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The accentual types are met in initial compound abbreviations like 'U'S'A, 'U'S'S'R. -
The type is realized both in simple and compound words, very common among compound words.
'hair-,dresser,
'subtructure.
5. The accentual type marks a great number of simple words and some compound words as well. In simple words the stresses fall onto:
1. the prefix and the root: ,maqa'zine;
2. the root and the suffix: ,hospi'tality;
3. the prefix and the suffix: ,disorgani'zation.
6. The type includes rather a small number of simple words with the separable prefixes, e.g. 'mis,repre'sent.
7. The type is found in a very small number of words, usually simple words with the stresses on the prefix, the root and the suffix.
,indi,viduaJi'zation.
8. The type is met in rare instances of compound words with separable prefixes.
9. The type is represented by rare instances of simple and compound words.
'soda-,
water,
bottle.
10. The type is found in rare instances of compound words consisting of the three components, e.g. ,ginger'beer-,bottle. The data given above suggest an idea of the great variability in the accentual structure of English words. The most widely spread among the enumerated accentual types are supposed to
Each type includes varieties of definite accentual structures with different numbers of syllables and marks thousands of words. So the four of them cover the main bulk of most common English words and are therefore most typical for the English vo- cabulary. As we may see, the typical feature of English accentual structure is its instability. There is a great number of words.
having variants of their accentual patterns. They may differ in:
1. number of stresses: USSR;
2. the place of stress: hospitable;
3. the degree of stress: individualization [7, p. 127-131].
The variability of the word accentual structure is multiplied in connected speech. The accentual structure of words may be altered under the influence of rhythm, e.g.
An 'unpolished 'stone. But: The 'stone was un'polished.
'Find 'page four'teen. But: We 'counted 'fourteen 'birds.
The tempo of speech may influence the accentual pattern of words. With the quickening of the speed the carefulness of articulation is diminished, th vowel.s are reduced or elided, the secondary stress may be dropped.
The 'whole organi'zation of the 'meeting was 'faulty.
The variability of the English word accentual structure presents great difficulty for students of English. They should be well acquainted with the four most widely spread accentual types of words, mentioned above and be aware of the modIfIcations of word accentual patterns influenced by rhythm and tempo in connected speech.
The given examples of the accentual structure of words connected speech show that the word stress is closely interrelated with sentence stwss. We shall now try to see their similarity and difference. The demarcation of word stress and sentence stress is very important both from the theoretical and the practical viewpoint. Sentence stress usually fails on the very syllable of the word which is marked by word stress. Thus the accentual structure of the word predetermines the arrangement of stresses in a phrase. At the same time the stress pattern of a phrase is always conditioned by the semantic and syntactical factors. The words which usually bccome stressed in a phrase are notional words. They convey the main idea of the phrase, though any word including form words may be marked by sentence stress, if it has certain semantic value in the sentence. The common character of word stress and sentence stress is also observed in their rhythmical tendency to alternate stressed and unstressed syllables and pronounce them at approximately equal intervals. Now we should like to distinguish the notions of word stress and sentence stress. They are first of all different in their sphere of application as they are applied to different language units: word stress is naturally applied to a word, as a linguistic unit, sentence stress is applied to a phrase, Secondly, the distinction of the rhythmic structure of a word and a phrase is clearly observed in the cases when' the word stress in notional words is omitted in a phrase, e.g.
I 'don't think he is 'right.
Or when the rhythmic structure of the isolated word does not coincide with that of a phrase, e.g,
'Fifteen. 'Room Fifteen. 'Fifteen 'pages.
So in a speech chain the phonetic structure of a word obtains additional characteristics connected with rhythm. melody, and tempo. Though the sentence stress falls on the syllable marked by the word stress it is not realized in the stressed syllable of an isolated word but in a word within speech continuum. Since the spheres of word stress and sentence stress fall apart their func- } tions are actually different. 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. In discussing accentual structure of English words we should turn now to the functional aspect of word stress. Word stress in a language performs three functions. .
1. Word stress constitutes a word, it organizes the syllables of a word into a language unit having a definite accentual structure, that is a pattern of relationship among the syllables; a word does not exist without the word stress. Thus the word stress performs the constitutive function. Sound continuum becomes a phrase when it is divided into units organized by word stress into words.
2.Word stress enables a person to identify a succession of syllables as a definite accentual pattern of a word: This function of word stress is known as identificatory (or recognitive). Correct accentuation helps the listener to make the process of communication easier, whereas the distorted accentual pattern of words, misplaced word stresses prevent normal understanding.
3. Word stress alone is capable of differentiating the meaning of words or their forms, thus performing its distinctive function. The accentual patterns of words or the degrees of word stress and their positions form oppositions.
'import - im'port,
'billow - be'low.
There are actually as many degrees of stress in a word as there are syllables. The opinions of phoneticians differ as to how many degrees of stress are linguistically relevant in a word. The British linguists usually distinguish three degrees of stress in the word. We can show the distribution of the degrees of stress in the word examination. The primary stress is the strongest, it is marked by number 1, the secondary stress is the second strongest marked by 2. 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. 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. The second pretonic syllables of such words as libe'ration, recog'nition are marked by secondary stress in BrE, in AmE they are said to have tertiary stress. In AmE tertiary stress also affects the suffixes -ory, -ary, -ony of nouns and the suffixes –ate, -ize, -y of verbs, which are considered unstressed in BrE, e.g. 'territory, 'ceremony, 'dictionary; 'demonstrate, 'organize, 'simplify.
British linguists do not always deny the existence of tertiary stress as a tendency to use a tertiary stress on a post-tonic syllable in RP is also traced.
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. Most English words of Anglo-Saxon origin as well as the French borrowings (dated back to the 15th century) are subjected to this recessive tendency.
The accentual patterns of the words territory, dictionary, necessary in AmE with the primary stress on the first syllable and the tertiary stress on the third are other examples illustrating the correlation of the recessive and rhythmical tendencies. Nowadays we witness a great number of variations in the accentual structure of English multisyllabic words as a result of the interrelation of the tendencies. The stress on the initial syllable is caused by the diachronical recessive tendency or the stress on the second syllable under the influence of the strong rhythmical tendency of the present day, e.g.
'hospitable — ho'spitable, 'distribute — dis'tribute, 'aristocrat — a'ristocrat, 'laryngoscope — la'ryngoscope.
A third tendency was traced in the instability of the accentual structure of English word stress, the retentive tendency: a derivative often retains the stress of the original or parent word, e.g. 'similar — as'simitate, recom'mend — recommen 'dation.
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Stress change in polysyllabic words and their meaning
The sequence of syllables in the word is not pronounced identically. The syllable or syllables which are uttered with more prominence than the other syllables of the word are said to be stressed or accented.
Stress is defined differently by different authors. But Vasiliev, V.A. gives the following definition of word stress: “Word accent in a disyllabic or polysyllabic word may be defined as a singling out of one and or more of its syllables by giving them a greater degree of prominence as compared with the other syllable or syllables in the same word” [2].
Syllabic structure of a word and its stress are closely connected because it is the syllable that bears a word-stress. Even pronounced in isolation every word has its word-stress and polysyllabic words, too. So stressed syllable should be pronounced on a different pitch or with a change of pitch direction, with greater force of exhalation and greater muscular tension. Syllable pronounced with a greater force has a vowel sound in a longer manner and very distinctly.
Vasiliev, V.A. presents two words as an example. One of these words is infinitive and the other is indivisibility. [2] The word indivisible has four syllables and the second is an accented syllable. It is pronounced with a change of pitch direction, with increasing the force of its articulation, the force of its articulation increased its vowel pronounced more distinctly and a little longer. The word indivisibility has seven syllables and three of them are accented but the degree of the prominence in these words is different. The stress on the fifth syllable is effected by the change of pitch direction. Such syllable is called accentual nucleus of the word and the stress on such syllable is called primary (nucleus) accent. The stress on the second syllable is primary, too. But it is made with the help of pronouncing the syllable on a high level pitch. And the stress on the third syllable is secondary and is pronounced on a mid-level speed. The nuclear primary accent is more important than the pre-nuclear. Firstly in some words nuclear primary accent and pre-nuclear primary accent are interchangeable. And secondly the difference in the position of nuclear stress may be a distinctive function. It may distinguish some verbs from nouns which consist of the same phonemes. Noun has nuclear accent on the first syllable and verb on the last.
'Export
Ex'port
A difference of the position of nuclear stress may distinguish a compound noun from a free word combination.
'Bluebell
'Blue 'bell
On the auditory level a stressed syllable is the part of the word which has a special prominence. It is produced by a greater loudness and length, modifications in the pitch and quality. The physical correlates are: intensity, duration, frequency and the formant structure. All these features can be analyzed on the acoustic level. Word stress can be defined as 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. In different languages one of the factors constituting word stress is usually more significant than the others. According to the most important feature different types, of word stress are distinguished in different languages.
1. If special prominence in a stressed syllable or syllables is achieved mainly 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 mainly through the change of 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 in the stressed syllables than in the unstressed ones, such type of stress is called quantitative.
4. Qualitative type of stress is achieved through the changes in the quality of the vowel under stress [9].
English word stress is traditionally defined as dynamic, but in fact, the special prominence of the stressed syllables is manifested in the English language not only through the increase of intensity, but also through the changes in the vowel quantity, consonant and vowel quality and pitch of the voice.
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SENTENCE STRESS
Sentence stress is the governing stress in connected speech. All words have their individual stress in isolation. When words are connected into thought groups, and thought groups into sentences, content words keep their stress and function words lose their stress. The most important words in the sentence receive stronger stress. The last stressed word in the sentence receives the strongest stress with the help of falling or rising intonation. If it is necessary for keeping the rhythm, the stress in some words can be shifted or weakened in a certain way
2.1 Components of stress-and-pitch in a sentence
Every sentence can have some intonation. And in every sentence we can find such component of intonation as sentence stress which can influence stress of words it consists of. It is more convenient to distinguish some elements of stress-and-pitch pattern of intonation group. The most important of these elements is the nuclear tone. Nuclear tone is the change of pitch on a final stressed syllable.
The nucleus may be followed by one or more unstressed or partially stressed syllables which are called a tail.
So we can distinguish two variants of terminal tone: nuclear and post-nuclear variant. Nuclear variant has no tail and post nuclear variant has some tail. The terminal tone may be preceded by a scale which is series of stresses and unstressed syllables which can be pitch differently starting with the first stressed syllable. This kind of syllable is called the head of the scale. And the head may be preceded by some other stressed syllables which are called pre-head.
Each syllable in a sentence is pronounced on a different pitch level. But it is impossible to count all pitch levels in a sentence. We can distinguish three main pitch levels: high, mid and low. In highly emotional speech can be distinguished two more pitch levels: extra-high and extra-low.
We can represent graphically the pitch component of intonation and sentence stress on staves or on the line of text.
Terminal tone can be moving (when pitch changes) and level (when pitch does not change). Among moving tones we can distinguish two main types of changes: fall and rise.
But pitch and tone can influence not only intonation of a sentence but also toning of polysyllabic words.
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Stress change in polysyllabic words in a phrase
The pronunciation of isolated polysyllabic words and polysyllabic words in connected speech can differ in some cases. First of all we will observe The Descending Stepping Scale. It is formed by a series of stressed and unstressed syllables when pitch movement in each stressed syllable is level and the next stressed syllable is pitch a little lower while the unstressed syllable is pronounced on the same pitch level as preceding stressed syllable.
'How do you pro`nounce this ˎword?
In this example the word pronounce has nuclear stress on the second syllable and at the same time this stressed syllable has level pitch pronounced a little lower than the first stressed syllable.
The next example can be pronounced using The Descending Sliding Scale. It is formed by descending series of stressed and unstressed syllables with downward slides when each slide pronounced a little higher than the end of the preceding syllable.
H
e hasn’t definitely reˇfused.The word definitely nuclear stress on the first syllable and at the same time this stressed syllable is pronounced a little higher than the preceding stressed syllable
hasn’t.
I hate doing ˎnothing.The preceding sentence is the example of The Descending Scandent Scale when the sentence within stressed syllables is pronounced with pitch rises and when each unstressed syllable is pronounced a little higher than the preceding syllable. The word nothing itself has nuclear stress on the first syllable. And in this sentence it is pronounced a little than the preceding sound.
2.3 Alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in a phrase
We will deal primarily with three types of phrases: noun, verb and prepositional. You can identify them by looking at the syntax. For instance, in the sentence, "The purple cows went running on the dew-covered lawn, "The purple cows" is a noun phrase. "Went running on the dew-covered lawn" is a verb phrase, within which is the prepositional phrase, "on the dew-covered lawn," which in turn contains the noun phrase, "the dew-covered lawn." There is an optional intonation break or pause between the noun and verb phrases, though one is not required to perform it. For our purposes, these optional breaks are important because they signal perceptual units of rhythm; in other words, they mark off the units that create our sense of time [13].
To take a practical example, let's first look at the smaller phrases in the sentence and then put them together. The convention for indicating phrases is brackets. In "the purple cows," the Nuclear Stress Rule tells us that the strongest stress falls on the head of the phrase, the noun, and both the article and the adjective are weak relative to "cows." "Purple" has a stressed syllable in it but relative to "cows," the word as a whole is weak.
The prepositional phrase, "on the dew-covered lawn," has its strongest stress at the end of the noun "lawn". Again the adjective and function words will be relatively weak. We can note also that "dew-covered" is a compound word and is subject to the Compound Rule, not the Word Rule. "Covered" branches but for the Word Rule to apply, the branching must be word internal. Instead, the Compound Rule specifies that the strongest stress in the compound will be as far forward as possible, exactly opposite to the Nuclear Stress Rule for phrases.
To put the whole sentence together, we need to lodge the second prepositional phrase within the larger verb phrase and analyze the verb itself. Essentially the sentence divides into two large phrases; applying the Nuclear Stress Rule to the sentence as a whole allows us to see the opening noun phrase as subsidiary to the verb phrase.
At a practical level, there are several techniques for analyzing lines or sentences that you can extrapolate from this example. It is easiest to begin your analysis by reading the line as a whole. Then look for polysyllabic words and assign s's and w's with their trees. Then consider phrases as in the "purple cow" example, allowing the Nuclear Stress Rule to guide you in assigning the relative stress of subsidiary content and function words as well as the relationship among phrases. You may find it helpful to mark the most prominent stress in a word or phrase so that you are clear about what the peak or most prominent point is.
Another important aspect of phrasal rhythms is the way the phrasal context can change the stress of words. In English, there is a strong preference for alternating stressed and unstressed syllables. We tend to avoid both too many unstressed syllables in a row and consecutively stressed syllables. In both of the preferred forms of these phrases, stressed and unstressed syllables alternate. In the non-standard forms, the double unstressed syllables followed by double stressed syllables.
