Accentuation

2/3/2015 Accentuation

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Accentuation

"Global" versus "Analytical" stress

and related matters

The motives for accenting a word or syllable in Englishinclude the following:

(1a) Highlighting of contrasts generallyoverrides allother tendencies to assign deliberate, intended,voluntary ("accentual") stress to a word or syllable.

We may define an accent (or 'accentual stress') asone consciously and voluntarily accorded by a speaker to aparticular word or syllable. It shd be noted that a pitchmovement which is a latter element of a complex tone,even if so delayed that it is effected on a subsequentword, does not constitute an accent. Thus, in a discoursewhere either the speaker or the person being spoken tohas very recently mentioned the compound word "icecream", when the speaker says "I `like ice ˏcream " thisisnt perceived as an accenting of the word "cream". Such a'tonetic' representation of the tones as we have just seenmay alternatively receive a 'tonological' representationsuch as "I `ˏlike ice cream" where the Fall-Rise toneselected by the speaker to attach to the compound word"ice cream" (with perhaps for example a motive ofsounding not only positive but also, by adding the Rise,agreeable) is not represented as split. This is in order toconvey that the tonetic splitting is due to choice of acomfortable rhythm by the speaker not a desire to re-accent the re-occurring word "ice cream". The fact that theRise is delayed is signalled by the sign which indicatesin this O'Connor-&-Arnold type of notation the point to



which the Rise has been postponed. If the notation "I`ˏlike ice cream" were used without the disambiguating

sign it could be taken that the rise element of the Fall-Rise tone applied to ice rather than to cream.

(1b) The perhaps uniquely strong English-languagetendency to deny even asyllable within a word (not just aword) its normal stressing in favour of another syllable notnormally stressed but conveying or emphasising acontrast is in general never revealed in the writtenlanguage. However, an extremely rare example of doing sowas to be seen in the Journals of Arnold Bennett (1954 p.88) in which we find “I saw few signs ... of suppressedor expressed excitement...” where the writer conveys it byitalicisation of a prefix.

Other examples include: Maˈjorities andˋminorities. Midday is normally /mɪd`deɪ/ but midnight /ˋmɪdnaɪt/ yet either pattern may be reversed incontrastive contexts.

A typical example of a usage in which a NNS (non-nativespeaker of English) may fail to observe the custom ofhighlighting semantic contrast occurs with the use of abeginning like “In my `country...” when a contrast isintended with another person's country. In such a situationa native English-speaker would normally only say In `myˏcountry... On the other hand NNSs offen fail to noticethat the stressing of A friend of mine, in spite of thesuggestion of contrastiveness thatmine seems to embody,is usually idiomatically A `friend of mine and is rarelyfound stressed A friend of `mineunless extreme directcontrastiveness is involved as with Yes he ìs a friend of`ˏmine | but I `didnt know he was afriend of `ˏyours`ˏtoo.



(2a) Avoidance of Re-accenting of Re-occurrences. A most powerful application of the "rule" ofhighlighting of contrasts is seen operating inversely whenspeakers deny stress to a word etc which reappears quitesoon in a discourse. This avoidance of re-accenting of re-occurrences ie of words or even merely syllables which areidentical or constitute or embody exactly the samereference is an only occasionally ignored 'rule' for nativeEnglish speakers. An example of a ordinarily unaccentablesyllable in fact usually being stressedwould be in citingthe title of a journalsuch as ˈAlcohol and Alcoholìsm.

(2b) A syllable generally considered to completelyunstressable by most speakers may very occasionally beheard accented eg It was an exˈciting and excita`ble /ɪksaɪtə`bəl/ performance.Another related accentualpossibility for English native speakers reverses thispattern of retrospectively avoiding re-accenting. Thisoccurs as anticipatory avoidance of accenting the usualsyllable in a word in order to highlight an accentualcontrast with a subsequent word of a phrase. For example,I've found myself beginning a sentence thus: One of theìrritations, but at the same time `fascinations, of thetraditional orthography of English... where the ordinaryaccentuation of each of thewords irritation and fascination would be on a laterelement as irri`tation andfasci`nation but, in order tocomply with the strong inclination to highlight thecontrast between the two words' initial syllables, I'vedeparted from those normal accentuations. This kind ofthing is a fairly common practice but entirely optional forthe speaker.

There is a convenient single expression for "the use of a word whichrefers to, or is a substitute for, a preceding word or group of words"(OED) namely 'anaphora'.



In an exchange like "Wd you like ˈtea or `coffee?" thereply "I'd like `coffee,ˏplease" of course re-accents theword 'coffee' but the 'rule' prohibiting re-accenting of re-occurrences is overridden by the need to accent 'coffee' forthe sake of contrasting 'coffee' with 'tea'.

(2c) Whole phrases may be given no accent if they containimmediately repeated matter. For example a speaker whohas said "They’ll have nowhere to hide" may receive theresponse “Yes in`deed they’ll have nowhere to hide” withthe repeated "they’ll have nowhere to hide" constitutingonly an intonationaltail (all at a low level pitch) ie beingcompletely without an accent. This is another example ofwhere it would be possible to let the final word rise butthat final movement wd be perceived by native-Englishspeakers not as an independent accentual Rise but as thedelayed completion of a Fall-Rise complex tone (and socompletely non-accentual). The tonetic notation “Yesin`deed they’ll have nowhere to ˏhide” wd make the pitchmovement quite explicit but a tonological notation of thetype of expression that we exemplified above (such asappeared in O'Connor-&-Arnold 1973) wd show asentence with exactly that set of pitches as “Yes in`ˏdeedthey’ll have nowhere to hide” making the non-accentualvalue explicit by using the symbol to indicate where therise is to be understood to take place. In these notestonetic transcriptions are normally supplied, tonologicalones being resorted to only on occasions where a specialneed seems to exist such as the preference in some casesnot to insert marks of complex tone completion within thebody of a word, egpreferringoc`ˏcasionally to oc`casionalˏly.

It's also possible for a second speaker to respond makinga long (low) prehead of the repeated words thus “They’ll



have nowhere to hide in`deed”. This procedure avoidshaving any accents in the repeated phrase by uttering thewhole of it at the same low level pitch.

(2d) In the same category as avoidance of re-accentuationof words referring to or representing ideas, facts etcalready referred to, mentioned or "given" is the veto onaccenting words conveying ideas, facts and circumstancesalready well known to both speakers including matters,conditions etc of which both are fully aware such as thestate of the weather or the city or the situation of any sortthey are in. A type of example which at first might seemunexpected would be`Look at the result. `Look at thisrubbish.

(3) Rhythmic preference

If an expression doesn't involve avoidance of re-accentingof re-occurrences, the default tendency for speakers isto stress the first and last suitable (ie more semantic'lycharged, content-conveying not merely grammaticallyfunctional) words or syllables inany (intonational) phrase or sentence.

An effective example of this tendency has been providedby John Maidment to show the operation of his proposed'Early Onset Rule': He does 'represen(')tational`paintings.Here the bracketed tone on the syllable which is the tonicone in the lexical pronunciation of the adjective hasbecome optional.

Speakers may prefer to avoid intermediate stresses eitherdepending on how rapid they want to make the utteranceor in compliance with the rhythmic preference for stressalternation as in 'Let me have a bit of something toèat or 'Let me 'have a bit of 'something to èat inwhich (i) all potential stresses between the first and last



words are suppressed and (ii) the potential stress onbit issuppressed: if it were employed it would produce a heavilyinsistent suggestion. See also Division 4 of thiswebsite where in Section 7 at Honorifics ¶139 otherexamples are given ofALTERNATE STRESS PREFERENCE. See alsoin the same Section 7 Prepositions at ¶84.

4) Globalisation. The preference for an earliest orearliest-and-latest stressing pattern one maycall globalisation,unifying or globalising, or simplyglobalstress distribution.

At the word level this tendency to'globalisation' shows asthe inclination to give front stress to polysyllables andcompound words.

(5a) Analytical stress distribution

At the phrase level, English-speakers much morefrequently prefer analytical stress distribution with itsregular suppression of stresses on anaphoric expressionssuch as initial articles likethis and final encliticpronouns such as it.

A most striking, because so rare, example in which Englishspeakers practically all depart from their customaryanalytical approach to take the unusual step of treatingglobally a very common expression in which stress on thecontrastive word "own" would be normally expectedis 'Mind your own `business.Contrast the more normallyaccented synonymous 'Pay attention to your òwnaffairs and items like That's `my business. This exampleis particularly remarkable because the more logicalalternative stressing *Mind your òwn business can besaid to be so unusual as to be virtually non-existent. Thisis not true of similar expressions like It's none of our`business which, however, can alternate with the more



predictable stressing especially if it's softened by use of afalling-rising tone viz It's `none of `ˏour b̥usiness.

Another example of globalising rather than analysingis ˈQuote unˋquote to introduce a quotation rapidly: at amore leisurely pace one's more likely to hear “ˈQuote|ùnquote”.

(5b) In the very special context of an "insistent" risinghead before a Fall climax tone the usual stressing practicemay be counteracted eg (i) ˏMind your ˏown ˋbusiness.(ii) It says ˏsmoking or ˏnon ˋsmoking.

Many expressions are just as likely to occur in either theglobalising or the analytical form eg the ˈbest of ˈboth`worlds or the ˈbest of `both worlds. Cf also I ˈdon't see itin ` ˏthat light and I ˈdon't see it in that `light. Thepreference in such cases may be due not to the avoidanceof re-stressing a word (or synonym for a word) but simplythat an idea is present in the consciousness of thespeaker. This can occur for example when the firstspeaker has seemed to have treated a subject withinadequate seriousness. Though no actual joke has beenmade the response may just as possibly be It's no joking`matter as the less English-specific type of stressing It's`no `ˏjoking m̥atter. The same type of explanationapplies to expressions likeThere's ˈno (ˈ)doubt a`boutit which might be said when the speaker is confident ofdisbelief on the part of the collocutor.

(6) The world's languages range between the twoextremes of greatly preferring global rhythmic structureseg French and Spanish and favouring almost exclusivelyanalytical structures eg English and German. Mostlanguages seem to fall somewhere in between these twoextremes.



(7a) It must be remembered that these are only strongtendencies which in practice may be forsaken by theindividual speaker for a variety of reasons some of which itis impossible to discover eg notably when they reflectwhat is going on in the speaker's mind but is undeclared.Even more notably, any word representing any idea, fact orcircumstance of which both speakers in a conversation arefully aware may very often be denied an accent. Examplesof this might be the name of the place where they'reconversing or the climate, state of the weather or thepolitical situation. Such tendencies also occur commonlyto speakers of other languages but native speakers ofEnglish are particularly intensely inclined to be affected bysuch habits. Nevertheless, departures from such usualpractices amount to perhaps something like ten percent ofutterances for most speakers of English. Anyone wholistens out for such departures will be almost certain tohear a number of them during the course of a day spentlistening to a variety of conversations, unscriptedbroadcast speech and the like. It's a natural butunfortunate consequence of the effects of pedagogicalaccounts of the patterns of English intonation thatteachers are sometimes inclined to criticise departuresfrom their "rules" rather too harshly.

(7b) Some kinds of expression may show the tendency tohighlight contrast not strong enough to prevail over thetendency to globalisation. This happens with eg the sayingto get the wrong end of the stick. This might well beexpected to climax on wrong or end but it's climactic finalaccent is usually placed onstick. Similarly one might haveexpected the usual stressing to *the boot's on the òtherfoot but in fact it's normally globalised to the boot's onthe other `foot.



8) Another of the reasons for the departures may be thatthe speaker has simply been subject to what, in regard tonon-prosodic features of speech, would simply be termeda slip of the tongue. A peculiarity of speakers’ treatmentof such prosodic “mistakes” is that, unlike the way peopletreat mistakes of articulation, which are very oftencorrected by the speaker, it is only very rarely indeed thatone hears a repetition that amends the prosody of anutterance just prosodically mis-managed. After all, there'sno recognised way in writing of correcting any aspect ofprosody other than word stressing by underlining,italicising or capitalising the word in question. Any purelypitch-pattern errors can hardly be represented in normalwriting at all. It's noteworthy also that people arecompletely untroubled by having various prosodic featuresremoved or even replaced by something linguisticallyquite inappropriate when they hear the words of a song,tho the best and most satisfying settings are those thatmost closely accord with the speech rhythms that wouldbe naturally used in merely saying the words.

9) Another factor one must bear in mind is that bytemperament one individual may be far more heedlessthan another about prosodies in ordinary situations. Incircumstances where the speakers wish to speed up orslow down or are influenced by distracting contexts or bycircumstances such as alcohol consumption the tendencyto depart from their normal prosodic practice is increased— sometimes even by at least partly losing the thread ofwhat they wish to say.

10) Animation Stresses. Certain stresses people use fromtime to time may seem to be intended as inappropriateways of highlighting individual words when that is not thepurpose for which the speaker has adopted the stressing


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but rather as a device for increasing the intensity of awhole expression (phrase, sentence etc). I long agoproposed for such usages the term ANIMATION STRESSES. Atthe word level, anomalous stresses that might be termed"prosodic slang" are used by many speakers wheneg bra`vo, ra`ther,yip`pee etc are so stressed and bysome children (at public schools at least) saying a warningshout as ca`ve. The American usage posi`tively may wellbe generally viewed as or at least have begun as anaccentual extravagance. That was possibly the perceptionof it by people who first herd the adverb which is canonically àbsolutely but has nowbecome in emphaticuse perfectly normal as abso`lutely. It's possible for an"empty" word like thing or matter to be accented merely toamplify the force of a sentence eg in It's ˏnot a ˏgood`thing. A strong indication that the speaker is not trulyaccenting a word in the normal sense of accentuationoccurs when a word like it which can reasonably be said tonever be accented in a non-contrastive context is given amajor stress as in Ìt's all ˏright. The reader who turns toSection 4.1 on this website can hear the actress (free tochoose her own prosodies) in Item 15 line 3 say " Ìts a'pale `blue" [Cf our Blog 032 of 17 June 07.]

(11a) One should remember that persons reading aloud oracting, and thus using not their own spontaneous choicesbut prescribed wording, are very prone to prosodicmistakes – the more so the less their performance hasbeen prepared. I've been shocked on many occasions toobserve that the director of a play or film has allowed aperformer to employ a completely inappropriate prosody. Ican’t remember any occasion when anyone has everindicated to me that they received such a shock, tho thebasis on which a dramatic performance is considered goodor not must often be in large part influenced by the

http://www.yek.me.uk/archive4.html#blog032



aptness or otherwise of the actor's prosodic choices. Forthe very rare phenomenon of a writer referring to such amatter we have to turn again to the Journals ofArnold Bennett (1954 p. 215 ed. F. Swinnerton) where hementioned of a “Troupe of about 40” that “Not one couldavoid the most elementary false emphasis. Thus SylviaMay looking at a man asleep on sofa, 'But he may wake up'(when there was no question of another man asleep)instead of 'He may wake up' ”. Arnold Bennett was aplaywright and director of his own plays. Among verynumerous examples one might give ofactors' inappropriate stressings there is, from the OrsonWelles film of Othello, “She might ˈlie by anˈemperor’s ˎside” (instead of the more effective “She mightˈlie by an èmperor’s side”. In the film Ghandi thedoubtfully suitably stressed even if you `caused a gooddeal of trouble was followed immediately by the grosslyinappropriate accentuation "Especially if you `caused agreat deal of trouble" where spontaneous speech would betotally unlikely not to have an accent on deal.

(11b) Certain kinds of inappropriate accentuations are verycommonly heard from newsreaders whose scripts oftencontain synonymous references back to such things as thenames of cities at which the reader fails to de-accent thesynonym. For example A ˈpowerful ˋbomb was set off atˋX--- this morning | and a ˈhuge ˈcloud of ˎsmoke ˈstillˈhangs ˈover the ˋcity. Here at city there is plainly noreason for a suggestion of any contrast with another areaso it should not be accented or at least it should be denieda full Fall. A weaker climax may occur with only a low fallwhich may sound less grossly inappropriate but it stilldoesnt sound completely normal. They may even re-accent a word on its repetition from being obliged to by abadly written script. I've found that something like “The



ˈwater ˈlevels | have reached ˈdangerous ˎlevels” to be farfrom uniquely clumsy. That type of expression can occurin both spontaneous and scripted speech.

(12a) It's possible for a word to be accented twice in asentence because of semantic re-focusing eg because acontrast of meaning is involved when the word re-occursin a different sense. This has been called ‘anta`naclasis’(OED 'A figure of speech .. when the same word is repeatedin a different, if not in a contrary signification'.

Examples:(i) If you `want to make good `ˏcoffee,|you must useplenty of `coffee.

(The first “coffee” is the beverage, the second the beans orpowder.)

(ii) There are `ˏpalaces | and ´`palaces.(ie ordinary ones& specially fine ones.)

(iii) It's not what she ˋˏsaid | it was the way she ˊˋsaid it.

The first said refers to the semantic content of the wordsused, the second to to the manner of their delivery (“It'snot`what she ˏsaid...” would have been a more explicitlymeaningful way of expressing the idea).

(iv) Boys 'will be ˋˈboys. (ie young men inevitably exhibitthe behaviour of immature males)

(v) 'Tolerance | is what 'makes 'Britain ˋBritain. (ie makesthe country the kind of country it is) Tony Blair (December2006)

(vi) Making the unˋˏmissable|unˋmissable. BBC sloganadvertising their postponed-listening facility by which abroadcast that has not been able to be received at its



original transmission time may be received by computer ata time chosen by the user usually during the followingweek. (2008)

(vii) Robert Burns referred to ˈman's inhuˈmanitytoˋman (people's cruelty to their fellow human beings)

(viii) See also People Speaking 4.1.2 line 5 where 'Who wasthat lady I saw you with last night?' receives thereply 'That was no lady. That was my wife' This very oldjoke turns on semantic re-focusing. Thesense of lady intended by the first speaker is merely'woman', but the sense it’s supposed to be taken as is'woman of refinement'.

(ix) ˈDog eat ˋdog is used to describe competition that isas extreme as cannibalism. The first dog is elliptical for "adog"; the second is the customary reference to an animaletc as foodstuff without any article.

(x) In Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim the eponym says that hisboss is "the lousiest Professor of History in history".('History' ie the subject; 'history' ie the period of time.)

(xi) It's the regular usage with items of botanical andzoological nomenclature to give the generic name firstand the specific second accenting them both even whenthe two require the same word. Compare “ ˈBellispe`rennis, ˈVulpes, `vulpes” or “Goˈrilla, go`rilla”.

(xii) One presumes that German speakers as well asEnglish speakers may well say that someone " ìsnt justplain `Mr ˏStein | but `Dr `Dr Stein".

(12b) Note also: An ˈeye for an ˏeye |and a ˈtooth for aˋtooth. A ˈbargain is a ˎbargain (well-known proverbsetc).



Kinds of re-focusing etc can perhaps explain the followingalso: Let ˈbygones be `bygones. The ˈblind leadingthe`blind. People said it wouldn't sur`vive | but sur`vive itˋ ˏhas. If the ˈworst(ˈ)comes to the ˋ ˏworst... ˈBusinessis ˋbusiness. Let's share and share a`like. Àmy,| being`ˏAmy | wouldn't a`gree. The ˋonly thing we have to ˏfear | is ˈfear itˋself. Let's call a spade a spade.

There are cases where people seem to be rather vague orinattentive about operating the "rule" as can be seen insome common sayings. A `place for ˏeverything | andˈeverything in itsˋplaceis usually so accented. Thiscan be but usually isn't accented A `place for ˏeverything| and ˈeverythingˋin its place.

It's also possible for words to be accented on immediatere-use in certain other situations such as when a speaker“echoes” another’s words nominally at least forconfirmation, as in the following.

I want some `money. – `You’re asking `me for ´money?(You must be `mad. Ì’m a `pauper. `ˏYou,| are `rich.)

(13) (i) Another type of re-accentuation within the samephrase may occur when a word is repeated immediately foremphasis eg: (a) big big job, dear dear (me), (a) long longtime, (a) lovely lovely day, many many times, (the) old oldstory,a red red rose, never never say that, really reallybeautiful, very very nice, etc.

(ii) Where a word is separated from its repetition by only aparticle, the word is regularly accented on bothoccurrences. Examples include: again and again, for everand ever, an eye for an eye, arm in arm, back to back, blowby blow, day by day, face to face, from ear to ear, fromstrength to strength, heart of hearts,home fromhome, hope against hope, inch by inch, more and



more, neck and neck, night after night, on and on,fromtime to time, wheels within wheels (alsopossibly ˈwheels withìn wheels). Note also expressionslike She ˈkeeps her(ˈ)self to her`self.

In Parliament on 12 June 1990 MP Gerald Kaufman said"The Government ... is isolated on |ˈissue| after ˈissue |after ˎissue."

(14) Although these "analytical" sentence stressingtendencies observable in English-speakers are very strongand may in some cases make a listener uncomfortableabout what was a speaker’s precise meaning or whether aspeaker has succeeded in expressing their meaningproperly etc, in regard to these “rules”, which as we say,can be heard to be broken every day, EFL teachers neednot concern themselves unduly if they find themselvesbaffled in their natural desire to understand what broughtabout such infringements. On the other hand they shouldnot neglect to inform their more advanced students of thespoken language of the existence of these overwhelminglyoften firmly followed patterns of behaviour to be found inall the principle varieties of spoken English employed byeducated users.

(15) Finally, there are plenty of expressions in English thatcontain accentuations which can hardly be explained onlogical principles – what we are obliged to termas accentuationidioms. Among the many examples onecould quote are the following: It’s none of your `business,That’s all there is `to it, Think nothingòf it etc. These areonly in a limited sense idioms because they can usually beattributed to the speaker’s reacting not to a verbalformulation by the interlocutor but to something that thespeaker perceives as indicated or adumbrated by the otherperson. The word doubt may not have been used by a



speaker but what has been said may be taken asexpressing dou't in our example above. As we've said, aspeaker may avoid accentuation of the word laugh notbecause that word has occurred in the exchange butbecause the interlocutor has laughed or even smiled (whenwe have exaggeration by the speaker) eg in thesentence It’s ˈno laughing `matter.There are some othercases for which it's difficult to perceive a logicalexplanation. For example, despite the usual powerfulfeeling the speaker has that a contrast must behighlighted, it is still idiomatic to stress eyes in the backof one's `headwith no stress on back. As far as the EFLuser is concerned, it's advisable not to worry about suchitems but to take them to be idioms. Getting them "wrong"is in any case usually of very little consequence.

Despite our insistence that it's very possible for re-accenting of re-occurrences to sound very strange to theears of native English speaking people, almost any day onemay come across what can only be described ascompletely unaccountable breaches of the 'rule' — in factperhaps as often as in ten percent of situations where onewould expect it to be complied with. For a blatantexample, I dont think that it was bad acting or laxity ofdirection that could be ascribed to the fact that the hugelysuccessful actor James Stewart in the amazingly popular1958 Hitchcock film Vertigo answers his girl friend whosays Come on! `Tell. withThere's nothing to`tell. Unconvincing tho it may seem, the only suggestionone can think of to explain such apparently 'unnatural'linguistic behaviour is that it reflects some degree ofinattention to or alienation from the topic of herutterance.

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Accentuation