Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of Englishand American Studies

English Language and Literature

Marek Bedn

Stress Patterns in English and Czech: The Systems, the Conflicts and their Impact on Second Language EducationBachelors Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: PhDr. Kateina Tomkov, Ph.D.

2012

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

Authors signature

Acknowledgement:

I would like to thank my supervisor PhDr. Kateina Tomkov, Ph.D. for her encouragement and valuable advice and help.

Table of Contents5Introduction

1. What are Stress Patterns?72. Notation93. English Stress System103.1 Influence of Suffixes153.2 Influence of Prefixes173.3 Stress in Compounds193.4 Rhythm and Stress-Timing233.5 Presence v. Absence of Stress and Influence on Vowel Quality254. Czech Stress System and its Conflicts with English305. Grammar School Survey Analysis336. Conclusion41Works Cited43Appendix 144Resum45

IntroductionThe main purpose of this thesis is to explore the topic of similarities and conflicts between the English and Czech stress system and examining the impact of these on the second language education. The issue of stress patterns and its importance will be first described on a theoretical level, before proceeding to the practical section of the thesis testing via recordings how or whether secondary school students recognize stress in a spoken text and are able to identify stressing mistakes.It is the authors goal to prove that the importance of adhering to correct stress patterns should not be underestimated and should even be one of the main focuses of second language teaching and learning. In second language education, especially on primary and secondary schools, the emphasis is oftentimes placed on the correct pronunciation of words and syllables, and the issue of correct stress placement within the word or within the sentence is largely ignored. The primary purpose of second language education is, naturally, enabling the student to successfully communicate in a foreign language. To this end, students of foreign languages are taught grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation as these are seen as the main contributors to the students ability to communicate intelligibly. The author, however, argues that correct stress placement plays a vital role in speakers intelligibility, and that mastering English stress patterns and eliminating incorrect stress placements taken from the mother tongue should be among the primary goals of second language learning. In his research the author made use of books dealing with theoretical aspects of stress patterns in both of the chosen languages and has also conducted a survey with students of English an unnamed secondary school. The results of the survey will subsequently be analyzed in the practical section of the thesis to see how well students recognize English stress and whether the current teaching system provides sufficient background in this area of English language.

As the theoretical background for this work, Erik Fudges English word-stress (1984) and Roger Kingdons The groundwork of English stress (1958) will be used as the principal sources as the The groundwork of English stress is suitable for the lay person and thus quite useful for the majority of the cases covered in my work. Though it does provide valuable explanations of phonetic issues, as well as definitions of various phonetic terms, its main worth lies in its coverage of theoretical cases one might encounter and complete listing of all possible stress patterns. English word-stress (1984), which builds on Kingdons work to a certain extent, functions perfectly as a background for studies on tone, intonation, stress and pitch, provides explanations of the rules of stress placement and sufficient examples, and is therefore suitable for a student wanting to venture into the area of phonetics for the first time. Due to its all-encompassing, detailed and methodical approach, the majority of the theoretical section of this thesis will be focused on introducing Fudges system to the reader. However, this system will not be introduced in its entirety; emphasis will be put on transparent categorization and rule sets, readability, and logical arrangement. Minor simplifications or omissions of the more peripheral cases will be introduced only where necessary for better understandability to the reader.

1. What are Stress Patterns?

Before we can delve into the field of stress patterns in English and Czech, it is first important to define what stress patterns and stress itself actually are. By Kingdons (1958) definition, stress is the relative degree of force used by a speaker on the various syllables he is uttering. It gives a certain basic prominence to the syllables, and hence to the words, on which it is used, and incidentally assists in avoiding monotony. (p. 1) We differentiate two types of stress: word stress and sentence stress. Word stress, as the name suggests, is the placement of stress on certain syllables within a given word. Some words have no word stress (mostly in the case of monosyllabic words) while others have multiple stresses, with varying degrees of strength. Sentence stress on the other hand is the placement of stress on certain words within a sentence. It does not necessarily have to coincide with word stress; indeed some monosyllabic words may bear sentence stress if they are sufficiently important within the sentence while some words with multiple syllables may be unstressed if they are quite unimportant within the context of the sentence. Sentence stress mostly denotes emphasis and importance: new or more important information within a sentence will generally bear stronger stress than information that has already been mentioned in a previous sentence. Stress itself comes naturally with speech. Native speakers acquire stress placement habits during childhood, as it is one of the basic features of any given language. Small children already have such mastery of correct stress placement that they can shift the sentence stress from one word to another in order to emphasize what they are trying to say. In sentence I want that cake, an extremely desperate or demanding child will most likely strongly emphasize the word want within the sentence to signify how powerful the urge to acquire the abovementioned pastry really is. Since stress is such a natural feature of speech, acquired in the first years of ones life, it comes as very unnatural and confusing to a native speaker to hear someone misplace stress when speaking the language. Stress is just as basic a feature of speech as correct pronunciation, pauses, intonation etc. and can therefore greatly hinder ones ability to be understood. Kingdon (1958) illustrates this perfectly on the case of a German-speaking student who, due to incorrect stressing, repeatedly received a train ticket to Kensington even though he wanted to buy one to Camden Town (p. xi). In this case, the student incorrectly pronounced the place name as single stressed, thus reducing the prominence of the word Town sufficiently for the hearer to perceive it as ton.2. Notation

Naturally, linguists all over the world wishing to study language from the phonetic perspective required to develop their own system of notation to transcribe words, denote rising and falling tones and mark varying degrees of stress within words and sentences. While Kingdon and Fudge differ in terminology, they both use three basic stress marks to indicate the placement of stress within a word, all of which are placed before the syllable they indicate as bearing the given stress: ` which Kingdon (1958) calls the Kinetic Tone Mark (p. 4) indicates the placement of the primary/main, i.e. the strongest stress in a word, as can be seen for example in a`bout, `current or con`tribute. which Kingdon (1958) calls the High Level Tone Mark (p. 4) represents the secondary stresses within a word. There may be multiple instances of these within a word, but they always must come before the primary stress as can be seen in encyclo`paedia or un`ethical. Lastly there is the symbol Low Level Tone Mark in Kingdon (1958, p. 5) which indicates other syllables with a certain degree of prominence. These do not stand out in the word, but usually can be recognized by the fact that they do not undergo vowel reduction. This can often be used to differentiate between words which, if the reduction occurred, would be impossible to distinguish in speech (e.g. `exorcise compared to `exercise).3. English Stress System

The issue of stress patterns, that is, the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in the given word and the types of stresses used, in English is unfortunately extremely complicated. Kingdon (1958) himself admits that the field of English word stress is practically unexplored due to the fact that many believe it follows no rules whatsoever (p. xi). This is caused mainly by the fact that the English vocabulary has been taken and combined from Germanic and Romanic sources (Kingdon, 1958, p. 12). Regretfully for the English language, Germanic languages have the tendency to place stress on the earlier syllables of a word, whereas Romanic languages gravitate towards later word stress. Thus English stress is being etymologically pulled in two different directions, tending towards having some sort of full stress on one of the initial syllables while also being strongly influenced by presence of various suffixes. While in English the alignment of word stress within a given word is usually constant, the rules that the placement of word stress follows are highly complex as a result of the languages mixed origin and are consequently difficult to understand for an English learner (contrasting for example with Czech, Hungarian, Polish or Welsh, where the stress is placed on a fixed syllable). Due to this complex and confusing system, English second language teaching on primary and secondary schools only rarely focuses on the correct placement of stresses, since it would generally mean that the students would have to memorize the stress placement for each individual word without being told why it is placed the way it is. Emphasis is thus put on the correct pronunciation of words, with the hope that stress placement will be acquired with frequent use of the word in listening exercises and conversations.

Because of the complexity of word stress placement patterns, there have been various approaches to the explanation of the issue by various scholars. While Kingdon (1958) approaches the issue more from a case-to-case point of view, and describes in-depth the influence compounds, various prefixes and suffixes etc. on the placement of stress, Chomsky and Halle (1968) reject his suffix-based explanation as unnecessary and take a more general approach, deriving the placement of word stresses by the segmental makeup of a word (division into clusters beginning with a vowel and ending before the next vowel, differentiation of tense and lax vowels) as well as its internal structure, i.e. whether a word can be divided into smaller parts and what relations hold between these. They develop a cyclical principle, where certain rules apply in certain order first to the word root and then to the next larger constituent until the cycle arrives at the end of the word. Thus in the word theatricality, the primary stress is first applied to the first syllable of `theatre, then to the`atrical, placing the primary stress on the antepenultimate syllable and reducing the other stresses by one degree and finally to the antepenultimate syllable of theatri`cality, again reducing the other stresses by one degree. Fudges approach (1984), the approach which will be explained in greater detail in this chapter and its subchapters, takes a bit of both systems. While it modifies Chomsky and Halles (1968) concept of tense and lax vowels, instead applying the concept of strong and weak syllables, it rejects their cyclic principle and accepts Kingdons (1958) suffix-based approach and his explanation of stress placement in compound words. It is important to emphasize, however, that few of the rules introduced in this thesis and in Fudges, or indeed any stress system are absolute: to most of them, there exists a number of exception which will not be covered in this thesis due to the fact that, as exceptions tend to, they cannot be systemized and must be learned one by one.

In the system described by Fudge (1984), the basic thing necessary to determine the placement of stress within a word in Fudges system is to first find the stressable portion (SP) of the word. The SP is what is left of the word once certain stress-neutral suffixes and prefixes (i.e. suffixes and prefixes which do not influence stress placement) have been removed from it. These suffixes include all inflectional suffixes i.e. plural form suffixes -s or -es and possessive forms -s in nouns, comparative -er and superlative -est in adjectives, 3rd person singular -s, -es, past tense/participle -ed, past participle -en and present participle/gerund -ing forms in verbs. In addition to these, forty-eight derivational suffixes are also excluded from the SP. Twenty of these, however, are so called mixed suffixes (marked (m) in the list below) meaning they can fall into different suffix categories in regards to stress placement depending on the types of words they appear in. It is also important to note that certain suffixes, while similar in form, may have differing meanings and therefore fall into different categories. These shall be further specified in parenthesis. The complete list of stress-neutral suffixes is as follows:

-able (m), -acy (m), -age (m), -al (stress-neutral in noun-forming use, e.g. peruse - perusal), -ance (m), -ant (m) (noun-forming use; is stress-neutral only when coupled with a free stem i.e. a stem that can stand by itself e.g. account - accountant), -ary (m), -ce, -cy, -dom, -en, -er (m) (agent-noun-forming use; stress-neutral when coupled with a free stem e.g. fly - flyer), -er (abstract-noun-forming use e.g. disclaim - disclaimer), -ery (m), -ess, -ful, -hood, -ier (m), -iour, -ise (verb-forming use, e.g. energy - energise)/-ize (m), -ish, -ism (m), -ist (m), -ite (m) (noun-forming use in words meaning native of x or supporter of x; stress-neutral only when coupled with free stems e.g. Jacob - Jacobite), -less, -let, -ly, -ment (m), -ness (abstract-noun-forming use; stress-neutral only when coupled with free stem, e.g. ugly - ugliness), -or (m) (agent-noun-forming use; stress-neutral only when coupled with free stem e.g. confess - confessor), -ory (m), -ous (m), -ry, -s,-some, -t (m), -th, -ty, -ure (m), -ward, -ways, -wise, -y (adjective-forming use, e.g. rain - rainy), -y (m) (noun-forming use; stress-neutral only when coupled with a non-compound free stem e.g. baker - bakery).Also a number of derivational prefixes is excluded from the stressable portion, most notably negative prefixes a-, an-, il-, im-, in-, ir- and un-, as well as the locative prefix a- (e.g. abroad, astray), reversive prefix dis- and causative prefixes em- and en-. Completing the list are prefixes be- (e.g. belittle), co-, de-, ex-, mal-, mis- and re-. Thus if we were to strip the word unfavourably, singing or friendliness to their SPs, we would get favourab, sing and friend. If a words SP is monosyllabic, the single syllable bears the stress. Thus the stress in the word sing, singing or any other of its forms is always on the first syllable (`singing) just as it is in the word `friend, `friendly, `friendliness etc. (thus, due to the lack of stress the vowel in the suffix ness is always reduced to ).If the SP is polysyllabic but contains no prefixes or suffixes, main stress will be placed as follows:

1) if the SP is disyllabic, stress is usually penultimate (`favour)

2) if the SP is trisyllabic or longer, its stress is either penultimate or antepenultimate following these rules:

1. if the final syllable is strong, stress falls two syllables back from it, i.e. three syllables from the end of the SP of the word (e.g. `asterisk)2. if the final syllable is weak then:

a. if the penultimate syllable is strong, it is stressed

b. if the penultimate syllable is weak, then the syllable before it is stressed

Points 2.1 and 2.2 deserve further explanation. For a student to be able to distinguish between weak and strong syllables, they must first understand the structure of a syllable. A syllable generally consists of a vowel portion called the peak of the syllable. This portion may sometimes be occupied by a consonant instead of a vowel, most commonly by a nasal such as m or n (as in sudden, where the e is usually not pronounced in the second syllable [s.dn]) or a liquid such as l or r. Often this missing vowel is present in the spelling of the word and for phonological purposes it is best to treat the syllable as if it contained the vowel. Before the peak, there is a string of consonants within the syllable called the onset. This may include anything from zero (e.g. ice) to three members (strength) in English. After the peak, there is again a string of consonants called the coda of the syllable which in English may contain zero to four consonants. It is important to note that the boundaries of syllables do not necessarily have to represent the boundaries of words (e.g. at all is phonetically transcribed as a single word: [.t:l]). Using the abovementioned terminology, a weak syllable is defined as a syllable with a short vowel in its peak and no coda or in case of word-final syllables a coda consisting of up to consonants. All other syllables are strong, i.e. syllables which contain a long vowel in the peak, or syllables with a short vowel peak but a coda of at least one consonant in non-word-final syllables, or a coda of two or more consonants in case of word-final syllables. It is important to emphasize that these distinctions are made on the basis of phonemic representation. Therefore for example combinations of two letters which represent single sounds such as ck in lock count as single consonants for the purpose of determining syllable strength. Of course, there are exceptions such as the consonant combination ng which always counts as two consonants, or r which counts as a consonant even though it may not be pronounced as one.

Using the abovementioned rules, let us now analyze the word cranberry as an example: the SP of the word is trisyllabic [krn.b.r], thus it falls under the rule 2. The final syllable of the word is weak because it includes a short vowel in its peak and has an empty coda, thus it falls under the rule 2.2. Its penultimate syllable is also weak since it contains a short vowel (shwa) in its peak and has an empty coda, thus it falls under the rule 2.2.a and it will bear antepenultimate stress: `cranberry.In longer words, some of the syllables preceding the one with main stress can be more prominent than neighbouring syllables (same is not the case with syllables after the main stress). These carry the secondary stress within a word. If there is only one syllable before the one bearing main stress, there will be no secondary stress within the word as in be`fore. If there are two syllables before the one with main stress, the secondary stress is always placed onto the first one. In case there are three or more syllables before the one which bears main stress, then the syllable quality must be taken into consideration. If there is a strong syllable two syllables back from the syllable with main stress, it takes secondary stress. If the syllable two syllables back from main stress is weak, then the syllable before it takes secondary stress.

3.1 Influence of Suffixes

The presence of suffixes can unfortunately complicate this otherwise quite straightforward system. If a words SP contains one or more suffixes, the last suffix determines how the main stress is placed. If the SP contains two or more suffixes, the suffix before the last one often influences the placement of secondary stress, though not always (this depends on the combination of suffixes used).

From the perspective of stress placement, suffixes can be divided into three groups: stress-neutral, autostressed and pre-stressed. The stress-neutral suffixes do not affect the placement of stress, and are usually disregarded in determining the SP of a word. (For a full list of these see page 12.) The autostressed suffixes alter the stressing of the word by placing the main stress onto the syllable they appear in. Therefore while the word `million bears initial stress, the word millio`naire bears final stress since the suffix aire moves the main stress onto itself. The stress on the first syllable is reduced to secondary. The complete list of autostressed suffixes and endings consists of the following 28 members: -ade, -aire, -aise, -ate (m) (verb-forming use; autostressed only in disyllabic SPs e.g. create, elate), -ee (m), -een, -eer, -elle, -enne, -esce, -ese, -esque, -esse, -et (m), -ette, -eur, -ier (m), -ine (only autostressed as a noun-forming ending pronounced [-i:n] e.g. magazine), -ique, -ise (noun-forming use pronounced [-i:z] e.g. expertise), -ite (m) (verb-forming use; autostressed only in words of two syllables, e.g. unite), -ment (m), -ness (in place names, meaning cape e.g. Inverness), -oo, -oon, -ose (m), -otte (m), teen.Finally, the pre-stressed suffixes are by far the largest group of suffixes. These, as the name suggests, alter the stress by placing it a certain number of syllables back from the syllable these suffixes appear in. These can be further subdivided as follows:Pre-stressed 1 suffixes are suffixes which cause the stress to fall on the syllable immediately preceding them. This group is quite small, containing only eight suffixes: -erie, -ic, -id, -ion, -ish (m), -itory, -ity/-ety, -uble.

Pre-stressed 2 suffixes are suffixes which cause the stress to fall two syllables before the syllable containing the suffix: -able (m), -acy (m), -ast, -ate (m) (verb-forming use; pre-stressed 2 in words of three or more syllables), -ate (noun-forming use in chemical terms such as hydrate), -cide, -ene, -er (m) (agent-noun-forming use; pre-stressed 2 only if the stem is not free e.g. astronomer), -fy, -gon, -ine (noun-forming ending pronounced [-an] e.g. turpentine), -ise/-ize (m), -ism (m), -ist (m), -ite (m), -ite (m) (noun-forming use in words meaning native of X or supporter of X; only pre-stressed 2 if the stem is not a free form e.g. Muscovite), -ite (noun-forming use in chemical terms pronounced [-at] such as in anthracite or graphite), -ment (m), -oir (m), -ose (m), -tude, -y (m) (noun-forming use; pre-stressed 2 only if the stem is not a free form or if it is a compound with a weak penultimate syllable e.g. apathy or geometry).Finally, there is a large group of so called pre-stressed 1/2 suffixes which place stress by principles similar to those for SPs of three or more syllables ending with a weak syllable:

1) if the syllable before the one containing the suffix is strong, it is stressed

2) if the syllable before the one containing the suffix is weak, then the syllable before it is stressed

This group contains the following 36 suffixes: -ad, -age (m), -al (adjective-forming use), -an, -ance (m), -ant (adjective-forming use), -ant (noun-forming use; pre-stressed 1/2 only when the stem is not free e.g. adjutant) (m), -ar, -ary (m), -ate (noun- or adjective-forming use, usually pronounced [t]; e.g. climate), -ative, -ature, -ee (m), -e, -ence, -ent, -ery (m), -ible, -ide, -ile, -ine (adjective-forming use, pronounced [-an]; e.g. alkaline), -ine (chemical-noun-forming use, pronounced [-i:n] e.g. morphine), -ine (adjective-, noun-, or verb-forming ending pronounced [-n], e.g. clandestine, discipline), -is, -ive, -oid, -on, -or (agent-noun-forming use; only pre-stressed 1/2 if the stem is not a free form, e.g. ambassador) (m), -or (abstract-noun-forming use e.g. stupor), -or (adjective-forming use e.g. superior), -ory, -our, -ous (m), -um, -ure (m), -us.

3.2 Influence of Prefixes

As mentioned before, some, quite productive, prefixes do not influence the placement of stress and are automatically excluded from the words SP (for a full list see page 12). These are the so called stress-neutral prefixes. The important thing to note is that although these prefixes may not influence the placement of stress, it does not mean that they cannot be stressed in certain circumstances. For example, if the prefixes are used contrastively (I bet all my money on that driver and he lost! And its your fault. I said his success was highly UNlikely, not likely!) they can bear main stress. Also, since these prefixes are removed from the SP of a word before stress placement is determined, they do not count towards the syllables of the word as far as stress placement is concerned. Therefore, even though the word improper is trisyllabic and with the last two syllables being weak should bear antepenultimate stress (`improper), due to the fact that the stress-neutral prefixes are removed from the SP, the word is treated as disyllabic and receives penultimate stress instead (im`proper).

However, there is also another group of prefixes called the stress-repellent prefixes. As the name suggests, these prefixes resist the stress being placed on them, instead they move the stress onto the syllable after the one the prefix appears in; however, it is important to emphasize that they reject only stress placed on them by the basic rules explained on page 13. If an SP of a word contains suffixes and its stress pattern is thus influenced by their presence, the stress-repellence of the prefix is negated. The stress-repellent prefixes can usually be differentiated from stress-neutral prefixes by the fact that they usually appear with bound stems and are less likely to have a constant meaning in all words they appear in (while for example the stress-neutral prefix un- always negates the meaning of the stem, while the prefix com- in compromise or command does not have a fixed meaning). There is generally speaking no need for a list of stress-repellent prefixes, as stress-repellence and stress-neutrality are the only possible relations prefixes can have towards stress. Therefore, if a prefix is not included among stress-neutral prefixes, it is automatically stress-repellent.

Some prefixes behave differently in regards to stress placement depending on whether they appear in a noun or a verb. For example, in the noun increase, the prefix in- is not stress-repellent, the word bears penultimate stress and is pronounced `nki:s while in the verb, the prefix is stress-repellent and the word is final stressed (n`ki:s). Usually prefixes which form a weak syllable are stress repellent in both verbs and nouns; however there is a number of exceptions to this principle as can be seen in the example of re- in the noun-verb pair refuse (`refuse in noun but re`fuse in verb form). However, invariably, if the stem bears the stress in the noun, it will always bear stress in the verb as well (e.g. de`mand). In adjective-verb pairs, the prefixes in most cases behave the way they do in nouns as can be seen in e.g. ab`stract (verb) - `abstract (adjective, noun).3.3 Stress in Compounds

So far, we have mainly dealt with words in isolation and described how stress is placed depending on the properties of a word. However, connected speech does not consist of individual words, but rather uses larger units. While stress within individual words behaves in a certain way and is regulated by certain rules, the issue becomes more complicated when words are put next to each other as is the case with compounds.

While compounds can, technically speaking, be taken as two words (e.g. ice cream), they in many ways act as a single word not only semantically but also accentually. In English it can generally be said that words tend to have main stress on one of the first two syllables (mostly antepenultimate or penultimate stress, rather than final stress). Thus, since compounds behave as a single word, they tend to bear primary stress on one of their initial two syllables as well i.e. within the compounds first component (so called compound initial). However, since a word can not bear more than one primary stress, the compound initial tends to bear the primary stress while the second member does not (`ice cream). Same remains true if the compound becomes even more complex (such as ice cream cone), that is, the primary stress will still remain within the initial member of the compound. Note, however, that while the initial member of a compound is the most prominent due to its stress, it is not the most prominent from the semantic point of view. While the word floorboard does bear primary stress, it is a type of board, not a certain kind of floor, just as ice cream cone is a kind of cone, not a kind of ice cream.

Not all words put next to each other are compounds however. Though they both may signify a single object, a distinction must be made between a compound and a phrase. Generally speaking, the relationship between words in a phrase is much looser than that between words in a compound. The individual words of a phrase can quite easily be modified and extended as can be for example seen in the noun phrase black board (i.e. a board which is black). There can be a pitch-black board; there can be a very big, black, broad board, while there can hardly be a very `blackboard (i.e. a board for writing on with chalk). Thus phrases are not treated as a single word but rather as a sequence of multiple individual words and tend to bear primary stress within their last component (black `board).

Unfortunately the distinction between compounds and phrases is sometimes not as clear as one might hope. There exists a number of constructions which take phrasal stress patterns while being almost, or indeed completely, indistinguishable syntactically from compounds. While Christmas cake takes on the usual compound stress pattern (`Christmas cake), Christmas `pie or Christmas `pudding are stressed as if they were a noun phrase, even though there is syntactically no difference between the three. Similarly, while proper names containing the words gate or Street (such as `London Street) take stress on the compound initial, combinations with other words of the kind (such as Avenue or Road) take final stress as a noun phrase would. It is therefore necessary to draw a certain set of rules when dealing with the issue:1) Noun1 + Noun2 = Noun compounds are in the majority of cases initially stressed. The exceptions to this rule can be categorized into six groups:a. Noun1 is a location (e.g. kitchen `table) or a time/season (e.g. morning `rain)

b. Noun1 is a material which Noun2 is made out of e.g. wooden `plank

c. Noun2 is a geographical term, a type of thoroughfare etc. and Noun1 is the name applied to it (often proper noun) e.g. Ohio `Valley

d. Noun1 and Noun2 are two parts of a proper name of a person, place or thing (e.g. Peter `Parker, Buckingham `Palace)

e. Noun1 specifies the value of Noun2 (e.g. dollar `bill)

f. Noun1 is central from semantic point of view and Noun2 only further specifies it, which is the opposite of a usual noun + noun compound (e.g. Mother `Superior)

2) Adjective + Noun = Noun constructions normally form a noun phrase and are final stressed. If the relationship between the two members is so close as to not allow extension or modification, the unit forms a compound noun with initial stress. This happens if the compound signifies a person or a thing characterized by having (noun) which is (adjective). A model example of this would be a `redskin (a member of a race with red skin = Native American) or a `highbrow (a person with a high brow = intellectual). Alternatively, the same relationship can develop if the compound signifies a person or a thing whose characteristics are specified as or which is metaphorically related to what the adjective + noun phrase signifies, e.g. tightrope (it is a tight rope, however it is a one used specifically for walking in circuses and similar acts).3) Adjective + Noun = Adjective constructions may sometimes form from adjective + noun noun phrases. As an adjective compound, they usually bear initial stress (e.g. `old-time).

4) Noun1 + s + Noun2 = Noun phrases (final stress) can sometimes be transformed into a more close-knit compound noun with initial stress. Usually has metaphorical meaning e.g. `bullseye.5) Numeral + Noun + -er = Noun compounds (e.g. six-shooter) bear final stress.

6) Adjective + Noun + -er = Noun compounds (e.g. `flat-racer) normally bear the same stress as the Adjective + Noun combination would on its own (`flat race). The -er suffix is stress-neutral.

7) Verb + Noun = Noun combinations bear initial stress (e.g. `runway).8) Noun + Verb = Noun combinations bear initial stress (e.g. `sunset)

9) Noun1 + Noun2 + -ed = Adjective compounds are final stressed (e.g. eagle-`eyed)

10) Numeral + Noun + -ed = Adjective compounds are final stressed (two-`headed).

11) Adjective + Noun + -ed = Adjective compounds are final stressed (strong-`willed).

12) Noun + Adjective = Adjective compounds with the meaning (adjective) to the extent of (noun) or as (adjective) as (noun) e.g. blood-`red, dirt `cheap are final stressed; compounds meaning (adjective) with respect to (noun) are initial stressed (e.g. `waterproof, `homesick).13) Noun + Verb + -ed = Adjective compounds are initial stressed (e.g. `hen-pecked, `disease-ridden) except for all compounds with -made and -plated.

14) Noun + Verb = Verb compounds are initial stressed (e.g. `babysit).

15) Noun1 + Noun2 = Verb compounds without a derivational suffix follow the stressing of the original compound noun (e.g. stone`wall).

16) Adverb + Verb = Verb compounds are final stressed (e.g. cross-`reference).

17) Perposition + Noun = Adverb compounds are final stressed (e.g. over`board).

18) Preposition + Noun = Adjective compounds derived from the type 17 compounds above are initial stressed (`downstream).19) Verb + Particle = Noun compounds bear initial stress (`setback).

20) Particle + Verb = Noun compounds bear initial stress (`uprise).

21) Partice/Adverb + Verb + -er = Noun compounds are initial stressed (`outrunner).

22) Noun + like = Adjective compounds are initial stressed (`ladylike).

3.4 Rhythm and Stress-Timing

Moving further upwards from the level of words and compounds, we arrive at the sentence/utterance level of the language. Phonetically, the boundaries of individual words may disappear as they are chained together in a rapid succession of syllables. Within this stream of syllables, the most semantically important words stand out the most (bear sentence stress) by virtue of the syllables bearing primary stress within the given word becoming more prominent than those within words which do not bear sentence stress. Or rather, the stressed syllables of less important words become less prominent or reduced in comparison to those of the important words. Thus in a sentence I have not played the guitar this week, depending on the context, any one of the words I, not, played, guitar, this or week can bear primary sentence stress if the circumstances permit it. Words which would not usually bear stress individually (mostly monosyllabic prepositions, conjunctions, particles (except in phrasal verbs), forms of the verb to be, pronouns and other function words) can bear sentence stress in the correct context (Im sure he `was a soldier but he is not anymore) while monosyllabic words which would bear multiple stresses of varying strength can be so reduced in prominence that their primary stress can reach the strength of another words secondary or low level stress. (Kingdon, 1958, p. 1)

The stretches between the most prominent stresses within a sentence are called stress groups (Fudge, 1984, p. 1) or phonetic words. When analyzing an English sentence in this manner, there is a noticeable tendency for these strong stresses of an utterance to occur at more or less predictable and regular periods of time, producing a rhythm. The prominent syllables within a sentence tend to be prolonged, while the less prominent syllables tend to be shortened and reduced, one being followed by another in a very rapid succession in spoken language. Thus while the word him is in isolation pronounced hm, in a sentence in which it does not bear special importance, it will be pronounced as m due to lack of stress.

The tendency described above makes English one of the stress-timed languages (such as German or Swedish), since stresses within a sentence occur at approximately equal intervals of time. Naturally, the English rhythm must not be taken literally, as the regularity of intervals between stressed syllables is only approximate and relative (Roach, 1992, p. 120). This stands in contrast to the so called syllable-timed languages such as French, Finnish, Vietnamese or Czech, which instead of basing their timing on stress put emphasis on having individual syllables occur at approximately even periods of time. Consequently, this stress-timing tendency makes the already complex studies of stress even more puzzling, since though words individually do bear stress on always the same syllable (except for contrastive or otherwise emphatic context) when put together in a sentence their stresses may change not only depending on their importance but also depending on their surroundings. Due to the fact that English is a stress-timed language, there is a tendency for strong stresses not to occur on adjacent syllables but rather be separated by at least one unstressed syllable. This causes various stress shifts within the spoken language. For example, while the word nineteen bears main stress on the second syllable (nine`teen), in the phrase nineteen feet the word bears stress on its first syllable (`nineteen `feet) since stressing the second syllable would cause the two strong stresses to neighbour each other. This phenomenon can quite often be observed on the case of final stressed compounds used as adjectives before a noun (e.g. blood-`red v. `blood-red `wine).3.5 Presence v. Absence of Stress and Influence on Vowel QualitySo far we have dealt in depth with the complexities of where stress is placed within a word and what determines its placement. However, the absence of stress can have as much impact on the pronunciation of a word or indeed the meaning of a phrase/sentence as can its presence. In a strongly stressed language like English, vowel quality is so frequently influenced by the presence or absence of stress, wrong stressing disguises words far more effectively than does wrong intonation. (Kingdon, 1958, p. xi) In Fudges (1984) system this is best explained on the example of three related words: explain, explanatory and explanation (p. 193). When pronouncing these three words, we immediately notice that the vowel of the root is pronounced differently in each case. In explain and explanatory, it is pronounced as a full vowel (e and respectively) while in explanation, the only one of the three words where main stress does not fall on the syllable pla-/-plai-, the syllable is pronounced as reduced (). Also, among the full vowels, explain is pronounced with a long vowel, while explanatory with a short one. Similarly we can observe a difference in pronunciation of the prefix ex-: in explain and explanatory, the vowel is pronounced as reduced () since secondary stress does not fall on it due to the fact that the following syllable bears main stress; as said before, due to the rhythmic nature of English language, strong stresses do not occur next to each other. On the other hand, in explanation, the main stress is placed on the syllable na- (expla`nation), allowing for the secondary stress to appear on the prefix, giving it the pronunciation with a full vowel [e].

From this example alone it is quite apparent that the absence or presence of strong stress (main or secondary) greatly influences vowel quality: in the absence of stress, vowels are reduced; in its presence, they are pronounced as full. In some cases (Fudge, 1984, p. 193), vowel length is sufficient to prevent reduction regardless of the assignment of secondary stress as can be seen in the verb advocate (pronounced `dvket). For these reasons, the low level stress mark is introduced into the English stress system to indicate vowels which, though not bearing a strong stress, are prominent enough (by virtue of their length etc.) to avoid reduction (thus the word is correctly transcribed as `dvket). Though this mark is most commonly used to indicate non-reduced syllables after the main stress, it can generally be assigned to vowels which are not strongly stressed but do not undergo reduction regardless of their position (e.g. rela`xation). There are several conditions which prevent syllables from being reduced regardless of the placement of strong stresses within the word:1) Reduction would cause the distinction between a pair of words disappear.In this case, reduction may be prevented in one or both of the words. For example if the verbs exercise and exorcise would undergo stressing and reduction by the rules explained, both would be pronounced the same. However, instead the vowel of the second syllable does not undergo reduction and the distinction between the words is preserved. Generally it can be said that the less used word of the two is protected from reduction while the other is reduced as usual by the rules. However, this condition is not entirely regular, as some word pairs are pronounced the same regardless (e.g. the adjective dependent and the noun dependant).2) First syllable of a word is strong.In most varieties of English this rule does not apply to stress-repellent prefixes even if they form a strong syllable. Monosyllabic stress-neutral prefixes, however, do fall under this rule and are not reduced. Though this rule might appear quite simple and clear, difficulties arise in cases where syllable boundaries are not entirely obvious. If a short vowel is followed by an s plus one or two consonants, the boundary may fall either before the s or after it, producing a weak initial syllable in one case and strong in the other. For example in the word prospective, the syllables are divided as pro.spec.tive, the initial syllable is weak and undergoes reduction (prspektv) while in prosperity the division stands as pros.pe.ri.ty, the initial syllable is protected from reducing and is pronounced with a full vowel (prspert).3) If stress-shift occurs in the noun of a noun-verb pair. The root syllable normally does not reduce in this case as described in (chapter 4.2)4) A short vowel is followed by a consonant or consonant cluster of a certain type. Mostly, unstressed short vowels reduce in open syllables (syllables with an empty coda) and in syllables ending with m, dental or alveolar consonants and in certain consonant clusters. However, in other types of syllables, unstressed short vowels maintain full quality unless the preceding syllable is weak and stressed. Thus, for example, the unstressed final syllable of syllabub is pronounced with a full vowel since the short vowel is followed by a b which is a bilabial consonant, not a dental or alveolar one. Nevertheless in cherub, the final vowel of the final syllable is reduced to since it is preceded by a weak stressed syllable.Returning to the initial example of explain, explanatory and explanation, attention was drawn to the fact that in explain and explanatory, though the first syllable of the root was stressed in both cases, they differ in length. While the etymological basis among these words, explain, contains a long vowel in its root (e), its derivate, explanatory, contains a short one (). The process occurring in this case is known as trisyllabic shortening. The only thing necessary to take into account when dealing with trisyllabic shortening is the final three syllables of the SP of the word. As long as the antepenultimate syllable is stressed with empty coda, the penultimate syllable unstressed with empty coda and the penultimate and the final syllable have at least one consonant in their onset, the vowel of the antepenultimate syllable will be shortened. Thus when the suffix atory is added to the word explain, the antepenultimate syllable (-na-) will be stressed with empty coda, (-to-) unstressed with empty coda and (-ry) will have one consonant in its onset, fulfilling the conditions for trisyllabic shortening and thus transforming the vowel of the penultimate syllable. A similar phenomenon occurs when the final syllable does not contain a consonant in its onset, however, it is only limited to the vowels i and y. All other vowels in this context lengthen instead (vowel lengthening rule number 2).Secondly, certain suffixes, when added to a word with long vowel in its final syllable cause the vowel to be shortened: -ative, -atory, -(e)fy, -(i)fy, -ic, -ical, -ics, -itive, -ity, -tude, -ual, -uant, -uate, -uous. Addition of several of these suffixes in fact fulfils the conditions for trisyllabic shortening, while in others, shortening happens by virtue of the suffix accentual properties. However, though trisyllabic shortening does not appear exclusively in suffix derivates, it is oftentimes faster to analyze a word by its suffix and stem, rather than investigate the conditions for trisyllabic shortening.On opposite process may also take place in English. A vowel will be lengthened in these cases:

1) A stressed vowel precedes another vowel. For example in a word like chaos, the vowel of the second syllable is pronounced as long since the vowel before it is stressed.

2) The antepenultimate syllable is stressed with empty coda, the penultimate syllable unstressed with empty coda and at least one consonant in its onset and the final syllable contains no consonant in its onset. All vowels except for i and y are lengthened in this context.3) Vowels o and u are always long when word-final (e.g. stereo, hero).

4) If the initial open syllable (syllable with empty coda) of a disyllabic word is stressed, its vowel will be lengthened (e.g. China).

4. Czech Stress System and its Conflicts with English

Having described in depth the stress system of English, we can now proceed to the description of Czech stress patterns. As discussed in chapter 4.4 Czech belongs among the languages with stress on a fixed syllable and thus its stress system is rather straightforward: except for certain words which do not bear stress (prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs etc.), all Czech words bear stress on their first syllable (Palkov, 1994, p. 157). Thus understanding the Czech system is quite simple, as stress does not have to be learned as the property of a given new word or determined by a complex system of stress described in the previous chapter and its subchapters. Furthermore, Czech differs from English in that it is not a stress-timed language but a syllable-timed one, meaning that the intervals between two strong stresses are irregular and their length is determined by the number syllables standing in between. While English has the tendency to elongate the stressed syllables and speed up the flow of syllables in case of a large number of unstressed syllables occurring one after another, Czech syllables tend to have approximately the same duration regardless of stress placement.

These fundamental differences between the two languages make acquiring the habits of correct stress placement in English an especially daunting task for a Czech native speaker, though the acquisition of correct stress placement in Czech for an English speaker poses a similar, though not quite as serious a problem; stress in Czech does not influence the quality of vowels due to the fact that it is always in the same place, thus the incorrect stressing in a word such as saying Pardu`bice instead of `Pardubice has little effect on its pronunciation and understandability. The occurrence of the strongest stress at the beginning of a word is not a phenomenon appearing very commonly in English, thus making for only a minimal overlap between the two languages. When we analyze Kingdons (1958) list of possible stress patterns within words in English (p. 15) we will notice that of the nineteen stress patterns listed (monosyllabic words notwithstanding) only four carry the strongest stress on the initial syllable. Moreover, only in disyllabic and trisyllabic words are these a common occurrence; in words of four or five syllables, primary stress on the initial syllable is not very frequent when compared with the other possible stress patterns.

This leads to major problems with not only acquiring correct stress placement habits for students of English (especially those whose mother tongue is as different from English in its stress system as is for example Czech or French) but also results in major issues with understandability. Though Jennifer Jenkins (2001) in her book The Phonology of English as an International Language correctly claims that it is not necessary for a second language learner to sound as a native speaker in order to be understood (p. 126), in the same book and in her article on understandability she then makes the, in the authors opinion, erroneous claim that word stress is not among the features of the English language that the learner needs to acquire in order to be understood (Jenkins, 2009, p. 12). Yet within the so called LFC (Lingua Franca Core), a list of features necessary for intelligibility, she lists vowel length contrasts and nuclear (or tonic) stress production/placement as two of the four main features, disregarding the fact that word stress, as explained in chapter 4.5 greatly influences vowel quality. Furthermore, it is impossible for a student of English to produce the correct nuclear or tonic stress in a word within a sentence unless the speaker has first mastered correct placement of stress within the word. Thus, if the rest of the LFC were to be taken as correct, proper production of word stress is no less than one half of the features necessary for intelligibility.

To support this statement, Hill, Kingdon, Fudge and Tibbitts all make assertions to the same effect. To name a few:

I was therefore led to the conclusion (which is contrary to opinions that have been expressed by some authorities) that a foreigners intelligibility may depend quite as much on correct stressing as on correct intonation. (Kingdon, 1958, xi)Because English rhythm is stress-timed, a wrong stressing will lead to a wrong and misleading rhythm, even if the principle of stress-timing is correctly handled by the speaker. Comprehensibility depends on rhythm, and therefore the placing of stress within words can play a large part in determining how well a native English hearer will understand the foreign speaker. (Fudge, 1984, p. 4)We gather that command of stressing and accentuation is imperative: a command of the usual habits of intonation may be desirable. People can often put up with quirks of human temperament, but both speaker and listener tend to get frustrated, impatient and out of humour if what is uttered cannot be understood. The safer course for foreigners is to concentrate on stress and accentuation patterns rather than intonation, in order to ensure as high a degree of intelligibility as possible. If the rhythm is right, the speaker has a fair chance of using an appropriate intonation. (Tibbitts, 1967, p. 14)

An interesting point made by these authors, as well as mentioned above in relation to the LFC, is the fact that stress is inseparably linked to multiple aspects of the English language. Thus, should a student not master the correct stress placement, the resulting errors will impact not only stressing within words, but also placement of nuclear or tonic stress within a sentence, pronunciation, intonation as well as vowel quality which may result in loss of distinctions between words (e.g. peach/pitch).5. Grammar School Survey Analysis

Since correct stress placement is such a fundamental feature of language, intertwined with most of the basic abilities necessary for a speaker to be understood, and since the main purpose of second language acquisition is to teach the student the ability to communicate in the given language, it should come as self-evident that teaching English stress system to second language students should be one of the main goals. Yet when browsing through frequently used English textbooks such as Headway, Opportunities, Project or Destination, exercises dedicated exclusively to English stress placement are sporadic at best, in fact often missing completely from even the more advanced level books. In the occasional exercises or vocabulary lists with phonetic transcriptions of words, stress marks are generally missing. In other words, the issue of stress is mostly or completely ignored in favour of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, with the hope that stressing habits will be acquired through listening to the teachers speech as well as to recordings provided with the textbooks to the teacher. The question arising is then, whether the Czech system of second language acquisition indeed teaches students how to correctly deal with English stress placement. In order to answer this question, a survey was undertaken on one of the major grammar schools in Brno. The students were presented with two recordings (Appendix 2) of the following text: How I lost my job

My boss invited me to a company skiing trip to the Alps last month. I really dislike him so I didnt want to go, but one of my older colleagues warned me that the boss doesnt like it when people refuse his invitations. In fact, he said, most people who decline his invitation get fired within a year. I took his advice and accepted the offer. After all, I thought, a little exercise wont do me any harm. Also I didnt want such a silly thing to ruin my career. Unfortunately, my decision didnt have the desired effect.

On our way to the chalet, we stopped in a hotel for the night. As it happened, there was a wild party going on and all the guests were invited to join. From what Ive been told, I drank three bottles of wine in record time during the event and got into a horrific argument with the boss. By the end of it, I punched him in the face and ran away. Needless to say, I was fired before I even saw the first sign of snow. The first of the recordings contained a total of ten errors in stress placement: `invited (twice), co`lleagues, `refuse (pronounced efju:s), `advice, `career, `hotel, re`cord (pronounced k:d), `event and `horrific, while the other recording used correct stress. The students were presented with a questionnaire (Appendix 1) containing the full text and a single question: the students task was to recognize which one of the recordings used correct stress. A total of 137 students were presented with the questionnaire, ranging from the first year to fourth year of secondary education. The results were as follows (Table 1):Table 1

Survey Results

ClassCorrect answersIncorrect answersTotal studentsSuccess rate

1.D1692564%

1.C63966.66%

3.C (group 1)

1061662.5%

3.B751258.33%

2.B1792665.38%

4.C1492360.86%

3.A1021283,33%

3.C (group 2)861457.14%

Total884913764.23%

Most of the classes made use of the opportunity to listen to both recordings again before filling in their answers. Also, most of the classes first had to be told what the phrase English stress means, indicating that they have never heard it mentioned in class before, or infrequently enough not to remember. With the exception of class 3.A which overall scored particularly well, classes did not know the correct translation of the term after it was explained to them (most either did not know the translation at all or translated the term as pzvuk, while a much better and accurate translation is draz). Looking at the results we will notice several trends among the classes: 1) With the exception of 3.A only one class scored over 65%, that being the first year class 1.D. Considering the fact that the questionnaire contained only two questions, there was a 50% chance that students choose the correct answer simply by guessing. The total average of the classes surveyed was 64.23%. In theory, if from the 137 students ca 19 could tell the correct answer from the recordings and the remaining 118 were merely guessing, the result would have been the same.2) There is no particular correspondence between the length of study and success rate. Indeed the first year classes scored slightly better than most of their older schoolmates. Regardless of how long the students have been studying English there seems to be no improvement in recognition of stress patterns. Even among the classes which scored relatively well when compared to the other classes, stress recognition seemed to be largely passive, as during the remainder of the lesson, a large number of quite common words such as technology have been pronounced with typically Czech stress (`technology) and have been left uncorrected by the teacher. The length of second language education with the current education system seems to have no effect on the students ability to recognize stress.3) In the case where the advanced and the less advanced groups of students were not examined together (3.C), the less advanced group scored better than the more advanced one. Though this has only been a singular occurrence, it would seem that regardless of whether a particular group of students was deemed inferior in terms of their English language skills or not, there was no correspondence between the success rate and the level of language skills. Though between different classes and different years of study the disparities in language skills could be accounted for simply by the language level at the time of arrival on the grammar school (a group of 1st year students could have had better previous second language education than a group of 3rd year students and are thus slightly more advanced in comparison), one of the groups from the same class was clearly marked as possessing worse language skills than the other, yet the results of the survey do not correspond with this assessment.4) The class of the oldest students (4.C) achieved the 3rd worst score, even though they were told the correct stressing of the word hotel by their teacher before the recordings were played (the only class to be given such an advantage), and regardless of the fact that ten students, i.e. slightly less than half of the class, have been preparing for the English graduation exams for the majority of this school year. Thus it would appear that regardless of the special preparation the students have undergone during their studies for the graduation exams (which by the time the survey was done were only a few weeks away) had no effect on the success rate of the class. Moreover, even though the class was told beforehand which stressing of the word hotel was correct and had therefore only to identify the stressing within this one word in the recordings in order to recognize which one uses correct stress, the success rate of the class did not improve.After the results have been evaluated, 3.A, which did above average when compared to other groups, was further interviewed on their experience with the English language and specifically stress. Though responses could not be obtained from all the students who participated in the survey, feedback was acquired from the majority. All of the students study English ten to eleven years and none of them was exposed to exercises dedicated to stress recognition in a larger scale during their studies; only one of them actually remembers doing an exercise focused on stress. There was, however, a number of factors which could have influenced the students performance: One of the students was born in the United States of America and is a native speaker of English. Two other students spent a week in the United Kingdom. While one of them claimed that the experience had no effect on his ability to speak English, the other emphasized the fact that it was the first time he ever had to communicate with native speakers and felt that the opportunity benefited his English language skills. One other student attends Spanish courses. She especially highlighted the fact that in Spanish, word stress is clearly indicated in the written word as well (e.g. the spelling of espaol indicates that the syllable containing the is stressed; similarly the spelling of the name Jos symbolizes that the second syllable of the word bears the main stress) which helps her recognize stress better in languages. Another student has attended English classes outside of school for the entirety of his English studies, i.e. for ca ten years. The classes were focused not only on grammar, but also on communication; nevertheless, he does not feel that the lessons greatly impacted his ability to recognize stress. However, almost universally, the students mentioned the fact that they watch sitcoms in English regularly in their free time and are thus regularly exposed to native speaker English for extended periods of time. Also, as is the trend with films and other types of series as well, the goal of the sitcom is to convey emotion and humour and thus pronunciation and word and sentence stress are oftentimes exaggerated to better express and emphasize the characters emotions. It would consequently appear, if the overall results were to be generalized and expanded, that the Czech system of secondary education is wholly insufficient in regards to stress recognition in spoken text alone. Naturally, it can be presumed that the resulting ability of students to produce correct stress will by similarly, if not more impacted. Yet more substantial is the fact that the basic supposition on which the education system is founded, that being that students will acquire stress placement habits through exposure to spoken text (Hill, 1965, p. vi), is fundamentally flawed due to the fact that, as the survey proves, a large portion of the students is in fact unable to correctly recognize stress in a spoken text even when presented with the most common examples such as hotel or record. On the other hand, students which regularly and voluntarily expose themselves to the English language or another strongly stressed language for extended periods of time outside of school seem to acquire the ability to recognize stress better than their schoolmates. While this data was acquired from only a small portion of the students surveyed, and thus might not be universally applicable, it would appear that while in-class exposure to the spoken word is wholly insufficient, it is possible for the students to acquire correct stress placement habits simply by listening to the English language, if done at a large enough scale, just as a native English speaker acquires stress placement habits from childhood simply by constant exposure to the English language used around them without being taught the rules of English stressing.

It is therefore necessary, in order to correctly teach English stress placement and consequently improve the students ability to produce speech easily intelligible to a native speaker, to try to teach stress by practice and to incorporate stress teaching into the very basis of the second language acquisition system from the very beginning, since, as is apparent from the survey, advanced study of the language does not provide the learner with the ability to recognize correct stress placement independently unless specifically tutored to do so. Since English stress placement is marked by such complexity, it is necessary to introduce simplification into the system (Hill, 1965, p. vi) for easier teachability, and preferably employ stress exercises throughout the entirety of second language education, i.e. from the earliest stages, through practical exercises such as clapping or drumming (Tibbitts, 1967, p. 9) in order for the students to acquire the rhythm of the language physically.

Alternatively, or preferably in addition to the abovementioned improvements in teaching, students exposure to the English language should be greatly expanded in the form of film or series presentations or homework, in order for the students to listen to the English spoken word from native speakers for longer periods of time. Doing so in an entertaining form, such as popular films or series, would greatly influence the students interest in understanding the spoken word as much as possible, and thus the acquisition of stress placement within the English language would become much more intuitive. Also, workbooks, textbooks and vocabulary books should include stress patterns of new words, or exercises where students mark the stress themselves. Overall, stress teaching should become one of the main goals of second language acquisition and should be incorporated into lessons regularly, since little and often is better than a lot at rare intervals (Hill, 1965, p. vii). Textbooks with only sporadic stress exercises or worse yet textbooks with no exercises of such kind should be abandoned in favour of books making frequent use of such exercises or even dedicated textbooks focused on stress placement or overall phonetics alone. Both Tibbitts, Hill as well as authors not cited in this thesis have produced textbooks of this kind yet are being ignored by second language teaching on secondary schools where they could be of most use, since the basic knowledge of the language has already been acquired at that point, and refinements and corrections to ones understandability can thus be successfully made. Moreover, the ability to correctly place stress based on the properties of a word will then greatly improve the students ability to correctly pronounce new and previously unknown words. Conclusion

Due to the incongruence between the stress systems of Czech and English, special attention must be paid to stress in secondary language teaching. The current system as has been evidenced above does not help students improve their stress recognition in spoken word and by extension fails to teach students the correct stress production as well. Especially the supposition that students will acquire correct stress placement habits through listening has been proven as fundamentally flawed. The resulting lack of the ability to correctly produce stress within the English language greatly affects the students ability to be understood, since it is closely linked to such basic features of language as rhythm, intonation, nuclear or tonic stress and pronunciation all of which are necessary for understanding the spoken word.The complexity of the English stress system has always greatly hindered the ability to teach English word stress and has thus forced the education system to resort to a less direct approach. However, this approach appears to be wholly insufficient for the needs of the student, as it forces them to learn the correct stress placement for each individual word instead of providing a set of rules by which to abide. The stress system introduced in this thesis must therefore be simplified and shaped into a more accessible form (such as Tibbitts rhythmic exercises) and be presented to students repeatedly and frequently in order for the students to acquire the ability to sense English stress almost physically. Such practices will then result not only in increased ability to produce understandable speech, but also to improve the students pronunciation of unknown words and thus increase the efficiency of independent study and reading.Though one of the main purposes of this work was to clearly and concisely present the word stress system of English for students as well as other interested parties, it is the authors hope for the results of this effort to not be limited to this task alone. On the contrary, the use of the data and evidence presented in the survey to inspire a new initiative on the field of second language teaching as well as textbook production is encouraged in order to better accommodate the needs of the students to acquire the habits of correct stress placement in English speech. The benefits resulting from this initiative would, in the authors opinion, greatly improve the quality of second language education and improve the students ability to communicate on an international level, thus opening new opportunities for future.Works CitedChomsky, N., & Halle, M. (1968). The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row. Fudge, E. C. (1984). English word-stress. London: George Allen and Unwin.

Hill, L. (1965). Stress and intonation step by step. London: Oxford University Press.Jenkins, J. (2001). The phonology of English as an international language. Honk Kong: Oxford University Press.Jenkins, J. (2009). (Un)pleasant? (In)correct? (Un)intelligible? ELF speakers perceptions of their accent. In A. Mauranen & E. Ranta (Eds.), English as a lingua franca: Studies and findings (pp. 10-36). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Kingdon, R. (1958). The groundwork of English stress. London: Longmans, Green.Palkov, Z. (1994). Fonetika a fonologie etiny. Praha: Karolinum.Roach, P. (1992). English phonetics and phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Tibbitts, E. (1967). English stress patterns: Practice material. Cambridge: W. Heffer.Appendix 1Listen to the two recordings of the text below; then determine which of the recordings uses the correct stress placement.

How I lost my jobMy boss invited me to a company skiing trip to the Alps last month. I really dislike him so I didnt want to go, but one of my older colleagues warned me that the boss doesnt like it when people refuse his invitations. In fact, he said, most people who decline his invitation get fired within a year. I took his advice and accepted the offer. After all, I thought, a little exercise wont do me any harm. Also I didnt want such a silly thing to ruin my career. Unfortunately, my decision didnt have the desired effect. On our way to the chalet, we stopped in a hotel for the night. As it happened, there was a wild party going on and all the guests were invited to join. From what Ive been told, I drank three bottles of wine in record time during the event and got into a horrific argument with the boss. By the end of it, I punched him in the face and ran away. Needless to say, I was fired before I even saw the first sign of snow.

Underline which of the recordings uses the correct stress:

a) Recording 1

b) Recording 2Resum

The thesis deals with the issue of the English word stress and the rules it follows. Its main purpose is to clearly and concisely explain the complex and often misunderstood system of English word stress to the reader, and then contrast it with the Czech system to expose problems arising between the two languages. Then a survey is conducted to analyze whether the Czech second language education system properly compensates for the differences between the two languages.

Eric Fudges English word-stress (1984) is used as the main source for the description of the English stress system. The description is divided into subchapters, each dedicated to a different phenomenon: simple roots, prefixes, suffixes, compounds, rhythm within a sentence and the effects of stress on the quality of vowels are all discussed in depth. A concise description of the Czech stress system follows, highlighting the differences between the two languages. Especially emphasized is the impact of English word stress on intelligibility, a phenomenon not shared between the two languages.

The practical section of the thesis focuses on investigating the quality of second language education on secondary schools in relation to English stress. The results of the survey are then thoroughly analyzed and adjustments to the current education system are proposed.Tato prce se zabv problematikou anglickho slovnho pzvuku a pravidly, ktermi se d. Jejm hlavnm elem je srozumiteln a strun teni popsat komplexn a asto patn pochopen systm anglickho slovnho pzvuku, a pot jej porovnat se systmem eskm ve snaze odhalit problmy vznikajc mezi tmito dvma jazyky. Pot je proveden przkum za elem zjistit zda systm esk vuky cizch jazyk dostaten vyvauje rozdly mezi anglitinou a etinou.English word-stress (1984) od Erica Fudge je pouvn jako hlavn zdroj pro popis anglickho systmu slovnho pzvuku. Tento popis je rozdlen do podkapitol, znich kad se zabv jinm jevem: jednoduch slovn zklady, pedpony, ppony, sloeniny, rytmus ve vt a inky pzvuku na vlastnosti samohlsek jsou dkladn popsny. Nsleduje strun popis eskho systmu pzvuku, svyzdvienm rozdl mezi tmito dvma jazyky. Obzvlt se zdrazuje inek slovnho pzvuku vanglitin na srozumitelnost, co je jev, kter tyto dva jazyky nesdlej.

Praktick st prce se zamuje na vzkum kvality vuky cizch jazyk na stednch kolch ve vztahu kanglickmu pzvuku. Vsledky przkumu jsou nsledn dkladn rozebrny a jsou navreny pravy stvajcho vukovho systmu. Group 1 was a less advanced group of students.

PAGE 1