Types of word stress

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 574.

A word as a meaningful unit has a definite phonetic structure. The phonetic structure of a word comprises not only sounds that the word is composed of and not only the syllabic structure that these sound form; it also has a definite stress pattern. The auditory impression of stress is that of prominence. And if a wood contains more than a syll., the relative prominence of those syllables differs. There may be one prominent syll in a word as compared to the rest of syllables of the same word (as in “im'portant”). There may be 2 equally prominent syllables (as in “'misbe'have”), 2 unequally prominent syllables (as in “e,xami'nation”) or more prominent syllables (as in “'unre,lia'bility”). And this correlation of degrees of prominence of the syllables in a word forms the stress pattern of the word, which is often called the accentual structure of a word.The stress patterns of different words may coincide with “mother”, “table”, __ __. The stress pattern of these words differs from that of “prominent”, “analyze”, “syllable” __ __ __. The stress pattern of words is generally perceived without difficulty. We easily distinguish between “'subject” and “sub'ject”.The stress pattern of a word is altered in connected speech. Cf. 'un'happy. She was 'so un`happy. He re'membered those 'unhappy `days. Word stress belongs to the word when said in isolation, whereas utterance stress belongs to the utterance.