Degrees of Word Stress

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 548.

The Place of Word Stress in English. The Degrees of Stress.

The traditional classification of languages concerning place of stress in a word is into those with a fixed stress and those with a free stress.

In languages with a fixed stress the occurrence of the word stress is limited to a particular syllable in a polysyllabic word.

In languages with a free stress its place is not confined to a specific position in the word. E.g. 'appetite - be'ginning - ba'lloon

The word stress in English is not only free but it may also be shifting, performing the semantic function of differentiating lexical units, parts of speech, grammatical forms.

E.g. 'contrast — con'trast; 'music — mu'sician.

There are actually as many degrees of stress in a word as there are syllables.

examination

ɪɡ.ˌzæm.ɪ.ˈneɪʃ. Ən

3 2 4 1 5

The primary stress is the strongest, it is marked by number 1, the secondary stress is the second strongest marked by 2. All the other degrees are termed weak stress. Unstressed syllables are supposed to have weak stress.

American linguists distinguish four degrees of word stress and term them: primary stress, secondary stress, tertiary stress and weak stress. The difference between the secondary and tertiary stresses is very subtle and seems subjective.

The second pretonic syllables of such words as libe'ration, recog'nition are marked by secondary stress in BrE, in AmE they are said to have tertiary stress.

In AmE tertiary stress also affects the suffixes -ory, -ary, -ony of nouns and the suffixes –ate, -ize, -y of verbs, which are considered unstressed in BrE, e.g. 'territory, 'ceremony, 'dictionary; 'demonstrate, 'organize, 'simplify.