Univeristy of Algiers 2 Phonetics

Department of English 1 st year

Mrs. DAGHI (2020/2021)

Simple word stress

Simple word stress refers to stress falling on simple words. Simple words are those
which are morphologically constructed of one grammatical unit, i-e one free
morpheme. The free morpheme is the grammatical unit that can stand alone and gives
meaning by standing alone.

Examples: child, home, sun, morning, kitchen, feel, syllable…etc.

The above words are considered as simple words because they do not include affixes
(prefixes and suffixes).

Simple words can be composed of one syllable, two syllables, three syllables or
more.

1. Stress on monosyllabic words

Monosyllabic words are not considered as having word stress, because each word
consists of one syllable which automatically bears stress.

Examples: child, home…..etc.

Task:

Transcribe the words below, and then produce them loudly by stressing them.

Hope, smile, speak, think, teach, eye, thought, nose, ear,

phoned, be, am, has, have, out, yes, no, sun, rise, fall, cloud,

snow, rain, Hi, can, do, move, drive, eat, killed, plays, car,

dropped, sky, train, flat, door, eyes, kind, mouth, bridge, bus,

blood, flood, fruit, cloud, rose, fun.

 2. Stress on bi-syllabic (simple) words

Bi-syllabic words are the words which consist of two syllables. Bi-syllabic words
can be verbs, nouns, or adjectives.

Verbs

In bi-syllabic verbs either the first or the second syllable is stressed.

 If the second syllable of the verb consists of a long vowel, a diphthong or if it

ends with more than one consonant, that syllable will be stressed.

Examples: aˈrrive, asˈsist , atˈtend

 If the final syllable contains a short vowel, or one (or no) consonant, the first
syllable will be stressed.

Examples: ˈenter, ˈanswer, ˈopen

 If the final syllable consists of the diphthong / əʊ /, that syllable will be

unstressed.

Examples: ˈfollow, ˈborrow

Some exceptions to the above rules are due to the complex morphological
construction of the verbs.

Examples: ˈpermit → per+mit

Nouns

 If the second syllable has a short vowel, the first syllable will be stressed, and if
the first syllable has a short vowel the second syllable will be stressed.
Examples: ˈmoney, ˈproduct

esˈtate, deˈsign

Adjectives

The same rule of 2 syllable verbs can be applied on 2 syllable adjectives.

Examples: ˈlovely, diˈvine, ˈ hollow

Exceptions: ˈhones, ˈperfect

Pair noun-verb

Some word forms can be both nouns and verbs. Only the placement of stress in each
pair of noun-verb allows making a distinction in the class of the word.

 If the word is a noun, the first syllable is stressed.

Example: ˈrecord

 If the word is a verb, the second syllable takes the stress.

Example: reˈcord

Other examples of the words of the same category are; contrast, desert, export,
object, present, produce, protest, rebel, report.

However, in the following words the stress is at the same place whether the words
are nouns or verbs; ˈanswer, ˈpicture, pˈromise, reˈply, ˈtravel, ˈvisit.

N B: adverbs and prepositions behave in the same way as of verbs and adjectives.
Task1: Distinguish between nouns, verbs and adjectives among the following words,
and then mark stress on the appropriate syllable.

Pretty, handsome, holly, enter, attack, promise, baby, perfect, begin,

machine, arrest, attend, contain, supply, forbid, support, survey, suspect

valley, valid, holy, value, photo, horror, happy, forget, happy, concept,

camel, devil, combine, wonder, record, answer, present, produce, dram

habit, phoneme.

Task2

Produce the above words loudly by placing stress on the right syllable.

3. Stress on three syllable words

1)Verbs

 If the last syllable consists of a short vowel or only one consonant, stress will
fall on the penultimate syllable( the one before the last).

Examples: enˈcounter, deˈtermine

 If the last syllable consists of a long vowel or a diphthong or it ends with more
than one consonant, that syllable takes stress.

Examples: enter'tain, ascer'tain

2)Nouns

 If the last syllable contains a short vowel or the diphthong / əʊ /, and if the
penultimate syllable contains a long vowel or a diphthong or more than one
 consonant, the stress will not fall on the last syllable but it will fall on the
penultimate syllable.

Examples: miˈmosa, poˈtato, diˈsaster

 If the second and the third syllables consist of short vowels, no diphthongs and
if they consist of no more than one consonant the stress will fall on the first
syllable.

Examples: 'quantity, 'cinema

On the whole, most of the above rules indicate that if a syllable ends with more than
one consonant, a long vowel or a diphthong, it is that syllable which takes stress.

However, the following rule (of three syllable simple noun) is different from the
common rules:

 If the final syllable has a long vowel, two consonants or more or a diphthong
stress will fall on the first syllable because the last syllable will be quite
prominent.

Examples: ˈintellect, ˈstalactite

3)Adjectives: they have the same rule ( the above rule).

Examples: ˈoppurtune, ˈderelict

Task1: Put stress on the appropriate syllable in each of the following words.

Quality, introspect, calorie, energy, skeleton, medicine, tomorrow,

tomato, tragedy, understand, criterion, adventure, adjective, penetrate,

exercise, continue, category, calendar, calculate, canopy, furniture,

analyze, appendix, mathematics, singular, consonant, entertain,

 institute, appreciate, opportune, cinema, determine, speculate, energy,

poetry, contemplate, immigrate, penetrate, infiltrate.

Task2: Produce the above words loudly by stressing the right syllables.