V. THE ACCENTUAL STRUCTURE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 893.

1. The nature of word stress.

2. Functions of word stress.

3. Types of word stress.

4. Word accentual patterns in English and in Russian.

Tasks and exercises:

1. Write the words listed below in groups according to the accentual patterns:

_ _´ _ before, _´ _ _ novel

multiply, enumerate, police, celebrate, company, satire, carriage, believe, compliment, appreciate, academy, programme, reality, garage, machine, become.

2. Give accentual patterns of the following families of words. Pay attention to the location of the stress and the vowels in unstressed syllables. Comment on the type of stress in English:

a) contribute, contributor, contribution, contributive;

b) apology, apologetic, apologize;

c) abolish, abolition, abolitionist;

d) philosophy, philosopher, philosophical, philosophize.

3. Mark stresses in the sentences given below. Speak on the function of stress:

a) This accent is on the first syllable. Mark it with a weak accent. It's the word ‘son' you are to accent.

b) A conflict took place. They conflict with this theory. It's finished in a conflict.

c) The contest was friendly. They contest this statement.

d) The contract was signed. They contract serious diseases.

4. Mark stresses in the following words. Explain the location of the stress (rules and tendencies):

a) female, profile, cotton, cabinet;

b) become, indefinite, abnormal, immediately;

c) anti-war, non-stop, ex-teacher, ultra-fashionable;

d) employee, cigarette, unique, statuette, volunteer, marinade;

e) pedagogic, admission, unity, sufficient, backwards;

f) emergency, variability, satisfactory, insufficient;

g) to get up, to give up, a make-up, a pick-up;

h) sixteen, thirteen, nineteen, ninety-two;

i) a greenhouse, a gas-stove, a blacksmith, a suit-case, a bluebottle;

j) cold-blooded, thick-skinned, hot-tempered, blue-eyed.

5. Read the following pairs of words, translate them into Russian. State the function of the stress:

to ´re´pay – to re´pay

to ´re´form – to re´form

to ´recre´ate – to ´recreate

to ´re´strain – to re´strain

to ´re´join – to re´join

´black ´board – ´blackboard

´black ´bird – ´blackbird

´strong ´box – ´strongbox

´tall ´boy – ´tallboy

´missing ´list – ´missinglist

6. Find the feature which makes the following conversation humorous:

Mr Smith: What a lovely rubber plant!

Mr Brown: No, the plant is real.

Recommended literature:

1. Sokolova M.A. English Phonetics. A Theoretical Course. – M., 1991. – pp. 101-112.

2. Leontieva S.F. A Theoretical Course of English Phonetics. – M., 1970. – pp. 179-185.

3. Vassiliev V.A. English Phonetics. A Theoretical Course. – M., 1970. – pp. 229-285.

4. Соколова М.А., Гинтовт К.Л. и др. Практическая фонетика английского языка. – М., 1984. – С. 125-136.