Transcript Lecture 6 presentation

ACCENTUAL STRUCTURE OF
ENGLISH
Topics for discussion

Autosegmental Phonology

Metrical Phonology

Nature of word stress

Accentual variations and tendencies in stress
patterns

Typology of accentual structures

Functional aspect of word stress

Guidelines to English word stress placement
What is stress
AUDITORY PROMINENCE
PITCH
LENGTH
LOUDNESS
Phonological angle of stress:
word stress
secondary
primary
Four levels of stress in English, marked as /
to indicate decreasing order of prominence.
^ `v
Degrees of stress
1
3
1
absolute
3
advocate
2 31
1
1
mentality
1
intercept
2 3 1
relaxation
2
3
deportation
3 4
1
documentation
3
gestation
3 4
1
experimentation
Mark the most prominent syllable in the following
words:
market
water
button
little
analyse equality antagonise indemnify
Stress is a RELATIONAL concept
and an autosegmental property of
the entire word:
Verb
Noun
project
project
reject
reject
conduct
conduct
protest
protest
refuse
refuse
Stress mobility
Say the following words:
(a) nation
national
nationalise
(b) nationality
nationalistic
nationalist
nationalisation
Stress location in the phonetic representation of a
word may depend on the presence of certain
affixes or grammatical information such as
whether the word is realised as a noun or as a verb
(shifting stress).
Syllable weight and stress
HEAVY syllable – branching rhyme
The rhyme contains a long V or diphthong / short V plus at
least one C
LIGHT syllable — nonbranching rhyme
The rhyme contains short V
Latin METRE
IAMBUS: one light syllable followed by a heavy one.
TROCHEE: one heavy syllable followed by a light one.
ANAPEST: two light syllable followed by a heavy one.
DACTYL: one ehavy followed by two light ones.
SPONDEE: two heavy syllables.
Foot Theory


Stress is not a phonological feature but a
structural position.
The structural position is the foot, which is a
phonological constituent above the
syllable and below the word. It is typically
characterized by one strong and one weak
syllable.
Feet are the individual building blocks of
meter.
English Foot


The question of how stress is realized depends on
the question how a language chooses to use the
structural position represented by the foot.
English is a language that makes a very clear
distinction between stressed and unstressed
syllables: only a subset of the vowels is allowed in
the weak position of the foot:
[ə,Ι,i,υ] as in the final syllables of
villa, market, folly, fellow
Metrical phonology
BINARY BRANCHING TREES: strong (S) | weak (W)
Foot formation:
s
/ \
w w
sen der
/\
s w
milk man
/ \
s
pre tend
/ \
w
s
high priest
English stress

In English poetry the rhythm is based on stress,
that is, on alternating stressed and unstressed
syllables. The most common meter is the iambic
pentameter: each verse line consists of five
iambic feet. An iambic foot is a group of two
syllables of which the first is weak (W) and the
second strong (S)
Right-headed metrical feet
He can | not live, | I hope, | and must | not die
Till George | be pack'd | with post- | horse up | to heaven.
I'll in | to urge |his hat | red more | to Clarence
With lies | well steel'd | with weigh | ty ar | guments . . .
(William Shakespeare Richard III, I.I. 145-8)
_ / _ /_ / _ /_ /
_ / _ /_ / _ / _ /_
IAMBIC PENTAMETRE
Feet and above: hierarchy
FOOT: Adjacent syllables are grouped together and
one of them is identified as being more salient than
its neighbour (for disyllabic words)
WORD-TREE FORMATION:
sensi
tivity
/
w
/
s
sen
\
s
\
w
si
s
\
/ \ \
s w w
ti vi ty
Nature of word stress
Stress is an increase of energy, accompanied by an
increase of expiratory and articulatory activity
(B.A. Bogoroditsky).
Stress is the degree of force, which is accompanied
by a strong force of exhalation and gives an
impression of loudness (D. Jones).
Stress is connected with the force of breath (H.
Sweet).
in the stressed syllable:
(a) the force is greater, which is connected with more
energetic articulation;
(b) the pitch of voice is higher, which is connected
with stronger tenseness of the vocal cords and the
walls of the resonance chamber;
(c) the quantity of the vowel is greater, the vowel
becomes longer;
(d) the quality of the vowel in the stressed syllable is
different from the quality of this vowel in the
unstressed position, in which it is more narrow:
contract ['kσntrækt], to contract [kən'trækt]
Stress correlates
On the auditory level a stressed syllable is the part of
the word which has a special prominence:
loudness and length, modifications in the pitch
and quality.
On the acoustic level: the physical correlates are:
intensity, duration, frequency and the formant
structure.
Stress is 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.
Accentual structure of a word
The correlation of varying prominences of syllables in a
word is its accentual structure or stress pattern.
Types of word stress:
dynamic || tonic || quantitative || qualitative
The effect of prominence is achieved by any or all of
four factors: force, tone, length and vowel colour
English word stress: a hierarchy of acoustic cues
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.
English stress rules
In identical positions the intensity of English vowels
is different. The highest in intensity is /a:/, then
go /о:, з:, i:, u:, æ, σ, e, υ, i/.
English vowels /i, Ι, ə υ/ tend to occur in
unstressed syllables.
Syllables with the syllabic /l, m, n/ are never
stressed.
Unstressed diphthongs may partially lose their glide
quality.
Placement of word stress



Fixed stress: the occurrence of the word stress is
limited to a particular syllable in a multisyllabic
word.
Free stress: its place is not confined to a specific
position in the word.
English stress is shifting, performing the semantic
function of differentiating lexical units, parts of
speech, grammatical forms:
'contrast – con'trast | 'music – mu'sician
Degree of Stress

Primary< secondary< unstressed

Loud, reduced loud, medial and weak

Primary, secondary, tertiary and weak stress.
,libe'ration,
,recog'nition
In GA a tertiary stress: 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.
CAPitals, boldface, grave and aigu áccents, underlining.
Accentual variation



Recessive tendency: e.g. mother, daughter,
brother, swallow; e.g. reason, colour, restaurant;
e.g. foresee, begin, withdraw, apart.
Rhythmical tendency: e.g. ,revo'lution,
,organi'sation, as,simi'lation; e.g. 'cinema,
'situate, ar'ticulate; e.g. perso'nal — 'perso'nal —
'personal; , e.g. 'hospitable — ho'spitable,
'distribute — dis'tribute, 'aristocrat — a'ristocrat,
'laryngoscope — la'ryngoscope.
Retentive tendency: e.g. 'person – 'personal –
,perso'nality; ,recom'mend - ,recommen'dation
(instability of the accentual structure)
Typology of accentual structures
1. ['___] e.g. 'fafher, 'possibly, 'mother-in-law, 'gas-pipe.
2. [ '_ '_ ] e.g. 'radio-'active, 're'write, 'diso'bey.
3. [ '_' _ '_ ] and 4. ['_' _ '_ '_] e.g. 'U'S'A, 'U'S'S'R
5. ['_ ,___] e.g. 'hair-,dresser, 'substructure
6. [, _'___] a) the prefix and the root: maga'zine;
b) the root and the suffix: ,hospi'tality;
c) the prefix and the suffix: disorganization.
Word stress and sentence stress
In connected speech: e.g. An 'unpolished 'stone but:
The 'stone was un'polished.
'Find 'page four'teen. But: We 'counted 'fourteen
'birds.
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
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Sentence stress usually falls on the very syllable of the
word which is marked by word stress.
The accentual structure of the word predetermines the
arrangement of stresses in a phrase.
The stress pattern of a phrase is always conditioned by
the semantic and syntactical factors. The words which
usually become stressed in a phrase are notional words.
Functional aspect of stress

Constitutive function
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Culminative function
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Identificatory (or recognitive) function
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Distinctive function.
Distinctive function: nouns (penultimate
stress) or verbs (ultimate stress)
135 pairs of words of identical orthography in
English:
Nouns – stress on the penultimate syllable
Verbs – stress on the final syllable
The location of lexical stress alone is the
differentiating factor: e.g. abstract || accent || addict
|| address || affect || affix || annex || collect ||
produce || progress || protest || rebel || recess ||
record || refill || refuse
Stress and semantic value of words

Compound adjectives: e.g. 'absent-'minded, 'left'handed, 'good-'looking
Accentual Type I: e.g. 'spring-like, 'nymph-like,
'powder-like; 'oval-shaped, 'bow-shaped.


Compound nouns, Accentual Type II: e.g. 'north'east, 'north-'west, 'south-'west.
Compound nouns: e.g. 'dining-room – 'bedroom –
'bathroom – 'living-room; 'shop-girl – 'ballet-girl.
Guidelines to English word stress
placement
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;
5. the historical origin of a word.
Basic rules of stressing
1) two-syllable VERBS: 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.
2) if the final syllable contains a short vowel and one
final consonant, the first syllable is stressed: open,
enter.
3) a final syllable is also unstressed if it contains [ou]
follow, borrow.
4) any two-syllable verbs with prefixes of Germanic
and Latin origin have the root syllable stressed.
Nouns and adjectives
1)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.
2) 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, ba’loon
Lexical stress of three-syllable simple words
Three-syllable verbs
Three-syllable nouns
1) de'termine, en'counter
2) enter'tain, under'stand
1) 'intellect, 'marigold
2) 'quantity, 'cinema
3) po'tato, di'saster,
sy'nopsis
Words of four or more syllables: e.g. e'mergency,
hi'storical, ca'lamity
Words containing prefixes: stressed on the first
syllable of the base or root element
Words with prefixes
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, up-hold, withdraw
Prefixes of Latin origin: a(d)-, com-, de-, dis-,
ex-, en-, in-, o-, per-, pre-, pro-, re-, sub-, sur-,
e.g. ad-mix, complain, discard, exclude, entreat,
inhale, oppose, persuade, remember, subside,
surmount
Words with suffixes
1) Stress-neutral suffix
– the suffix does not
affect the location of
stress in the base/stem
to which it is attached:
e.g. child-hood,
tasteless, beautiful,
friendship
2) Stress-imposing /
stress-attracting suffix
– the suffix causes the
stress to fall on a particular
syllable of the stem: e.g. eous, advanTAgeous
-graphy, phoTOgraphy
-ial, proVERBial;
-ic, demoCRATic; -ity
3) Stressed / stress-fixing suffix – the suffix itself is
stressed: -aire, questionNAIRE; -eer, volunTEER; ese, VietnamESE; -esque, groTESQUE; -ique,
anTIQUE; -oon, balLOON; -ette, casSETTE
Stress in compounds and phrases
e.g. dishwasher; user-friendly; season ticket
Phrase has late stress, i.e. the second word has
more stress than the first, e.g. ,polished 'wood,
,interesting 'book, ,running 'water, ,hard 'work,
,difficult 'course.
Compounds have early stress, the first element is
more stressed than the second: 'firewood, 'library
book, 'running shoes, 'homework, correspondence
course
Compound adjectives
Compounds = EARLY
STRESS
Phrases = LATE
STRESS
a 'darkroom = a room for a ,dark 'room = a room
which is dark because
developing photographs
there is little light in it
a 'moving van = to carry a ,moving 'van = a van that is
in motion
furniture when one moves
house
a blackbird = a kind of bird: a ,black 'bird = any bird that
is black
Turdus merula
an ,English 'teacher = a
an 'English teacher = a
teacher who is English
teacher of English
Differences between the stressing of compounds
in RP and General American, e.g.

RP:
GA:
'season’s ,ticket
,season’s 'ticket
,Adam’s 'apple
'Adam’s , apple
,peanut 'butter
'peanut , butter
,vocal 'cords
'vocal , cords