Phonetics (XI).

Stress

1. The nature of stress

● Stress in the first syllable in words like father, mother open or camera.
● Stress in the middle syllable in words like potato, apartment or relation.
● Stress in the final syllable in words like perhaps, about or receive.

Stress can be studied from the point of view of production and perception.
○ Both viewpoints are closely related, but they are not identical.

● Production: it is believed that the production of stress depends on the speaker using
more muscular energy than is used or unstressed syllables; when we produce
stressed syllables the muscles that we use to expel air from the lungs are more
active.

● Perception: All stressed syllables have one characteristic in common, and that is
prominence. Stressed syllables are recognised as stressed because they are more
prominent than unstressed syllables.

2. What makes a syllable prominent?

1. Loudness:
- Most people seem to feel that stressed syllables are louder than unstressed;
that is, loudness is a component of prominence.

2. Length:
- If one syllable is made longer than the others, there is quite a strong tendency
for that syllable to be heard as stressed.

3. Pitch:
- If one syllable is said with a pitch that is noticeably different from that of the
other, this syllable will have a strong tendency to produce the effect of
prominence (rising/falling pitch; for example with the word “around”).
- It is the one that influences the prominence more.

4. Quality:
- A syllable will tend to be prominent if it contains a vowel that is different in
quality from neighbouring vowels.

3. Levels of stress
1. Primary stress. Marked by “ ‘ “.
2. Secondary stress. Not as strong, but not weak either. Present in words with three or
more syllables. Marked by “,”.
3. Unstressed.

4. Placement of stress within the word

● In order to decide on stress placement, it is necessary to make use of some or all of
the following information:
 ○ Whether the word is morphologically simple, or whether it is complex as a
result either of containing one or more affixes or of being a compound word.

○ The grammatical category to which the word belongs: nouns, adjectives,

verbs…

○ The number of syllables in the word.

○ The phonological structure of those words.

5. Stress in simple words

5.1 Two-syllable words
● Verbs
○ If the second syllable of the verb contains a long vowel or diphthong, or if it
ends with more than one consonant, that second syllable is stressed. Ex:
apply, arrive, attract, assist.

○ If the final syllable contains a short vowel and one (or no) final consonant, the
first syllable is stressed. Ex: enter, envy, open, equal.

○ A final syllable is also unstressed if it contains /schwa u/, as in “follow” and

“borrow”.
Exception: verbs that are morphologically complex — permit / predict.

● Adjectives
○ Two-syllable simple adjectives are stressed according to the same rule. Ex:
lovely, even, hollow, divine, correct, alive.

Exception: adjectives such as perfect (two consonants but stressed on the first syllable.

● Nouns:
○ Different rule from verbs and adjectives: if the second syllable contains a
short vowel the stress will usually come on the first syllable. otherwise itwill be
on the second syllable. Ex: money, product, larynx, estate, ballon, design

○ Other two.syllable words such as adverbs and preposition seem to behave

like verbs and adjectives. Ex: freely, about.
5.2 Three-syllable words
● Verbs:
○ If the last syllable contains a short vowel and ends with not more than one
consonant, that syllable will be unstressed, and stress will be placed on the
penultimate syllable.

○ If the final syllable contains a long vowel or diphthong, or ends with more than
one consonant, that final syllable will be stressed.

● Nouns:
○ Different rule:
■ If the final syllable contains a short vowel or /schwa u/, it is
unstressed.
■ If the syllable preceding this final syllable contains a long vowel or
diphthong, or if it ends with more than one consonant, that syllable will
be stressed.

○ If the final syllable contains a short vowel and the middle syllable contains a
short vowel and ends with not more than one consonant, both final and
middle syllables are unstressed and the first syllable is stressed.

○ Most of the previous rules show stress tending to go on syllables containing a

long vowel or a diphthong or ending with more than one consonant. However,
three-syllable simple nouns are different. If the final syllable is of this type, the
stress will usually be placed on the first syllable. The last syllable is usually
quite prominent so that in some cases it could be said to have secondary

stress.

● Adjectives:
○ Adjectives seem to need the same rule (the previous one) to produce stress
patterns such as: