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PROMINENCE
When we speak we give more emphasis to some parts of a
sentence, statement, word than others.
A syllable in a word. A word in a sentence.
Elements that Produce Prominence
Loudness
Length
Pitch
Quality
Loudness
Most people feel stressed syllables are louder than unstressed ones
Length
If a syllable in a word is made longer than the others, there is quite a strong tendency for that syllable to be heard as stressed.
Pitch
Every syllable is said on some pitch. It is essencially a perceptual characteristic
of speech.
Quality
A syllable will tend to be prominent if it contains a vowel that is different in quality from neighbouring vowels.
Prominence, then, is produced by four main factors: loudness, pitch, length
and quality.
Generally these factors work together in combination though syllables may
sometimes be made prominent by means of only one or two of them.
These four factors are not equally important;
The strongest effect is produced by pitch.
Length is also a powerful factor.
Loudness and quality have much less effect.
STRESS
It is almost certainly true that in all languages some syllables are in some sense stronger than other syllables; these are syllables that have the potential to be described as stressed.
1. Speaker/Production More muscular energy
2. Listener/ Perception The stressed syllables have one
characteristic in common: they are more prominent
How do we identify stress?
Loudness Length Pitch Quality
Manifestation of stress
We can find defferent levels of stress and they do not happen at random.
If we change the stress in the word we can change its meaning
(n) (v)Ex: insult insult
present present record record
Some types of words most commonly occur in an unstressed form in connected speech.
Other types of words most commonly occurring without a stress (and with reduced vowels) are auxiliary verbs, personal pronouns and shorter prepositions and conjunctions,
whereas the majority of nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs, numerals,
quantifiers, and personal pronouns commonly occur with a stress.
Degrees of stress
The majority of English phoneticians assert that there are three degrees of stress in
English: primary, secondary and unstressed.
Degrees of stress
1) PRIMARY STRESS involving the principal pitch prominence in the word. We mark the
strongest or primary stress with a short raised stroke [‘].
‚funda'mental;
2) SECONDARY STRESS, involving a subsidiary pitch prominence. We mark the
middle level or secondary level with a short lowered stroke [,].
ex‚peri'mental;
3) UNSTRESSED, involving a non-prominent syllable containing no pitch change and one of the vowels /I, U, ə /.
in‚vesti'gation.
Every word unit has at least one primary stress and one or more unstressed syllables.
Polysyllabic words in English also show, in general, primary and secondary stress, apart from unstressed syllables.
Polysyllabic in English usually refers to words with 3
syllables or more and compounds
RULES OF WORD STRESS
RULE # 1: stress in two-syllable words:
Except for verbs, two-syllable words are usually stressed on the first syllable.
Examples: 1. answer 2. conduit 3. dealer
RULE # 2: stress in words that end in –tion, -sion, and –cian:For words that end in –tion, -sion, or –cian, the stressed syllable comes just before the –tion, -sion, or –cian.
Examples: 1. articulation 2. celebration 3. commission
RULE # 3: Stress in words that end in –ic and –ical:
*For words that end in -ic, the stressed syllable comes just before the –ic.
* For words that end in –ical, the stressed syllable comes just before the –ical.Examples: 1. analytic 1. classical
2. anesthetic 2. ecumenical 3. energetic 3. vertical
RULE # 4: Stress in two-syllable nouns and verbs
When a two-syllable word can be used as a noun or a verb, the verb form is usually stressed on the second syllable.
Examples: Noun Verb 1. confine confine
2. conscript conscript 3. contact contact
RULE # 5: Stress in two-word verbs Some verbs are made up of two words.
These two-word verbs are commonly stressed on the second syllable.
Examples: Noun Verb 1. letdown let down 2. shutout shut out 3. takeover take over
RULE # 6: Stress in compound nouns English often combines two nouns to make
a new word, called a compound noun. For example, the words “house” and “boat” can be combined to form a new noun. Compound nouns are pronounced as a single word, whit the stress on the first part.
Examples: 1.overpass 2.longtime 3.output