Word and Sentence Stress in English

8/3/2019 Word and Sentence Stress in English

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Word Stress in English

Word stress is your magic key to understanding spoken English. Nativespeakers of English use word stress naturally. Word stress is so natural for themthat they don't even know they use it. Non-native speakers who speak English

to native speakers without using word stress, encounter two problems:

1. They find it difficult to understand native speakers, especially thosespeaking fast.

2. The native speakers may find it difficult to understand them.

In this lesson we look at the most important aspects of word stress, followed bya short quiz to check your understanding:

Understanding Syllables for Word Stress What is Word Stress?

Why is Word Stress Important? Where do I Put Word Stress?

Word Stress Rules Word Stress Quiz

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Understanding Syllables

To understand word stress, it helps to understand syllables.Every word is made from syllables.Each word has one, two, three or more syllables.

word number of syllables

dog dog 1

green green 1

quite quite 1

quiet qui-et 2

orange or-ange 2

table ta-ble 2

expensive ex-pen-sive 3

interesting in-ter-est-ing 4

realistic re-al-is-tic 4

unexceptional un-ex-cep-tion-al 5

Notice that (with a few rare exceptions) every syllable contains at leastone vowel (a, e, i, o or u) or vowel sound.



What is Word Stress?

In English, we do not say each syllable with the same force or strength. In oneword, we accentuate ONE syllable. We say one syllable very loudly (big,strong, important) and all the other syllables very quietly.

Let's take 3 words: photograph, photographer and photographic. Do theysound the same when spoken? No. Because we accentuate (stress) ONE syllablein each word. And it is not always the same syllable. So the shape of each wordis different.

click word to hear shape total

syllables

stressed

syllable

PHO TO GRAPH 3 #1

PHO TO GRAPH ER 4 #2

PHO TO GRAPH IC 4 #3

This happens in ALL words with 2 or more syllables: TEACHer, JaPAN, CHINa,aBOVE, converSAtion, INteresting, imPORtant, deMAND, etCETera, etCETera,etCETera

The syllables that are not stressed are weak or small or quiet. Nativespeakers of English listen for the STRESSED syllables, not the weak syllables. If you use word stress in your speech, you will instantly and automaticallyimprove your pronunciation and your comprehension.

Try to hear the stress in individual words each time you listen to English - onthe radio or in films for example. Your first step is to HEAR and recognize it.After that, you can USE it!

There are two very important rules about word stress:

1. One word, one stress. (One word cannot have two stresses. So if you

hear two stresses, you have heard two words, not one word.)2. The stress is always on a vowel.

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Why is Word Stress Important?

Word stress is not used in all languages. Some languages, Japanese or Frenchfor example, pronounce each syllable with eq-ual em-pha-sis.

Other languages, English for example, use word stress.

Word stress is not an optional extra that you can add to the English language if you want. It is part of the language! English speakers use word stress tocommunicate rapidly and accurately, even in difficult conditions. If, for example,you do not hear a word clearly, you can still understand the word because of the position of the stress.

Think again about the two words photograph and photographer. Now

imagine that you are speaking to somebody by telephone over a very bad line.You cannot hear clearly. In fact, you hear only the first two syllables of one of

these words, photo... Which word is it, photograph or photographer? Of course,with word stress you will know immediately which word it is because in reality

you will hear either PHOto... or phoTO... So without hearing the whole word,you probably know what the word is (PHOto...graph or phoTO...grapher). It's

magic! (Of course, you also have the 'context' of your conversation to helpyou.)

This is a simple example of how word stress helps us understand English. There

are many, many other examples, because we use word stress all the time,without thinking about it.

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Where do I Put Word Stress?

There are some rules about which syllable to stress. But...the rules are rathercomplicated! Probably the best way to learn is from experience. Listen carefullyto spoken English and try to develop a feeling for the "music" of the language.

When you learn a new word, you should also learn its stress pattern. If youkeep a vocabulary book, make a note to show which syllable is stressed. If youdo not know, you can look in a dictionary. All dictionaries give the phoneticspelling of a word. This is where they show which syllable is stressed, usuallywith an apostrophe (') just before or just after the stressed syllable. (Thenotes at the front of the dictionary will explain the system used.) Look at (andlisten to) this example for the word plastic. There are 2 syllables. Syllable #1 isstressed.

example phonetic spelling:dictionary A phonetic spelling:dictionary B

PLAS TIC

/plæs'tIk/ /'plæs tIk/

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Rules of Word Stress in English

There are two very simple rules about word stress:

1. One word has only one stress. (One word cannot have two stresses. If

you hear two stresses, you hear two words. Two stresses cannot be oneword. It is true that there can be a "secondary" stress in some words. Buta secondary stress is much smaller than the main [primary] stress, and isonly used in long words.)

2. We can only stress vowels, not consonants.

Here are some more, rather complicated, rules that can help you understandwhere to put the stress. But do not rely on them too much, because there are

many exceptions. It is better to try to "feel" the music of the language and toadd the stress naturally.

1 Stress on first syllable

rule example

Most 2-syllable nouns PRESent, EXport, CHIna, TAble

Most 2-syllable adjectives PRESent, SLENder, CLEVer, HAPpy

2 Stress on last syllable

rule example

Most 2-syllable verbs to preSENT, to exPORT, to deCIDE, to beGIN

There are many two-syllable words in English whose meaning and class change

with a change in stress. The word present, for example is a two-syllable word.If we stress the first syllable, it is a noun (gift) or an adjective (opposite of absent). But if we stress the second syllable, it becomes a verb (to offer). Moreexamples: the words export, import, contractand object can all be nouns orverbs depending on whether the stress is on the first or second syllable.



3 Stress on penultimate syllable (penultimate = second from end)

rule example

Words ending in -ic GRAPHic, geoGRAPHic, geoLOGic

Words ending in -sion and -tion teleVIsion, reveLAtion

For a few words, native English speakers don't always "agree" on where to putthe stress. For example, some people say teleVIsion and otherssay TELevision. Another example is:CONtroversy and conTROversy.

4 Stress on ante-penultimate syllable (ante-penultimate = third from end)

rule example

Words ending in -cy, -ty, -phy and -gy

deMOcracy, dependaBIlity, phoTOgraphy,geOLogy

Words ending in -al CRItical, geoLOGical

5 Compound words (words with two parts)

rule example

For compound nouns, the stress is onthe first part BLACKbird, GREENhouse

For compound adjectives, the stress is onthe second part

bad-TEMpered, old-FASHioned

For compound verbs, the stress is onthe second part

to underSTAND, tooverFLOW



Sentence Stress in English

Sentence stress is the music of spoken English. Like word stress, sentencestress can help you to understand spoken English, especially when spoken fast.

Sentence stress is what gives English its rhythm or "beat". You remember thatword stress is accent on one syllable within a word. Sentence stress is accenton certain words within a sentence.

Most sentences have two types of word:

content words

structure words

Content words are the key words of a sentence. They are the important wordsthat carry the meaning or sense.

Structure words are not very important words. They are small, simple wordsthat make the sentence correct grammatically. They give the sentence itscorrect form or "structure".

If you remove the structure words from a sentence, you will probably stillunderstand the sentence.

If you remove the content words from a sentence, you will not understand thesentence. The sentence has no sense or meaning.

Imagine that you receive this telegram message:

Will you SELL my CAR because I've GONE to FRANCE

Click here to hear (1)

This sentence is not complete. It is not a "grammatically correct" sentence. Butyou probably understand it. These 4 words communicate very well. Somebody wants you to sell their car for them because they have gone to France. Wecan add a few words:

Will you SELL my CAR because I've GONE to FRANCE


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The new words do not really add any more information. But they make themessage more correct grammatically. We can add even more words to makeone complete, grammatically correct sentence. But the information isbasically the same:

Content Words

Will you SELL my CAR because I've GONE to FRANCE.

Structure Words


In our sentence, the 4 key words (sell, car, gone, France) are accentuatedor stressed.

Why is this important for pronunciation? It is important because it adds "music"to the language. It is the rhythm of the English language. It changes the speedat which we speak (and listen to) the language. The time between eachstressed word is the same.

In our sentence, there is 1 syllable between SELL and CAR and 3syllables between CAR and GONE. But the time (t ) between SELL and CAR andbetween CAR and GONE is the same. We maintain a constant beat on thestressed words. To do this, we say "my" more slowly, and "because I've" morequickly. We change the speed of the small structure words so that the rhythmof the key content words stays the same.

syllables

2 1 3 1

Will you SELL my CAR because I've GONE to FRANCE.

t1

beat

t1

beat

t1

beat

t1

beat







Rules for Sentence Stress in English

The basic rules of sentence stress are:

1. content words are stressed

2. structure words are unstressed 3. the time between stressed words is always the same

The following tables can help you decide which words are content words andwhich words are structure words:

Content words – stressed

Words carrying the meaning Example

main verbs SELL, GIVE, EMPLOY

nouns CAR, MUSIC, MARY

adjectives RED, BIG, INTERESTING

adverbs QUICKLY, LOUDLY, NEVER

negative auxiliaries DON'T, AREN'T, CAN'T

Structure words – unstressed

Words for correct grammar Example

pronouns he, we, they



prepositions on, at, into

articles a, an, the

conjunctions and, but, because

auxiliary verbs do, be, have, can, must

Exceptions

The above rules are for what is called "neutral" or normal stress. But sometimeswe can stress a word that would normally be only a structure word, for exampleto correct information. Look at the following dialogue:

"They've been to Mongolia, haven't they?""No, THEY haven't, but WE have.

Note also that when "be" is used as a main verb, it is usually unstressed (eventhough in this case it is a content word).

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Word and Sentence Stress in English