Simple word stress Flashcards
The nature of stress
We can study stress from points of view of production and perception. The two are closely related but not identical. The production of stress is generally believed to depend on the speaker using more muscular energy than is used for unstressed syllables.
From the perceptual POV all stressed syllables have one characteristic in common and that is prominence.
Factors that make syllables prominent
- Stressed syllables are louder
- The length of a syllable
- Pitch - every voiced syllable is said on some pitch, and when all syllables are in low pitch the stressed one is in high pitch
- A syllable containing a vowel that is different in quality from neighbouring vowels.
Placement of stress within a word
Stress placement depends on:
- whether the word is morphologically simple or complex
- the grammatical category
- how many syllables a word has
- what the phonological structure of the syllables is
Two syllable words
Either the first or second syllable will be stressed. There is a tendency for verbs to be stressed nearer the end of the word and for nouns to be stressed nearer the beginning.
VERBS:
- if the final syllable is weak, the first syllable is stressed (enter)
- if the final syllable is strong, that syllable is still stressed (apply)
Simple ADJ are also stressed according to the same rule (correct)
NOUNS;
- stress falls on the first syllable unless the first syllable is weak and the second is strong (money)
Three syllable words
In simple VERBS, if the final syllable is strong it will receive primary stress. (entertain) If it’s weak it will be unstressed and the stress will go on the preceding syllable if it’s strong (determine), if not on the initial syllable. (parody)
NOUNS have stress on the first syllable unless it’s weak (quantity), if it is the stress is on the second syllable (disaster), and if the last syllable is strong it will not receive main stress.
