The accentual structure of English words

The accentual structure of English words

The terms word stress and sentence stress are used in different branches of linguistics. Word stress belongs to morphology and sentence stress to syntax. Sometimes word stress and sentence stress are correlated. (when sentence consists of 1 word)

The nature of stress lies in a greater muscular energy produced by a speaker. The term dynamic stress is used to describe this energy. Word stress is the singling out of one or more syllables in a word, which is 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. Another term for word stress is prominence. The term prominence seems to cause some ambiguity when related to word stress. The stressed syllables are often said to be the most prominent syllables in the word. According to G.P. Torsuev the notions "stressed" and "prominent" should not be used synonymically. Stressed syllables which are defined as prominent are called obscure.

Languages differ in the placement of word stress. They can have a fixed or free stress. In languages with a fixed stress the occurrence of the word stress is limited to a particular syllable in a multisyllabic word. For instance, in French the stress falls on the last syllable of the word (if pronounced in isolation)( parler [парле] – разговаривать, éclair [еклэр] – молния, bonjour [бонжур],  in Finnish( katu-улица, laiva-корабль,kiitos-спасибо) and Czech(Děkuji декуи-спасибо, пожалуйста – Prosím просим) it is fixed on the first syllable, in Polish on the one but last syllable(wodospad [водоспат] водопад, fala [фаля] волна) It is called pinultimate syllable. In Russian the stress is free except some borrowed words: greek words- научные термины: математика, философия, история, грамматика;

бытовые термины: известь, сахар, скамья, тетрадь, фонарь;

наименования растений и животных: буйвол, фасоль, свёкла и другие;

из области религии: анафема, ангел, епископ, демон, икона, монах, монастырь, лампада, пономарь.

 Latin words- библия, доктор, медицина, лилия, роза

The word stress in English as well as in Russian is not only free, but it may also be shifting, thus differentiating lexical units, parts of speech and grammatical forms: ˈcontrast - conˈtrast, ˈtransport - transˈport, ˈзамок - заˈмок, ˈмука - муˈка,   'habit — ha’bitual 'music — mu'sician; ‘дома —до’ма; ‘чудная — чуд’ная, ‘воды — во’ды.

The accentual structure of English words is liable to instability due to the different origin of several layers in the Modern English word stock. In Germanic languages the word stress originally fell on the initial syllable or the second syllable, the root syllable in the English words with prefixes. This tendency was called recessive. 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. ,revo'lution, ,organi'sation, as,simi'lation, 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 retentive tendency consists in the retention of the primary stress on the parent word: 'person - 'personal, or more commonly the retention of the secondary stress on the current word: 'personal-personality. The difference between constant accent and the retentive stress consists in that the former remains on the same syllable in all the grammatical forms of a word or in all the derivatives from one and the same root, whereas retentive stress in a derivative falls on the same syllable on which it falls in the parent word, while in her derivatives from the same root it may be shifted, e.g. .'person ~ 'personal -per'sonify.

There are certain categories of English words stressing of which is determined by the semantic factor, e.g. compound words and words with the so-called separable prefixes, he majority of such words have two equally strong stresses, both stressed parts are considered to be of equal semantic importance, with the semantic factor thus canceling the rhythmic tendency in word stressing, e.g.• compound adjectives: hard-working, blue-eyed,• verbs with post positions : sit down, take off,• numerals from 13 to 19. fourteen, sixteen.

It should be noted that the rhythmic tendency becomes operative when such words

occur in sentences and the first stress of a double-stressed English word disappears when

n immediately or closely preceding word requires stress: a 'very good-looking 'girl.

According to the most salient feature the following types of word stress are distinguished in different languages:

1. dynamic or force stress if special prominence in a stressed syllable(syllables) is achieved mainly through the intensity of articulation;

2. musical or tonic stress if special prominence is achieved mainly through the range of pitch, or musical tone.

3. quantitative stress if special prominence is achieved through the changes in the quantity of the vowels, which are longer in the stressed syllables than in the unstressed ones.

4. qualitative stress if special prominence is achieved through the changes in the quality of the vowel under stress [Леoнтьева l988: 180]. Vowel reduction is often used as manipulation of quality in unstressed syllables.

According to A.C. Gimson, the effect of prominence is achieved by any or all of four factors: force, tone, length and vowel colour [1970]. The dynamic stress implies greater force with which the syllable is pronounced. In other words in the articulation of the stressed syllable greater muscular energy is produced by the speaker. European languages such as English, German, French, Ukrainian are believed to possess predominantly dynamic word stress. In Scandinavian languages the word stress is considered to be both dynamic and musical. The musical (or tonic) word stress is observed in Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese. It is effected by the variations of voice pitch in relation to neighbouring syllables.

Recent investigations of lexical stress in English show the existence of a hierarchy of acoustic cues to the stressed status of a syllable in English: the perceptually most influential cue is (higher) pitch, the second most important cue in the hierarchy is (longer) duration, the third is (greater) intensity and the last is segmental (sound) quality [Laver 1995: 513].

The English linguists (D. Crystal [1969], A.C. Gimson [1970]) agree that in English word stress or accent is a complex phenomenon, marked by the variations in force, pitch, quantity and quality. The dynamic and the tonic features of English word stress prevail over the others. It should be noted that when the tonic or musical component of word stress is involved it is the change of pitch level that is significant in making the syllable prominent, but not the type of tone direction. As to the quantitative and qualitative components of word stress they are also significant. Certain distinctions of the vowel length and colour are reduced or lacking in unstressed syllables. The fact strengthens the idea that the accentuation is influenced by the vowel length and quality. The vowel of the stressed syllable is perceived as never reduced or obscure and longer than the same vowel in the unstressed syllables. Thus, the word "stress" or "accent" is also defined as qualitative where the vowel colour or quality is a means of stress and quantitative with relatively increased length of the stressed vowel.

The opinions of phoneticians differ as to how many degrees of stress are linguistically relevant in a word. The majority of British (D. Jones, R. Kingdon, A.C. Gimson) and Russian linguists (V.A. Vassilyev, J. Shakhbagova) usually distinguish three degrees of stress in the word. The primary stress is the strongest, the secondary stress is the second strongest. All the other degrees are termed weak stress. Unstressed syllables are supposed to have weak stress. The American scholars B. Bloch and G. Trager find four contrastive degrees of word stress, namely: loud, reduced loud, medial and weak stresses [1942]. Other American linguists also distinguish four degrees of word stress but term them: primary stress, secondary stress, tertiary stress and weak stress. The difference between the secondary and tertiary stresses is very subtle and seems subjective. The criteria of their difference are very vague. Secondary stress differs from tertiary in that it usually occurs on the 3rd or 4th pretonic syllable, and tertiary is always post-tonic. The second pre-tonic syllables of such words as ,libe'ration, ,recog'nition are marked by secondary stress in RP (British Received Pronunciation), in General American they are said to have a tertiary stress. In GA a tertiary stress also affects the suffixes -ory, -ary, -ory of nouns and the suffixes -ate, -ize, -y of verbs, which are considered unstressed in RP, e.g. 'terri,tory, 'cere,mony, 'dictio,nary; 'demonst,rate, 'orga,nize, 'simpli,fy.

Guidelines to English word stress placement

English stress placement is a highly complicated matter. There is an opinion that it is best to treat stress placement as a property of an individual word, to be learned when the word itself is learned. However, it is also recognized that in most cases when English speakers come across an unfamiliar word, they can pronounce it with the correct stress.

Thus in principle, it should be possible to summarize rules of lexical stress placement in English, and practically all the rules will have exceptions.

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 morphologically simple, or whether it is complex containing one or more affixes (prefixes or suffixes) or a compound word;

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

3. the number of syllables in a word;

4. the phonological structure of the syllables; [Roach 1995:88]

5. the historical origin of a word.

The following guidelines to lexical stress placement in English should be taken as tendencies rather than absolute rules due to exceptions to almost any rule.

Lexical stress of monosyllabic words presents no problem - pronounced in isolation they are said with primary stress.

Basic rules of stressing two-syllable simple words comprise rules of stressing Verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc. The basic rule of stressing two-syllable VERBS runs that if the second syllable of the verb contains a long vowel or a diphthong, or if it ends with more

than one consonant, that second syllable is stressed: apply, attract, arrive.

1. if the final syllable contains a short vowel and one final consonant, the first syllable is stressed: open, enter.

2. a final syllable is also unstressed if it contains hah. follow, borrow.

3. any two-syllable verbs with prefixes of Germanic and Latin origin have the root syllable stressed (see a more detailed explanation in words with prefixes).

Two syllable simple ADJECTIVES are stressed according to the same rule as two syllable verbs: 'lovely, 'even, 'hollow; cf.: di'vine, co'rrect, a'live .There are exceptions to this rule: 'honest, 'perfect.

Two-syllable NOUNS have the first syllable stressed if the second syllable contains a short vowel: dinner, money, colour. Otherwise it will be on the second syllable: de'sign, bdloon.

Other two-syllable words such as adverbs seem to behave like verbs and adjectives.

Three-syllable verbs 

If the last syllable of a three-syllable verb

1) contains a short vowel and ends with not more than one consonant, that syllable will be unstressed, and

s will be placed on the preceding (penultimate syllable): de'termine, en'counter.

2) contains a long vowel or a diphthong, or ends with more than one consonant, that final syllable will be

stressed: enter'tain, under'stand.

Three-syllable nouns

If the final syllable of a three-syllable simple noun

contains 1) a long vowel or a diphthong and/or ends with more than one consonant, the stress will

usually be placed on the first syllable: 'intellect, 'marigold.

2) a short vowel and the middle syllable contains a short vowel and ends with not more than one

consonant, the first syllable will be stressed: 'quantity, 'cinema.

3) contains a short vowel or [ǝu] and if the penultimate syllable contains a long vowel or a

diphthong, or if it ends with more than one syllable, that penultimate syllable will be stressed:

po'tato, di'saster, sy'nopsis.

Lexical stress of words of four or more syllables. It can be stated in a most general way that in words of four and more syllables the stress is placed on the antepenultimate syllable (third from the end), e'mergency, hi'storical, ca'lamity. But most of such words are of complex morphological structure containing affixes (prefixes and / or suffixes) which makes it necessary to regard stress placement rules applied to prefixal and suffixal words separately.Words with prefixes. As a general rule, words containing prefixes tend to be stressed on the first syllable of the base or root element, with the prefix either unstressed or having secondary stress [Celce-Murcia et al 1996:134]. In English, prefixes fall into one

of two categories:

Prefixes of Germanic origin

a-, be, for-, fore-, mis-, out-, over-, un-, under-, up-, with, e.g. awake, believe, forgive, foresee,

mistake, outrun, overdo, untie, understand, uphold, withdraw

1) Some of these prefixes are always unstressed in the words in which they occur: a-,

be-, fore-, with-.

2) Others usually receive secondary stress in the following prefix+verb combinations: undo, outdo, overlook, underpay.

3) An exception to this general rule (secondary stress on the prefix and primary stress on the base) occurs when a word with a prefix functions as a noun and has the same pattern as a noun compound. In this case, the prefix or its first syllable tends to have primary stress: foresight, outlook, overdose, underwear,upstart. Cf: I couldn 't stop the OVERflow of the tank! (prefix+base functioning as a noun) Why did the tank overFLOWl (prefix+verb)

Prefixes of Latin ate origin

a(d)-, com-, de-, dis-, ex-, en-, in-, o-, per-, pre-, pro-, re-, sub-, sur-, e. g. admix, complain, discard, exclude, entreat, inhale, oppose, persuade, remember, subside, surmount

1) It is usually the base (not the prefix) that receives primary stress. However, unlike Germanic prefixes, –the majority of Latin prefixes are unstressed when part of a verb: compare, disturb, produce, expect.

2) When these prefixes are part of a word that functions as a noun, the prefix often receives primary stress: Cf.: Fresh PROduce (noun) is expensive in winter. The company will PRO'duce (verb) new brands. In these examples, the difference in stress patterns helps to reinforce the differences between parts of speech.

Words with suffixes. We can identify three types of suffixes, from the point of

view of stress [Gimson 2001: 226-227; Celce-Murcia et al 1996: 136]:

1) Stress-neutral suffix – the suffix does not affect the location of stress in the base/stem to which it is attached

1) for the most part, stress-neutral suffixes are Germanic in origin: -hood, -less, -ship, -ful, e.g. childhood, tasteless, beautiful, friendship.

2) Other neutral suffixes – not all of Germanic origin – that function the same way include derivational suffixes ending in -ment, and most of those ending in -y: ary,-ery,-ory, -cy-, -acy, -ty; diminutive -y;-ish, -ism, -ist, -er, -ess, -ness, -dom, e.g. disaGrEEment, inFIRmary, DELicacy, FOOlish, SEParatist, LlOness, etc.

2) Stress-imposing / stress-attracting suffix – the suffix causes the stress to fall on a particular syllable of the stem

1) on the syllable immediately preceding the suffix:-eous, advantageous -graphy, photography -ial, proverbial -ian, PaRlsian -ic, climatic -ical, ecological -ious, injurious -ity, aBILity -ion education

3) Stressed / stress- fixing suffix – the suffix itself is stressed

1) suffixes that have come into English via French often cause the final syllable of a word to receive primary stress -aire, questionNAIRE-eer, volunTEER-ese, VietnamESE-esque, groTESQUE-ique, anTIQUE-oon, balLOON-ette, casSETTE

NOTE: 1. In cases where the base and the suffix have different historical origins, it is the suffix that determines the English stress pattern, e.g. Germanic suffixes -ly and -ness when added to the words of Romance origin cause no shift in stress: PASsive, PASsively, PASsiveness but the shift from PASsive to pasSIVity occurs on adding the Latin suffix -ity [Celce-Murcia el al 1996:138].

2. Some suffixes can be stress-neutral or stress-fixing in particular cases, e.g. -able, which is in most cases stress-neutral: adore – aDORable, question – QUEStionable, reconcile – REconcilable. However, in a number of disyllabic roots with stress on the final syllable, that stress may be shifted to the first syllable of the root: admire – ADmirable, apply – Applicable, prefer – PREferable. In some cases the general pressure from the stressneutrality of -able may lead to alternative pronunciations [Gimson 2001:206]: apPLlCable, COMparable – comPARable (GenAm), deMONstrable - DEMonstrable, etc.

Stress in compounds and phrases. Compounds are composed of more than one root morpheme but function grammatically and/or semantically as a single word [Gimson 2001:228]. Compounds may be written as one word, e.g. dishwasher, or with a hyphen, e.g. user-friendly, or with a space between the two elements, e.g. season ticket. There is no systematic practice in the choice among these three ways, although there is a tendency for compounds with primary stress on the first element to be written as one word or with a hyphen, and for those with the primary stress on the final element to be written as two words [Gimson 2001:228].

When an adjective modifies the following noun, they make a phrase, and typically, they have a late stress, i.e. the second word has more stress than the first, e.g. ,polished 'wood, ,interesting 'book, ,funning 'water, ,hard 'work, ,difficult 'course.

There are some guidelines for defining stress placement in compounds and phrases [Kreidler 1997:144-154; Gimson 2001: 228-231; Wells 2000:163]:

Compounds typically have early stress, the first element is more stressed than the second: 'firewood, 'library book, 'running shoes, 'homework, correspondence course.

Early stress is usual in compounds in which:

• the two elements are written as one word: 'headline, 'screwdriver; 'laptop, 'lifestyle;

• expressions consisting of NOUN+NOUN: 'picture frame, 'child abuse, 'theme park, 'tape measure.

• expressions consisting of A(djective)+NOUN, N's+N, N+V, N+Ving: 'batting average, 'bull'seye, 'crow'snest, 'landfill, 'ear-splitting, 'job-sharing,

• phrasal and prepositional verbs used as nouns:' burn-out, 'lay-off, 'melt-down, 'setup. LATE STRESS is usual in the following compounds as if they were phrases:

• when the first element is the material or ingredient out of which the thing is made: cherry 'pie, pork 'chop, pee 'pudding, panana 'split, except for CAKE, JUICE and WATER: these have normal early stress: 'carrot cake, 'orange juice, 'mineral water.

• the first element is a proper name: ,Euston 'Road, the ,Hilton 'Hotel, ,Oxford 'Circus, except for STREET: these have normal early stress: 'Oxford Street, 'Euston Street.

• the first element names a place or time: ,city 'centre, ,town 'hall, ,summer 'holidays, ,Easter'bunny, ,Christmas 'pudding, ,morning 'paper, ,office 'party, ,kitchen 'sink.

• when both Nl andN2 are equally referential: acid 'rain, aroma 'therapy, fridge-'freezer;

• when Nl is a value: 100per cent 'effort, dollar 'bill, pound 'note.

Compound adjectives divide fairly evenly between those with initial primary stress: