the freedom is restricted by certain tendencies.

Tendencies:

1. Recessive tendency: is typical for all German languages and consists in placing the stress on the root syllable. The recessive stress can be divided into

1.1. Unrestricted when the stress falls on the initial syllable in the word if there is no prefix. (husband, father)

1.2. Restricted: when there is a prefix and the stress falls on the second syllable (begin, before, forget, apart).

This tendency is typical of not only anglo-saxon words but also some words of the French origin, that were assimilated in English. (reason)

2. Rhythm tendency: the presence in modern English a great number of monosyllabic words and the necessity to alternate stressed and unstressed syllables. This tendency is called the appearance of the secondary stress in a number of English words. (revolution, constitution, etc.)

3. Retentive tendency.: it takes place when a derivative retains the word stress of the original word. The parent word stress can become primary or secondary in derivative.

similar – assimilate

personal – personality

Functions of the stress

1) Constitutive function. The word stress constitutes a word it organizes its syllables into a certain pattern of relations among them in the matter of force, pitch, quality and quantity.

2) Distinctive function shows that stress is capable of differentiating the meaning of word (imp’ort, v. – ‘import, n) (black ‘bird – ‘blackbird)

3) Recognitive function manifests itself that due to the stress people can recognize words and their stress pattern. Use of words with misplaced stress can prevent peple from normal understanding.