GOVT COLLEGE (BOYS) TAKHT BHAI (MARDAN)

DEPARTMENT: BS ENGLISH 4TH SEMESTER

NAME : DANIYAL KHATAK

F.NAME : SAHIB ZADA

ROLL NO : 17

ASSIGNMENT : STRESS

SUBJECT : PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

SUMITTED TO : SIR ZAWAR KHAN

SUBMISSION DATE : 11/8/2021

STRESS:

Introduction

English language is one of the most popular languages in the

world. Many countries have adopted it as a second language.

Speech is one of the important language activities. The spoken

form of language precedes the written one and this is clear

because a child has the ability to speak before writing. The ability

of understanding speech involves the ability of controlling the

sound system. One of the important elements of the sound

system is stress. Ladefoged and Johnson believe that stress is :”A

suprasegmental feature of utterance. It applies not to individual

vowels and consonants but to whole syllable wherever they might

be. A stress syllable is pronounced with a greater amount of

energy than an unstressed syllable and is more prominent in the

flow of speech”.

The problem with stress is that if a non-native speaker produces a

word with the wrong stress pattern, an English listener may have

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 difficulty in understanding the word. This fact is emphasized by

O'Conner when he states that stressing the wrong syllable

damages the form of the word and may make it very difficult to

hear and understand.

Definition

Stress, in phonetics, intensity given to a syllable of speech by

special effort in utterance, resulting in relative loudness.

The nature of English Stress

Roach defines stress as the degree of force used in the

pronounciation of a certain syllable. Gimson refers to stress as a

capcity of the pronunciation for the speaker and the higher sound

for the listener. There is a strong relationship between stress and

syllable. Lodge points out that a stressed syllable is produced with

strong energy which makes it unique. Gussenhoven and Jacobs

also argue that a stressed syllable appears in any words as more

prominent than other syllables in the same word. In addition,

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 stress is also defined from two perspectives : production and

perception (Roach).

Al-Hmash also defines stress from the point of view of the

speaker as an effort used in the production of the sound of the

syllable and from the view point of listener, stress is the loudness

of the specific sound by comparing it with another sound near it.

Stress is a special feature which is restricted by a number of

phonetic factors that enable to select a stressed syllable from

unstressed one near it (McMahon). Concerning the previous

point, Roach indicates that the essential characteristic of stressed

syllable is prominence. Roach points out that this prominence is

affected by four important factors :

1. Loudness is a component of stressed syllable. Stresses

syllables are all louder than unstressed ones. This is a direct result

of speech production factors.

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 2. Length is one of the affective component in the prominence.

A stressed syllable has a longer duration and strong vowels than

unstressed syllable.

3. Pitch is a very important part of perceptual characteristic of

speech sound. Each syllable of the word is produced either as low

or high pitched. Stressed syllable is resulted as higher pitch which

makes it prominent.

4. Vowel quality is one of the affective part in determining the

prominence of stressed syllable. Stressed syllable contains a

vowel that is different from other syllables around it. So that, the

prominence of stressed syllable can be showed by comparing it

with other syllables near it. Roach states that prominence is made

by those four factors in combination and may be made by only

one or two of them.

Levels of stress In English language

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 there are only three main levels of stress. Ashby asserts that there

are only three possibilities in recognizing stress : primary stress,

secondary stress and unstressed. Ashby claims that these stresses

are enough to play two main roles—they show the features of the

word itself (word stress) and they also show the points in the

word which may carry the important information when the word

is used in longer utterance (sentence stress). Roach refers to the

fourth level of stress which is Tertiary. Tertiary level is rare in

English language.

1: Primary Stress

When we pronounce certain words, we put stress on certain

syllables. There are some syllables which are very prominent and

strong due to the effect of stress. Primary stress represents the

maximal prominence of the syllable in a word ( Collins and Mess)

and Roach mentions that primary stress is on the strongest

syllable in a word which appears to be more prominent than

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 other syllables. Primary stress can be marked with a vertical mark

[ ' ] placed above and in front of the syllable.

Examples : Father / ˈfɑːðə / About / əˈbaʊt / Receive / rɪˈsiːv /

Camera / ˈkæmərə /.

2: Secondary Stress

In long words of more than one syllable, a type of stress can be

observed, that is weaker than primary stress (strong).

Gussenhoven and Jacobs state that IPA marking for secondary

stress is [,] to be placed before the syllable concerned.

Examples: Photography / fəˈtɒgrəfi / Anthropology /

ˌænθrəˈpɒləʤi / Organization / ˌɔːgənaɪˈzeɪʃən / Activation /

ˌæktɪˈveɪʃən /.

3: Unstressed

This involves a non-prominent syllable. This level of stress is often

the weaker syllable in a word n that it contains the short vowel

/ə/. Unlike primary and secondary stress, unstressed level is left

unmarked.

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 Examples: Open / 'əʋpən / Announcer / ə'naʋnsər / Programmer

/ 'prəʋgræmər /

Placement of stress:

Roach divides the languages of the world into two groups on the

basis of placement of the stress. The first group contains

languages which have fixed place for the stress in words like,

French language in which the last syllable is usually stressed. The

second group contains languages in which there is no fixed place

for stress in words. For example, in English language there is a

difficulty to predict the placement of word stress

1. Word stress

the stress placed on syllables within words is called word

stress.when a word has more than one syllable, there is always

one syllable that has greater stress than the others .For Example,

the word “coffe” is stressed on the first syllable “cof”, which has

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 greater prominence than the second syllable. The word enormous

is stressed on the second syllable nor.

Here are some Examples of how words are stressed.

First syllable Second syllable Third syllable Fourth syllable

‘Always Al’ternative Corre’spondent Environ’mentally

‘Energy Ap’pear Inter’national Organiz’ation

‘Everybody A’vailable Oppor’tunity Responsi’bility

‘Industry Be’tween Recom’mend Underde’veloped

‘Popular Com’mittee

‘Program Ex’tremely

‘Sorry Im’portant

‘water tech’nology

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 The syllable which follows the stress mark (‘) is stressed. in the

word ALWAYS, the syllable AL is stressed, and the syllable WAYS is

unstressed.

NOTE

 In longer words some syllables have secondary stress. The

word international has its main or primary stress on the

syllable na and a secondary stress on the syllable in, which

has greater stress than ter or al but weaker than na. A

syllable which follows the stress mark (,) has secondary her

are some examples.

,Inter’national ‘every,body re,sponsi’bility

 Some words can have different stress patterns e.g.

‘yesterday or yester’day, head’quarters or ‘headquaters.
This often depends on the stress pattern of the sentence as
a whole.

 There are some words which can be either a verb or a noun

depending on how they are stressed, e.g. transport (verb)
or ‘transport(noun).

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 TIP
Remember that the most important thing in order to make
yourself understood is to put the primary stress on the correct
syllable. Unfortunately there is no general rule to tell you which
syllable should be stressed. Usually the stress pattern has to be
leamed as part of the pronunciation of each individual word. The
best way to learn how to stress words is by listening to them used
in speech and imitating the pronunciation. If you see a word and
want to know how it is stressed, you will find the pronunciation
in a dictionary such as the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

B The /a/ sound

The /a/ sound or "schwa' is the sound of a- in about or again or of

er in water or colder. It is used only in unstressed syllables and is
spelled in a number of different ways. Here are some examples.

payment /'peimant/ famous /'feiməs/ corner /'ko:nə(r)/

forget /fa'get/

support /sa'po:t/ figure /'figa(r)/

The schwa is also used in certain one-syllable words when they

are unstressed in connected speech, e.g. from /fram/, than /dan/.
These are called 'weak forms'. > Finder 289

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 Stress in words with suffixes
When we add a suffix to a one-syllable word, most suffixes are
unstressed. 'hopeful 'playing 'quickly 'sadness statement
'treatable 'useless
The same usually happens when the suffix is added to a word with
more than

one syllable. 'powerful at’tacking 'silently ‘loneliness

'manageable 'colourless ‘punishment

But with certain suffixes the stress falls on the syllable before the
suffix.
'commerce → com’mercial in' form inform’ation 'luxury
lux’urious
'photograph photo’graphic 'stupid → stu’pidity

These suffixes include -ial, -lon, -ious, -ic, and -ity.

TIP
When a word ends in -ion, always stress the syllable before the
last one: 'nation, con’dition, dis'cussion, satis’faction,
recommen’dation.

2: Stress in compounds

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 In a noun compound, we often stress the first word. 'bus ticket

'living-room ‘softball 'fireworks 'share price But when the first

word expresses time, place, or material, it is not usually stressed.

afternoon ‘tea town ‘hall metal 'box

For pairs like 'softball and a soft 'ball,. In compounds with

participles, we stress the participle when the compound

does not come before a noun.

The paint is quick-‘drying.

I'm left-‘handed.

But when the compound comes before a noun, we stress the first

word.

I bought some 'quick-drying paint.

I need 'left-handed golf clubs.

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 3: Sentence stress

Which words are stressed?

Stress operates at word level and at sentence level. At word level

there is always one syllable that is more prominent than the other

syllables. For example, ticket is stressed on the first syllable, and

arrive is stressed on the second syllable. At sentence level some

words receive greater stress than others because they are more

important for the message and need to be prominent. Here is an

example.

The ‘tickets for the 'show ar’rived this ‘morning. Here the words

tickets, show, arrived, and morning are most likely to be stressed.

The stress falls more often on the vocabulary items: the nouns,

verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. It falls less often on the

'grammatical words' such as the, for, and this. These words are

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 generally unstressed, and some of them have weak forms such as

/oa/ and /fa(r)/.

But we can stress a grammatical word if we want to draw special

attention to it.

The ‘tickets arrived ‘this morning, not 'yesterday morning.

Here we emphasize this to contrast it with yesterday. For more

about emphatic stress.

Rhythm

Typically in speech the stressed syllables come at more or less

regular intervals.

The ‘tickets for the 'show ar’rived this ‘morning.

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 The rhythm of the sentence is created by the syllables tick, show,

rived, and morn. The unstressed syllables have to fit into the

rhythm. Where there are several unstressed syllables together,

they will be spoken more quickly than a single unstressed syllable.

'tickets for the 'show (three unstressed syllables ets for the
spoken quickly) ar’rived this ‘morning (a single unstressed syllable
this spoken less quickly)

NOTE

Another important aspect of pronunciation is intonation. In one

or more places in a

sentence there will be a noticeable fall or rise in the intonation of

the voice. One place where this usually happens is at or near the
end of the sentence. Intonation is a very complex subject and is
dealt with in Oxford Learner's Grammar only

The tickets for the show arrived this morning

Have we got time for a coffee?

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 Intonation is very complex subject and is dealt within Oxford
Learner’s Grammar only where it is important for an
understanding of grammar, for example in question tags.

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