第十三课Word Stress Patterns

13.1 Stress and prominence

In English, if a word has more than one syllable, one of them is alwaysmore prominent than the others and then this syllable is said to be stressedor accented in the word.

The stress pattern of English words is fixed, in the sense that the mainstress always falls on a particular syllable of any given word;but free, in thesense that it is not tied to any particular place in all words.

Generally speaking, the stress pattern of an English word is manifested byone or all of four factors:pitch, loudness, quality and quantity, among whichpitch change plays the most important role.

1) Pitch change

Pitch prominence is mainly decided by pitch change as well as pitchheight. The different stress patterns of export (v.)and export (n.)areeasily distinguished by their pitch patterns. If the fall or rise occurs on thefirst syllable, it is taken as a noun. If the fall or rise occurs on the second

syllable, it is a verb.

2) Loudness

Most people seem to feel that stressed syllables are louder than unstressedones, that is, loudness is a component of prominence. In a sequence ofidentical syllables, for example: babababa, if one syllable is made louderthan the others, it will be heard as being more prominent than the others.However, if you have a second thought, you will find that it is very difficultfor a speaker to make a syllable louder without changing othercharacteristics of the syllable, such as pitch or quantity.

3) Quality and quantity

Besides pitch change and loudness, quality and quantity also lend themselvesto prominence.

Generally speaking, long vowels and diphthongs are more prominent thanshort vowels, while in the short vowels /,, /(when unstressed) are theleast prominent and often referred to as reduced vowels as opposed to otherfull vowels.

12.2 Primary and secondary stress

In a word of many syllables,as the number of syllables differ, there maybe up to four degrees of prominence in English according to the Gimson'sPronunciation of English, 6th edition revised by Cruttenden (2001). Let'stake the word proliferation /prf.r.'en/as an example:

In this word,the fourth syllable/ei/is the one which carries the lastmajor pitch change as well as greater loudness and full vowel value andthus is said to carry the primary stress.

Secondary accent is marked by a non-final pitch change in a word. Inthis case, it still gains the feature of rhythmic stress, qualitative andquantitative prominence. Thus,/-lif-/is the syllable which carries thesecondary stress.

A minor prominence is produced by the occurrence of a full vowel butcontaining no pitch change. In this word/pr- / is such a syllable.

A non-prominent syllable contains no pitch change but has one of thereduced vowels /,, /. Thus, in this word /r/and/n/are non-prominent syllables.

12.3 Word stress patterns

A variety of stress patterns may occur in polysyllabic words. Although it isthe position of the primary stress which contributes most to a word's stresspattern, there is no simple way to reduce the placement of primary stress inEnglish words to a set of rules for there is always a lot of exceptions. Thefollowing are some most commonly used stress patterns. Notice the differentpatterns and read after the tape.

2 syllables

–– mother, student, pillow, bathroom, window, over, under

–– translate, about, begin, enjoy, refer, or, besides, upon, because

–– blacklead, postpone, prejudge, reshape

3 syllables

–– – astronaut, barrier, beautiful, billiard, halflpennyworth, prominent

–– – tomato, astonish, assignment, beforehand, impatience

––– bigheaded, hard-working, headmaster, predestine

––– picturesque, promenade, reassure, reassign, refugee

4 syllables

–– – – journalism, television, criticism, optimism, questionable

–– –– astrology, belligerent, binocular, habilitate, identical

–– –– postpositive, predestinate, premeditate, prerequisite

–––– hesitation, occupation, observation, opposition

–– –– hereinbefore, overfatigue

–– –– officialese

5 syllables

–– – – – qualificative, capitalism

–– –– – assimilation, obligatory, objectionable, protectionism

–––– – bibliography, opportunity, immaturity, instantaneous, university

–– –– – humiliation, investigation

–––– – harmonization, representation, interdependence

–– –– – prescriptivism, unprofitable

6 syllables

–– –– – – impossibility, preventability, reliability

––––– – biotechnology, intercommunity

–––– – – ceremoniously, indistinguishable

–– ––– – personification

––––– – bioengineering, macroeconomic

7 or more syllables

–– –– – – – enthusiastically

–– –––– – pronominalization

–– ––– – – acoustoelectronics

–– ––––– – institutionalization

– –– – – – –– – individualistically

1. Now listen to the tape and mark out the primary and secondary stress ofthe following words as you have heard on the tape. Then read after thetape.

athlete behold internationalization

undereducation benchmark electrification

morphophonology ornamentation immodesty

implication gymnasium bestowal

13.4 Compound words

A compound is a word which is composed of two or more separate wordswhich can function grammatically and/or semantically as a single word. Forexample, in teapot, both tea and pot can stand alone. Compounds may bewritten as one word as in teapot, or with a hyphen as in bad-tempered, oreven with a space between the two elements,as in apple pie.

The most common type of compound stress has a primary stress on thefirst element. To make things simple, this type mostly includes the following few cases

1) When the compound noun is formed by noun + noun, as in sunrise,blackboard, 'toiletroll, com'puter virus, 'lifestyle, 'bankaccount, 'stock exchange, shopping center , 'birthplace, keyboard ;

2) When the noun is a special application of the adjective in a compoundadjective, as in trustworthy , 'ladylike, 'hen-pecked;

3) When the phrasal and prepositional verbs are used as nouns, as inset-up, lay-offs, burn-out.

The second type of compound stress has the primary stress on the secondelement. It usually includes the following few cases:

1) When the noun is used as a modifier of the adjective in the compoundadjective, as in

'stonedead, skyblue, taxfree, user ' friendly;

2) When the compound is formed by an adjectival or adverbial firstelement and the -ed morpheme at the end, as in bad- 'tempered,well-'advised , heavy- 'handed , ill- ' bred ;

3) When the compounds take a figure as its first element, as in first-' class , 'three- 'dimensional;

4) When the compounds work as verbs and have an adverbial firstelement, as in down 'grade, ill-'treat;

5) When the compound nouns are man-made objects, as in apple 'pie,chocolate 'biscuit, fruit 'salad;

6) When the first element of the noun compound is a name, as in Oxford 'Road , Victoria 'Mansions , Westminster 'Abbey.

Notice The word street never bears any stress except in cases of contrast. Thus, thestress falls on the first element in the following: 'Downing Street, 'FleetStreet, 'Wall Street.

One thing we must pay attention to is that one should not confuse thecompounds with the noun phrases which are formed by adjective + noun ornoun + noun and which typically have a secondary stress + primary stressexcept in the case of contrast intended on the first element.

NOUN PHRASE COMPOUND

paper 'bag (a bag made of paper) 'paper bag (a bag for putting paper in)

green 'house (a house which is green) 'greenhouse (a building used for growing plants)

dark'room (a room which is dark) 'darkroom (a dark room in which

photos can be processed)

2. Mark the primary and secondary stress of the following pairs of words orphrases according to the explanations given:

ginger bread (a dark molasses cake flavored with ginger)

gingerbread (superfluous or tasteless embellishment, epically in architecture)

English teacher (a teacher who teaches English)

English teacher (a teacher who is English)

glass cloth (woven fabric of fine-spun glass)

glass cloth (a towel for drying glasses)

blue bottle (a bottle which is blue)

blue bottle (a large blue fly)

13.5 Word-class pairs

There are several dozen pairs of two-syllable words which have the samespelling, but only differ from each other in stress pattern as theirgrammatical function differs (as noun or verb or adjective). If the words areformed by a prefix + stem, the stress will fall on the second syllable of theverb, but on the first syllable of the noun or adjective. Some commonexamples are given below:

abstract b.strkt (a. &n. ) aebstrkt(v. )

conduct 'kn.dkt ( n. ) kn dkt( v. )

contract 'kn.trkt ( n. ) kntrkt ( v. )

contrast kn.tr:st ( n. ) kn tr:st ( v. )

desert 'dez.(a. &n. ) dz:t(v. )

escort 'es.k:t( n. ) i 'sk:t ( v. )

export eksp:t ( n. ) k sp:t ( v. )

import 'im.p:t ( n. ) im 'p:t( v. )

increase 'in.kri:s( n. ) in 'k:( v. )

insult '.st ( n. ) 'slt( v. )

object 'b.dkt ( n. ) b 'dekt ( v. )

perfect p:.fikt (a. &n. ) pfekt(v. )

permit 'p:.mt (n.) p'm( v. )

present 'prez. nt (a.) pzent (v.)

produce 'prd.ju:s( n. ) prdju:s( v. )

progress 'pr.res( n. ) pru 'res( v. )

protest pr.t( n. ) pr 'test( v. )

rebel eb1( n. ) rbel( v. )

record 'rek.:d( n. ) ri k:d( v. )

subject sb.dkt ( a. & n. ) sbdekt( v. )

2. Now read the following sentences. Pay special attention to the stress of theitalicized words below.

(1) The year is progressing ;it will soon be winter again.

(2) The doctor keeps a record of all the serious illnesses in the village.

(3) The people made a protest about the rise in prices.

(4) The campers were subjected to extreme weather,

(5) However,others strongly object to developing private cars.

(6) The committee is presenting its investigation report next week.

(7) Your action contrast with your principles.

(8) Insults were hurled back and forth between the two writers.

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