Word Stress & Phonetic Process

Word Stress & Phonetic Process

Words of more than one syllable have differing degrees of stress on each syllable. Stress is indicated by a
combination of higher pitch and louder volume, but many students find it difficult to identify which
syllable is stressed. To practice, try making a list of words with more than one syllable and guessing
which syllable is stressed. Then go to a dictionary which gives a pronunciation guide and see which
syllable is marked as stressed. Most dictionaries mark stress by placing a small tick before the beginning
of the syllable.

In English, the vowels of unstressed syllables have often changed historically. The spelling often indicates
the original sound, but over time, the number of vowels that occur in unstressed vowels has diminished.
In general, unstressed vowels tended to become /\/, especially in suffixes with grammatical significance
(e.g. plural –es, present tense –es, past tense –ed, and past participle –en). In some varieties of
English, including US English, this sound alternates with /ˆ/, depending upon the word: compare village
/vˆlˆdΩ/ (or /vˆlˆĵ/) with cower /kau\r/. There is no rule for which words contain which of these vowels,
and, in general, I will accept either one. If in doubt, use the schwa (/\/).

Sometimes the mid central vowel /√/ appears in a stressed syllable, as in sun /s√n/. The sound can be
distinguished from schwa by pronouncing the word oven /√v\n/. However, some textbooks simplify
things by using the symbol /\/ for all mid central vowels (e.g. /\v\n/). You may choose to adopt this
simplification if you find it helpful. In some cases, historically unstressed vowels have disappeared
completely, although we may still spell them. The most famous example is the so-called “silent e” in
words like name /nem/ and begged /begd/. Make sure that you do not transcribe these as two-syllable
words.

Phonetic Process

A wide variety of sound changes take place when certain sounds come into contact with each other. The
most important is called assimilation. This process is best illustrated by comparing the words incapable
and impossible. Both words contain the prefix in-, which makes the adjective negative. However, the
prefix is pronounced /ˆn/ or /ˆm/, depending on whether or not the following consonant is labial. If it is,
the alveolar /n/ becomes a labial /m/, assimilating the quality of the following labial consonant. A
particularly important occurrence of assimilation is in words with the grammatical endings (plural or
present tense –s and past tense or past participle –d). Consider the following words and their
pronunciations:
cats /kæts/ scolds /skoldz/
dogs /døgz/ worked /w\rkt/
thinks /†inks/ begged /begd/
In each case, the grammatical ending varies between voiceless /s/ or /t/ and voiced /z/ or /d/, depending on
whether or not the preceding consonant is voiced or voiceless. In a few cases, the consonant in the
grammatical ending is assimilated to a preceding vowel (all vowels are voiced):
horses /hørs\z/ scolded /skold\d/

Upon hearing an English sentence - even without understanding its meaning - one can
distinguish a certain number of prominent syllables. The prominence is at its highest on the
vowels, which are louder, longer, higher in pitch and sometimes different in quality. In the word
/b?n@:n?/ banana, the syllable which bears the stress is /na:/. It is pronounced with more
strength, it lasts longer and it reaches a higher pitch than the surrounding syllables; it also differs
from them because it has a full vowel as opposed to /?/ (schwa), which is the most central and
hence the most neutral of all vowels.

This prominence does not belong to the vowel itself but characterises the whole syllable.
This explains why stress is called suprasegmental as opposed to phonemes which are segmental.
At this stage we can clarify the distinction between different types of phonological elements:
- distinctive features always appear simultaneously in bundles that are characteristics of
the phonemes
- phonemes are maximal bundles of distinctive features and have their own time-space.
This is why they are segmental
- supra-segmental elements include :
a) syllables: they are supra-segmental units formed of phonemes and characterised
as units by the presence of the vowel
b) stress:it is a supra-segmental feature characterising the units which
we intuitively recognise as words.

Effects of Stress on Words

In actual fact, our accidental gap sentence an English sentence in disguise:

/!dYPn Hz ? !naHs !hUzb?nd/
John is a nice husband

Now that we know what the sentence means, we realise that there are more words than
stresses. So the notion of word as it is usually understood is not always absolutely compatible
with the notion of stress. We have five words and yet two of them, i.e. /Hz/ and /?/ do not bear any
stress even though they are well formed syllables. Each word has a potential word stress, even
“little” words like articles, prepositions etc. For instance into /Hn!tT/ has a stressed syllable and an
unstressed one even though most of the time the stress is not realised. Why then are is and a not
stressed in our example?

In the realisation (utterance) of a sentence, functional words (i.e. our former “little
words”: articles, prepositions, auxiliaries, conjunctions etc.) do not receive stress as lexical words
do. However they can receive stress under given circumstances

In polysyllabic lexical words, there is one and only one prominent syllable, where the
primary stress is realised. There can also be a so-called secondary stress in long words (ex:
photographic /$f?Tt?!grzfHk/) but this stress is not a phonological sign since its placement never
results in an opposition between two words; it may indicate word structure. Primary word stress is
signalled with an apostrophe (£) which precedes the stressed syllable, and secondary stress with a
comma before the stressed syllable.
As we have said, prominence is also achieved through quality, which affects mainly the
vowel.

Stress and Oppositions

Stress placement is linked to vocalic quality. There are many pairs of words which are
spelled the same way but are pronounced differently due to the placement of stress :

a. !kPndUkt (N)                         k?n!dUkt                   (V)                    conduct
b !dez?t (N)                                 dH!z2:t                     (V)                     desert
c. !preznflt (N,A)                       prH!zent                      (V)                    present

Compounds

Let’s take a case where a lexical word loses its own stress. Compound words are single
words that can be analysed into two lexical words, both of which exist independently as English
words and hence bear their own stress.

Examples of this are White House which can be analysed into 'white and 'house;
'typewriter which can be analysed into 'type and 'writer ; 'car-ferry which can be analysed into
'car and ' ferry . As one can see, when these words are brought together, one of them loses its
stress. However, it is not always possible to predict which one.

Some compounds like loudspeaker have not yet been subjected to a univocal treatment.
According to some authors the stress placement is ' loud- speaker , which is rather a combination
of two words, since they both bear a primary stress; others see it as loud 'speaker , i.e. a
compound.

If one considered cupboard /!kUb?d/ as a compound word, one could say that upon
losing its stress, the word board /£bN:d/ changed the nucleus of its single syllable into a schwa.
This case of compounding would tend to prove that unstressed syllables lose the specific quality of their vowel.