Word stress

Question 1

Prominence

Answer 1

• stressed syllables are more prominent than unstressed syllables

Question 2

What makes a syllable prominent?

Answer 2

1. pitch
2. length
3. loudness
4. quality

Question 3

Pitch

Answer 3

• an auditory sensation that places sounds on a scale from high to low
• Any syllable that is articulated with a noticeably different pitch will be said to carry stress

Question 4

Length

Answer 4

• If one of the syllables is made longer than the others, there is quite a strong tendency for the syllable to be stressed
• One of the more important determiners of stress

Question 5

Loudness

Answer 5

• stressed syllables are louder than unstressed syllables
• Loudness is not by itself an efficient device for signalling the location of the stress

Question 6

Quality

Answer 6

• A syllable will tend to be prominent if it contains a vowel that is different in quality from neighbouring vowels
• If we change one of the vowels in the nonsense word (LA-LA-LA-LA) , the “odd” syllable will be heard as stressed
• (LA-LI-LA-LA)

Question 7

One-syllable words

Answer 7

• When pronounced in isolation, they receive the primary stress

Question 7

Levels of stress

Answer 7

• primary: the strongest type, high mark in transcription
• secondary stress: a type of stress that is weaker than primary stress but stronger than that of the rest of the syllables, represented with a low mark

Question 8

Two-syllable words

Answer 8

• Either the first or the second syllable will be stressed – not both
• There is a general tendency for verbs to be stressed nearer the end of a word and for nouns to be stressed nearer the beginning

Question 9

Three-syllable words (polysyllabic)

Answer 9

• In simple verbs, if the final syllable is strong, then it will receive primary stress
• If the last syllable is weak, then it will be unstressed, and stress will be placed on the preceding syllable if that syllable is strong
• If both the second and third syllables are weak, then the stress falls on the initial syllable
• nouns: general tendency is for stress to fall on the first syllable unless its weak

Question 10

Some stress-fixing prefixis

Answer 10

• (mainly of Latin origin) (lot more)
• ab-
• ad-
• a-
• de-
• dis-
• en-
• im-, in-

Question 11

Some stress-fixing suffixes

Answer 11

• -ade
• -ee
• -eer
• -ese
• -ette
• -esque
• -ine
• -oon

Question 12

Antepenultimate stress

Answer 12

• third from last

Question 13

Compound words

Answer 13

• The primary accent in compounds is most commonly on the first element
• compounds fucntioning as nouns (most) and adjectives

Question 14

Homographs

Answer 14

• words which are written the same way but which have different pronunciation

Question 15

Weak and strong forms

Answer 15

• Some very common English words can be pronounced in two different ways
• Function words (grammar words) vs Lexical words (have a dictionary meaning)

Question 16

Weak forms

Answer 16

• Function words (conjunctions, articles, pronouns, prepositions, auxiliary verbs, modal verbs) have different patterns according to whether they are unstressed or stressed
• Lexical words usually retain their full vowels
• Also depends on emphasis, contrast and final position

Question 17

examples of weak forms

Answer 17

• that: strong /ðæt/, weak /ðət/.
• was: /wɒz/ x /wəz/
• and: /ænd/ x /ənd
• can: /kæn/ x /kən/

Question 18

Stress-timing

Answer 18

• Sentence stress is the basis of rhythm in English
• many syllables -> some will be unstressed
• few syllables -> expanded syllables
• Czech is syllable-timed