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STRESS
In linguistics, stress is the
syllables.
Understanding Syllables To understand word stress, it helps to understand syllables. Every word is made from syllables. Each word has one, two, three or more syllables.
Word
Number of syllables
1 2 3
4 5
Unexceptional Un-ex-cep-tion-al
Prominence:
The realization of stress in English In English, the three ways to make a syllable more
TYPES OF STRESS:
The ways stress manifests itself in the speech stream are highly language dependent. In some languages, stressed
In English, stress is most dramatically realized on focussed or accented words. For instance, consider the dialogue "Is it brunch tomorrow?" "No, it's dinner tomorrow." In it, the stress-related acoustic differences between the syllables of "tomorrow" would be small compared to the differences between the syllables of "dinner", the emphasized word. In these emphasized words, stressed syllables such as "din" in "dinner" are louder and longer. They may also have a different fundamental frequency, or other properties. Unstressed syllables typically have a vowel which is closer to a neutral position, while stressed vowels are more fully realized. Stressed syllables are often perceived as being more forceful than non-stressed syllables. Research has shown, however, that although dynamic stress is accompanied by greater respiratory force, it does not mean a more forceful articulation in the vocal tract.
Emphatic Stress
One reason to move the tonic stress from its utterance final position is to assign an emphasis to a content word, which is usually a modal auxiliary, an intensifier, an adverb, etc. Compare the following examples. The first two examples are adapted from. Roach (1983:144). i. It was very BOring. (unmarked) ii. It was VEry boring. (emphatic)
i. You mustn't talk so LOUDly. (unmarked) ii. You MUSTN'T talk so loudly. (emphatic) Some intensifying adverbs and modifiers (or their derivatives) that are emphatic by nature are Indeed, utterly, absolute, terrific, tremendous, awfully, terribly, great, grand, really, definitely, truly, literally, extremely, surely, completely, barely, entirely, very (adverb), very (adjective), quite, too, enough, pretty, far, especially, alone, only, own, -self.
Contrastive Stress
In contrastive contexts, the stress pattern is quite different from the emphatic and non-emphatic stresses in that any lexical item in an utterance can receive the tonic stress provided that the contrastively stressed item can be contrastable in that universe of speech. No distinction exists between content and function words regarding this. The contrasted item receives the tonic stress provided that it is contrastive with some lexical element (notion.) in the stimulus utterance. Syllables that are normally stressed in the utterance almost always get the same treatment they do in non-emphatic contexts.)
Examples
Consider the following examples: a) Do you like this one or THAT one? b) b) I like THIS one. Many other larger contrastive contexts (dialogues) can be found or worked out, or even selected from literary works for a study of contrastive stress. Consider the following: She played the piano yesterday. (It was her who...) She played the piano yesterday. (She only played (not. harmed) ...) She played the piano yesterday. (It was the piano that...) She played the piano yesterday. (It was yesterday..
Tonic Stress
An intonation unit almost always has one peak of stress, which is called 'tonic stress', or 'nucleus'. Because stress applies to syllables, the syllable that receives the tonic stress is called 'tonic syllable'. The term tonic stress is usually preferred to refer to this kind of stress in referring, proclaiming, and reporting utterances. Tonic stress is almost always found in a content word in utterance final position. Consider the following, in which the tonic syllable is underlined: I'm going. I'm going to London. I'm going to London for a holiday. A question does arise as to what happens to the previously tonic assigned syllables. They still get stressed, however, not as much as the tonic syllable, producing a three level stress for utterances. Then, the following is arrived at., where the tonic syllable is further capitalized: I'm going to London for HOliday.
The questions given above could also be answered in short form except for the last one, in which case the answers are:
George, Wales, in Bonn in May
TIMING:
English is a stress-timed language; that is, stressed
syllables appear at a roughly constant rate, and nonstressed syllables are shortened to accommodate this.
PLACEMENT:
English does this to some extent with noun-verb pairs such as a rcord vs. to recrd, where the verb is stressed on the last syllable and the related noun is stressed on the first; record also hyphenates differently: a rc-ord vs. to re-crd.
DEGRESS OF STRESS:
Primary stress:
It is the stronger degree of stress. Primary stress gives the final stressed syllable. Primary stress is very important in compound words.
Secondary stress:
Secondary stress is the weaker of two degrees of stress in the pronunciation of a word. Secondary stress gives the other lexically stressed syllables in a word. Secondary stress is important primarily in long words with several syllables
Tertiary stress:
It includes the fully unstressed vowels. An unstressed
vowel is the vowel sound that forms the syllable peak of a syllable that has no lexical stress.
Quaternary stress:
It includes the reduced vowels. Vowel reduction is the term in phonetics that refers to various changes in the acoustic quality of vowels, which are related to changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word which are perceived as "weakening
But sometimes short two word expressions are set or "consecrated", (that is, they mean something special) and have to be made different from similar expressions. One example is "the WHITE house" where Mr. Bush lives. In this case, the emphasis is on the adjective because we are more interested in stressing that it is the house that is known because it is white. In the same way, "FAT boy" is the nickname of a boy, chosen because the word fat emphasizes his weight. It will be useful for you to be aware of both types of two word expressions. Here is a list of a few that will get you thinking and give you some practice in identifying them and using them correctly. Underline the syllable that is stressed, and write a brief explanation, for both uses of each phrase. I start the exercise with two examples. You do the rest. Make sure you say the phrases OUT LOUD! white HOUSE House painted white LIGHT bulb Shines with electricity Light BULB A bulb that is not heavy
NOTATION:
Different systems exist for indicating syllabification and stress. In IPA, primary stress is indicated by a high vertical line before the syllable, secondary stress by a low vertical line. Example: [slbfken] or /slbfken/. In English dictionaries which do not use IPA, stress is
INTONATION:
In linguistics, intonation is the
English has a number of intonation patterns which add conventionalized meanings to the utterance: question, statement, surprise, disbelief, sarcasm, teasing. An important feature of English intonation is the use of an intonational accent (and extra stress) to mark the focus of a sentence. Normally this focus accent goes on the last major word of the sentence, but it can come earlier in order to emphasize one of the earlier words or to contrast it with something else.
For example, consider the statement Nancy bought a new house on Thursday. The figures shows different Intonation counters for this statement with stress on each word present in it.
Tone
A unit of speech bounded by pauses has movement, of music and rhythm, associated with the pitch of voice. This certain pattern of voice movement is called 'tone'. A tone is a certain pattern, not an arbitrary one, because it is meaningful in discourse. By means of tones, speakers signal whether to refer, proclaim, agree, disagree, question or hesitate, or indicate completion and continuation of turn-taking, in speech.
Types
fall low-rise high-rise fall-rise
Example
Consequences of his unacceptable behavior. I'll report you to the HEADmaster A falling tone may be used in referring expressions as well. I've spoken with the CLEAner. Questions that begin with wh-questions are generally pronounced with a falling tone: Where is the PENcil? Imperative statements have a falling tone. i) Go and see a DOCtor. Requests or orders have a falling tone too. i) Please sit DOWN Exclamations: Watch OUT! Yes/No questions and tag questions seeking or expecting confirmation a) You like it, DON'T you? b) YEES. Here it is used when it is sure that the answer is yes. Have you MET him? b) YES.
Fall Rise
Fall-rise signals dependency, continuity, and non-finality. It generally occurs in sentence non-final intonation units. Consider the following in which the former of the intonation units are uttered with a fall-rise tone (the slash indicates a pause): Examples Private enterPRISE / is always EFficient. A quick tour of the CIty / would be NICE. PreSUmably / he thinks he CAN. Usually / he comes on SUNday.
Cross-linguistic differences
People have a tendency to think of intonation as being directly linked to the speaker's emotions. In fact, the meaning of intonation contours is as conventionalized as any other aspect of language. Different languages can use different conventions, giving rise to the potential for crosscultural misunderstandings. Two examples of cross-linguistic differences in intonation patterns:
Contrastive emphasis
Many languages mark contrastive emphasis like English, using an
intonational accent and additional stress. Many other languages use only syntactic devices for contrastive emphasis, for example, moving the emphasized phrase to the beginning of the sentence.
Instead of
I want a car for my birthday. (as opposed to a bike) you would have to say something like: A car I want for my birthday. It's a car that I want for my birthday. Listeners who speak the second type of language will not necessarily interpret extra pitch and volume as marking emphasis. Listeners who don't
speak the second type of language will not necessarily interpret a different
word order as marking emphasis (as opposed to assuming that the speaker doesn't know basic grammar). Questions
Questions
The normal intonation contours for questions in English use: final rising pitch for a Yes/No question Are you coming today? final falling pitch for a Wh-question