Overview

English Phonetics
Unit 12 Lecture 18. Lexical stress

Preliminary remarks Lexical/word stress in English Stress beyond the word domain

1. Preliminary remarks
Preliminary remarks physical cues levels of stress notation lexical stress placement in languages

1. Preliminary remarks
Preliminary remarks: physical cues Stress is the greater prominence in pitch of a particular syllable/s in a word as perceived by a listener There are certain physical cues on the perception of linguistic stress patterns In stressed syllables. vowels are longer (greater duration) intensity and ampliture are greater fundamental frequency (F0) is higher

1. Preliminary remarks
Preliminary remarks: physical cues record (v) record (n)

1. Preliminary remarks
Preliminary remarks: levels of stress In polysyllabic words, the most prominent syllable is said to be (primarily) stressed Syllables other than the primarily stressed are unstressed -no prominence at all- (e.g. letter) or secondarily stressed -prominence intermediate between the primary stress & unstressed syllable(s)(e.g. demographic)

Oscillogram displays evolution of amplitude against time

1. Preliminary remarks
Preliminary remarks: levels of stress 3 levels of stress: primary, secondary and no stress If stressed, a word always has a primary stress has a) 0 to 2 secondary stresses b) 0 to several unstressed syllables

1. Preliminary remarks
Preliminary remarks: notation In monosyllabic words, lexical (or word) stress marking is unnecessary since there is ony one syllable and that syllable carries the stress In polysyllabic words, its necessary to mark the (primarily) stressed syllable -marking secondary stress(es) is not so important-

1.Preliminary remarks
Preliminary remarks: notation Standard IPA phonetic notation: high vertical stroke [ ] (primary stress) low vertical stroke [ ] (secondary stress) -if marked No mark for unstressed syllables Other conventions (textbooks, monolingual dicts, etc.) prime mark after the stressed syllable (/la-de/) acute accent on a syllables vowel (e.g. ldy) bold, capitals, underlining, etc. (e.g. lady, LAdy, lady)

1. Preliminary remarks
Preliminary remarks: lexical stress placement in langs Where does the primary stress fall? Fixed-stress languages (always on a given syllable) On the same syllable: 1st (e.g. Finnish), penultimate (e.g. Polish), final (e.g. Czech), etc. On different syllables but predictably (e.g. Latin) Variable-stress languages (-at least partlyunpredictable though orthography may help) E.g. English, Spanish, Italian, German, etc.

1. Preliminary remarks
Preliminary remarks: lexical stress placement in langs In variable-stress langs, stress is contrastive (otherwise homophonous words may differ only in stress pattern) e.g. English (an) abstract vs. to abstract German hnterlassen (to go behind) vs. hinterlssen (to bequeath)

2. Lexical/word stress in English

Lexical/word stress in English factors involved simple words complex affixed words prefixes suffixes Non-stress imposing suffixes Stress imposing suffixes complex compound words Early stress (ES) Late stress (LS)

Spanish mando (I/the command) vs. mand (s/he commanded)

2. Lexical/word stress in English

Lexical stress in English: factors involved Lexical stress refers to the degree of prominence of syllables within the domain of the phonological word Where to place the primary stress? Highly complex in Eng. (rules with many exceptions) Factors to take into account: Kind of phonemes it contains (complex rules) Grammatical category of the word (N, V, Adj) Morphological complexity (simple vs. complex)

2. Lexical/word stress in English

Lexical stress in English: factors involved Grammatical category of the word (N, V, Adj) Word-class pairs (notice vowel quality changes)

2. Lexical/word stress in English

Lexical stress in English: simple words Morphological complexity: simple words Any rules that can be provided have many exceptions Best to learn them individually? There are even words with two different stress patterns (e.g. Al-Quaida / Al-Quaida, contribute / contribute, controversy / controversy)

2. Lexical/word stress in English

Lexical stress in English: Complex AFFIXED words Prefixes: stress in words with prefixes is governed by the same rules as those for words without prefixes (e.g. judging vs. prejudging) Suffixes: effect on stress placement? No inflectional (e.g. -(e)s, -ed, -ing, etc) Often derivational (e.g. -ic(al), -ation, -ity, etc)

2. Lexical/word stress in English

Lexical stress in English: Complex AFFIXED words Non-stress imposing (neutral) suffixes
<-able> comfortable, memorable <-age> anchorage, garbage <-(u)al> refusal, spiritual <-er> commander, lecturer <-ise/ize> realize, criticize <-ous> dangerous, mischievous <-fy> falsify, classify < etc >

2. Lexical/word stress in English

Lexical stress in English: Complex AFFIXED words Stress-imposing suffixes: stress-carrying
<-ee> absentee, employee <-ette> launderette, statuette <-esque> arabesque, picturesque <-ese> Chinese, Portuguese <-eer> engineer, volunteer <-aire> millionaire, doctrinaire < etc > (but cigarette / cigarette)

2. Lexical/word stress in English

Lexical stress in English: Complex AFFIXED words Stress-imposing suffixes: stress on syll. before suffix
<-eous> advantageous <-graphy> discography <-ial> proverbial, adverbial <-ic> climatic, emphatic <-ion> perfection, imagination <-ious> injurious <-ity> complexity, stupidity <etc> .

2. Lexical/Word stress in English

Lexical stress in English: COMPOUNDS Spelling: The elements of the compound can be written: separately (e.g. beauty contest) with a hyphen in-between (e.g. tea-cup) together (e.g. bedtime) Patterns: Early stress (ES) vs. Late stress (LS) i.e. primary stress on the first (early in the word) or second constituent (late in the word)-

Frequent vowel quality changes in affixed words

2. Lexical/word stress in English

Lexical stress in English: COMPOUNDS Early stress (ES) The typical stress pattern in English compounds The first element is nominal (i.e. functions as a noun) irrespective of its original grammatical category The 1st element has primary stress, the 2nd either secondary (e.g. wheelbarrow) or none (money()box)

2. Lexical/word stress in English

Lexical stress in English: COMPOUNDS Early stress (ES) 1. N+N application form, beauty contest, light bulb 2. A+N (A is no longer or not truly adjectival): bluebell, darkroom, gentleman, White House

2. Lexical/word stress in English

Lexical stress in English: COMPOUNDS Late stress (LS) The 1st constituent is typically adjectival irrespective of its original grammatical category The 1st constituent has secondary stress or none and the 2nd primary stress Also typical of phrases (the latter are not compounds!)
A blue bell a bluebell

2. Lexical/word stress in English

Lexical stress in Eng: Complex COMPOUND words

2. Lexical/word stress in English

Lexical stress in Eng: Complex COMPOUND words Late stress (LS): continued A+N fast food good manners running water second hand Compound adjectives/adverbs long-haired faint-hearted pitch-black sky-blue

1.Word/lexical stress rules

Lexical stress in Eng: Complex COMPOUND words Late stress (LS)
N+N when the first constituent refers to a(n)
-number: -period of time: -ingredient in a concoction: -material sth is made of: -thoroughfare name: four-wheeler, three-piece afternoon tea, Christmas Eve apple pie, fruit salad gold ring, rubber duck Fifth Avenue, Melrose Road

Except those with cake, water, juice and street (e.g. chocolate cake, soda water, lemon juice, Oxford Street)

3. Stress beyond the word domain

Stress beyond the word domain Contrastive focus Stress shift Lexical stress vs. Rhythmic stress

3. Stress beyond the word domain

Contrastive focus ES/LS patterns can be reversed for contrastive purposes in connected speech beauty contest but. its not a beauty contest, but a beauty commercial running water but. I said running water, not stagnant water eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen

3. Stress beyond the word domain

Stress shift (simple & complex words) Original primary & secondary stresses swapped round when the latter found in N phrases. Plausible reason: to avoid 2 primary stresses together. Affixed words:
academic princess thirteen vs. academic year vs. Princess Di vs. thirteen people

3. Stress beyond the word domain

Lexical stress vs. Rhythmic stress

Lexical stress patterns are potential stresses (they only tell us what syllable/s would be stressed/unstressed if the word is stressed and under normal conditions) But in connected speech (in the context of a tone/intonation unit), any word may be stressed (and show predictable stress patterns) stressed (but have a different stress pattern for

Compounds:

week-end vs. week-end party second-hand vs. second-hand books full-time vs. full-time job

different reasons, e.g. stress shift) unstressed (not prominent at all)

3. Stress beyond the word domain

Lexical stress vs. Rhythmic stress

References
Compulsory reading: Roach, P. 2001. English Phonetics and Phonology. A Practical Course. CUP. Chaps. 9, 10, 11 & 12 (Strong & Weak Syllables; Stress in simple words; Complex word stress; Weak forms). Recommended readings: Monroy Casas, R. 1991. Acento Lxico. Reglas de Acentuacin Inglesa. Madrid: SGEL. Clark, J., & Yallop, C. 199]. An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell. Chap. 8. Prosody: section 8.6. Stress in English & section 8.7. Stress assignment. Snchez Benedito, F. 1994. Manual de pronunciacin inglesa comparada con la espaola. Madrid: Alhambra-Longman. Chap. 5. Acento, Ritmo y Entonacin. Section 5.1. Acento

Because of this, in the transcription of connected speech, only are rhythmic stresses are marked, not lexical/word stresses. This means that
rhythmically stressed)

Monosyllables may have a stress mark (if they are

Polysyllables may have no stress (no stress mark is used then) or may have a different stress pattern