7. Stress and Intonation
7. Stress and Intonatio
7.1 Introduction
- Stress is a cover term for the prosodic features of duration, intensity,
and
pitch, thus, the prominence of stressed syllable is generally manifested
by
their characteristics of being longer, louder, and higher in pitch than
unstressed syllables.
- English stress is said to be mobile. This can be shown in morphologi-
cally
related words in which the stress shifts on to different syllables.
- Although it seems to be a highly variable and unpredictable situation,
this
does not mean that there are no rules or principles underlying the stress
patterns of English.
- It is a characteristic of English that the grammatical category or
morphological structure of words frequently affects the stress
patterns.
- Syllable weight is an important factor in stress assignment in that heavy
syllables attract stress.
- The terms for the location of the syllables in a word:
‘probability’ [pra. bə. bɪ. lə. ti] ultimate
penultimate
pre-antepenult antepenult penult ult antepenultimate
pre-antepenultimate
- Although it seems to be a highly variable and unpredictable situation,
this
does not mean that there are no rules or principles underlying the stress
patterns of English.
- It is a characteristic of English that the grammatical category or
morphological structure of words frequently affects the stress
patterns.
- Syllable weight is an important factor in stress assignment in that heav
syllables attract stress.
- The terms for the location of the syllables in a word:
‘probability’ [pra. bə. bɪ. lə. ti] ultimate
penultimate
pre-antepenult antepenult penult ult antepenultimate
pre-antepenultimate
7.2 Noun and Adjective Stress
(1) In disyllabics, the default stress is on the penult. In a 20,000-
monomorphemic-word sample reported by Hammond(1999: 194),
both disyllabic nouns and adjectives reveal penult stress over 80 percent
of the time: (Refer to page 182)
Noun: ágent Adjective: ábsent
bálance árid
cárrot cómmon
bóttom flúent
bóttle áctive
(2) The first exception to the penult rule: The first contains examples with
weightless(unstressable) penults, because they have [ə] nuclei, and thus
are stressed on the final syllable (ult) by default.
Noun: appéal Adjective: banál
ballóon corrúpt
canóe corréct
(3) The second exception to the penult rule: Some words are stressed on
the final syllable (ult) despite the fact that they have stressable penults
with branching rhymes.
typhóon mundáne
sardíne obscúre
shampóo okáy
antíque robúst
Julý obscéne
(4) In trisyllabic and longer nouns, we formulate the following: stress penult
if
stressable (heavy/branching rhyme); if not stressable, then stress the
next
left heavy syllable.
Three syllables More than three syllables
tomáto ábdomen barracúda
aróma álgebra aspáragus
diplóma ánimal apócalypse
horízon búffalo basílica
