Syllable, Stress & Accent
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Tutorial: STRESS &
ACCENT |
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CONTENTS<<<<DEFINITIONS<<<<SYLLABLE<<<<EXERCISES<<<<LINKS
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IN
THIS SECTION: >>> STRESS
>>> PROMINENCE
>>> ACCENT
>>> METRICAL PHONOLOGY
>>> OPTIMALITY THEORY
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STRESS |
First of
all, let us read the entries on stress and prominence in the Little
Encyclopaedia of Phonetics:
stress
Stress is a large topic and
despite the fact that it has been extensively studied for a very long time
there remain many areas of disagreement or lack of understanding. To begin
with a basic point, it is almost certainly true that in all languages some
syllables are in some sense stronger than other syllables; these are
syllables that have the potential to be described as stressed. It is also
probably true that the difference between strong and weak syllables
is of some linguistic importance in every language – strong and weak
syllables do not occur at random. However, languages differ in the linguistic
function of such differences: in English, for example, the position of stress
can change the meaning of a word, as in the case of ‘import’ (noun)
and ‘import’ (verb), and so forms part of the phonological composition
of the word. However, it is usually claimed that in the case of French there
is no possibility of moving the stress to different syllables except in cases
of special emphasis or contrast, since stress (if there is any that can be detected)
always falls on the last syllable of a word. In tone languages it is often
difficult or impossible for someone who is not a native speaker of the
language to identify stress functioning separately from tone: syllables may
sound stronger or weaker according to the tone they bear.
It is necessary to consider what
factors make a syllable count as stressed. It seems likely that stressed
syllables are produced with greater effort than unstressed, and that this
effort is manifested in the air pressure generated in the lungs for producing
the syllable and also in the articulatory movements in the vocal tract. These
effects of stress produce in turn various audible results: one is pitch
prominence, in which the stressed syllable stands out from its context (for
example, being higher if its unstressed neighbours are low in pitch, or lower
if those neighbours are high; often a pitch glide such as a fall or rise is
used to give greater pitch prominence); another effect of stress is that
stressed syllables tend to be longer – this is very noticeable in
English, less so in some other languages; also, stressed syllables tend to be
louder than unstressed, though experiments have shown that differences
in loudness alone are not very noticeable to most listeners. It has been
suggested by many writers that the term accent should be used to refer to
some of the manifestations of stress (particularly pitch prominence), but the
word, though widely used, never seems to have acquired a distinct meaning of
its own.
One of the areas in which there
is little agreement is that of levels of stress: some descriptions of
languages manage with just two levels (stressed and unstressed), while others
use more. In English, one can argue that if one takes the word 'indicator' as
an example, the first syllable is the most strongly stressed, the third
syllable is the next most strongly stressed and the second and fourth
syllables are weakly stressed, or unstressed. This gives us three levels: it
is possible to argue for more, though this rarely seems to give any practical
benefit. (…)
(Roach, 2002: ‘stress’;
emphasis added)
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PROMINENCE |
prominence
“Stress” or “accentuation”
depends crucially on the speaker’s ability
to make certain syllables more noticeable than others. A
syllable which “stands out” in this way is a prominent syllable. An important
thing about prominence, at least in English, is the fact that there are many
ways in which a syllable can be made prominent: experiments have shown that
prominence is associated with greater length, greater loudness,
pitch prominence (i.e. having a pitch level or movement that makes a
syllable stand out from its context) and with “full” vowels and
diphthongs (whereas the vowel /ə/ – “schwa” – and syllabic
consonants are only found in unstressed syllables and /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ are found in both
stressed and unstressed). Despite the complexity of this set of interrelated factors
it seems that the listener simply hears syllables as more prominent or less
prominent.
(Roach, 2002: ‘prominence’;
emphasis added)
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ACCENT |
Now go on to our page on ACCENT AND STRESS.
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METRICAL
PHONOLOGY |
For a phonological discussion of
stress and stress assignment, read John Hutton’s pages on the metrical
structure. (Make sure you read the next page as well.)
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OPTIMALITY
THEORY |
Now you may wish to read a page
on stress in Optimality Theory, accompanied
by a case study for Indonesian and some final remarks.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY |
·
Roach, P. 2002. A Little Encyclopaedia of
Phonetics: http://www.personal.rdg.ac.uk/~llsroach/encyc.pdf
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