Week 3 Flashcards
What is the basic stress pattern (morphologically simple)?
The native Germanic trochaic pattern, that is, primary stress on the penultimate syllable, as in Arab, carpet, effort, vampire, lemon, yellow, timid, sudden.
What is the exception to the native Germanic trochaic stress pattern?
The exception is that bisyllabic nouns have final stress. Among these are nouns which have been borrowed from other languages and are written with a double vowel letter, as in balloon, harpoon, shampoo, taboo.
Another set of bisyllabic nouns stressed on the final syllable have been borrowed from French (endings -ee, -ette, -ade, -elle, -esse, -euse) as in, parade, gazelle, finesse, grandee, crevasse.
How does word stress work in French?
Word stress in French always falls on the final syllable.
Where can the trochaic stress pattern also be found?
In morphologically simple bisyllabic adjectives ending in -ic, as in cosmic, frantic, Nordic, static.
But there are bisyllabic adjectives with final stress, such as complete, immense, select, precise. These contain historical prefixes which are Latinate in origin.
Bisyllabic adjectives which contain what were, historically, French suffixes (bizarre, grotesque), have final stress (morphologically simple).
What about bisyllabic adverbs?
Many bisyllabic adverbs end in -ly as in slowly and quickly. Other adverbs that do not end in -ly include rather and very, which also have a trochaic stress pattern.
Where is the basic trochaic tendency less evident?
In English bisyllabic verb. There are many with final primary stress (compact, export, deny, object).
Prefixes and bisyllabic verbs
As with adjectives, many of these historically had prefixes in the languages they were borrowed from : French and Latin (com-pact, re-cord, im-pose, ob-ject).
Bisyllabic verbs ending in -ate
These verbs will take primary stress on the -ate (create, deflate, locate, migrate).
The basic Germanic pattern is trochaic. What does that mean for words of more than two syllables?
And what is the exception?
This means having primary stress on the antepenultimate syllable, as in academy, camera, custody, elephant, emperor.
There is a substantial class of exceptions to this basic pattern, in which polysyllabic nouns have final stress. Among these are nouns which have final syllables with double vowel letters: kangaroo. Another set of polysyllabic nouns stressed on the final syllable have been borrowed from French with the endings -ette, -ade, -elle, -esque, -eur (which are mostly morphologically simple).
There is a set of words which have consonant clusters after the penultimate vowel. What kind of stress pattern do these words have?
These nouns with consonant clusters after the penultimate vowel have penultimate primary stress (advantage, apartment, disaster, objective).
Which other set of nouns tend to have antepenultimate stress?
Nouns which have three or more syllables and which end in -ics. These tend to have penultimate stress (acoustics, electrics, logistics, statistics).
Which loanwords depart from the basic antepenultimate pattern and take another pattern? Which pattern?
The loanwords ending in a vowel and take penultimate stress (banana, bikini, martini, potato, tomato, volcano).
What is the typical English stress pattern that polysyllabic verbs often flout?
The basic trochaic pattern (stress on the first syllable).
Give three examples of polysyllabic verbs with final primary stress.
Entertain, intervene, intersect.
What is common about many polysyllabic verbs with final stress?
They often have Latinate prefixes such as enter- and inter-.
How do polysyllabic verbs ending in -ate differ from bisyllabic ones?
They typically follow the antepenultimate stress pattern.
Give examples of polysyllabic -ate verbs that follow the antepenultimate stress pattern.
Coordinate, deliberate, elaborate, investigate, originate.
What stress pattern do polysyllabic -ate adjectives share with -ate verbs?
The antepenultimate primary stress pattern.
What are the four factors that influence stress in morphologically simple English words?
Syntactic category
Presence of Latinate prefixes
Spelling
Loanword origin
How does syntactic category influence stress assignment?
Verbs often depart from the basic trochaic stress pattern.
Why don’t many Latinate prefixes take primary stress?
They are no longer productive in modern English.
How does spelling influence stress?
Words with double vowel letters in the final syllable often carry final stress (e.g., shampoo, kangaroo)
How do loanwords affect stress patterns?
They often retain the stress pattern of the source language.
Why do English speakers often mis-stress bisyllabic French words?
They apply the English bisyllabic pattern of penultimate stress.
