Placement and degrees of Eng word stress

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 517.

According to its placement stress can be characterised as fixed and free. In languages with fixed type of stress the place of stress is always the same. For eg in Czech the stress regularly falls on the first syllable. In Italian, Welsh, Polish it is on the penultimate syllable. In English and Russian word-stress is free, that it may fall on any syllable in a word: on the first — 'mother on the second — oc'casion; on the third — deto'nation. Stress in English and in Russian is not only free but also shifting. In both languages the place of stress may shift, which helps to differentiate different parts of speech eg 'insult/ to in'sult; 'import/ to im'port. Most British phoneticians term the strongest stress primary, the second strongest secondary and all the other degrees of stress weak. The stress marks placed before the stressed syllables indicate simultaneously the places and the points of syllable division. Jones considers that there are as many degrees of word stress as there are syllables in a word. British phoneticians distinguish 3 degree of word stress: primary – strong; secondary – partial; weak — in unstressed syllables. Most English scientists place the stress marts before the stressed syllables and don't mark monosyllabic words. Some American scientists suggest placing the stress marks above the vowels of the stressed syllable. And they distinguish 4 degrees: primary; secondary; tertiary; weak.

The tertiary stress usually follows the primary one and falls on the suffices: dictioיּnary.