5.

WORD STRESS
 Stress
Definition:

• “The degree of force with which a sound or

syllable is uttered” (Daniel Jones)
• It gives prominence to some syllables; it helps
to avoid monotony and makes speech more
interesting.
• Prominence is relative: it depends on the
prominence of the surrounding syllables.
 Stress
• The perceived prominence of stressed
syllables results from:

– (i) greater loudness (greater acoustic intensity due

to increased air pressure from the lungs)
– (ii) greater duration (greater length)
– (iii) higher pitch (higher rate of VF vibration)
 Stress
• 2 main kinds of stress:

– 1. STATIC STRESS: there is no pitch change, i.e. an

upward or downward tonal movement.
– 2. KINETIC STRESS (ACCENT): there is pitch
change.

I’ll lét you knów on Mónday

 Stress
• 2 major groups of languages on the basis of
lexical stress.
– 1. Fixed stress languages: most words bear stress
on the same syllable.
• Czech: word-initial stress.
• Turkish, French: word-final stress.
– 2. Free stress languages: there is no fixed place
for the stress in words.
• Catalan, Spanish, English, German.
Although sometimes, some generalizations or rules may be
established.
 English lexical stress
The main reason for the complexity
of the placement of stress in English.

Words is that English is a mixture of

Romance and Germanic.
 English Lexical Stress
3 main factors help to predict stress placement
in English:
1. Syntactic Category of the word.
2. Syllable weight.
3. Affixation.

Note: One-syllable words in English are either grammatical and

unstressed or lexical and stressed.
 1. Syntactic Category
1.1. Nouns vs. Verbs:
• Nouns tend to be stressed towards the beginning of the
syllable:
e.g.: récord,íncrease, pérvert…

• Verbs tend to be stressed towards the end:

e.g.: recórd, incréase, pervért…

1.2. Compound nouns and syntactic units (dealt with later on).
 2. Syllable Weight
Most stressed syllables in English are heavy.

In heavy Syllables the rhyme includes:

– A long V or diphthong: VV.

– Short V+ one or more consonants, (not
weak vowels: ,,).
 2. Syllable Weight
2.1. Words of two syllables:
Stress is placed on heavy syllables: afféct, repórt,
cómmon, évil, fáther…

Inflections do not count (mérit-s, not meríts).

The endings and  are, to some extent ,

exceptions to the rule because they don’t usually
take stress: yéllow, bórrow, phóto, ígloo, íssue,
ménu, vénue. (BUT, revíew, belów)
 2. Syllable Weight
2.2. Words of 3 syllables:

• Verbs: if the final syllable is heavy (not –ize or –ate), it is

stressed, otherwise the penultimate is stressed:
comprehénd,intervéne, devélop,astónish...

• Nouns and (suffixed) adjectives:

Latin stress rule: If the penultimate syllable is heavy, it is

stressed (the final syllable is always extrametrical),
otherwise the antepenultimate is stressed:
lúdicrous,allówance,cámomile,ellípsis…

Many exceptions: Wéllington, Vanilla, confetti…

Note: the Latin stress rule also applies to 4-syllable words, but a suffixed-
based approach works better with longer words.
 SECONDARY STRESS
If the primary stress is on the third syllable or
later, there will be secondary stress two
syllables before it, and is a full-vowelled
syllable with no reduction to  or 

Sùperséde, cùriósity, èconòmic, contìnuátion.

 3. Affixation
3.1. Prefixes: do not change stress pattern of the
word, and they are usually unstressed
(becóme,prevént,retúrn), but sometimes acquire
secondary stress:

-re,pre,post,pro,anti,half,ex:
rècóver,prèwár,pòstdáted,pròáctive,àntiabórtion
,hàlfdrúnk,èxprésident.

Notice that these prefixes have a full lexical

meaning.
 3. Affixation
3.2. Suffixation: word origin
3.2.1 The Germanic principle:
Germanic-origin suffixes do not affect the word stress
pattern:

– -able, -al, -cy,-er, -ish, -ism, -ist, -ize, -ous, -ment…

– Mánageable, fúnctional, prívacy, áppetizer, fórtyish,
nátionalism, biólogist, cápitalize, périlous,
mánagement.
– Inflections: swállowed, swállows, swállowing .
 3. Affixation
3.2.2. The Romanic principle:

-French: these suffixes take primary stress:

-ee, -ette, -ique, -mental, -esque, -esce, -ever, -oon, -self.

– Refugée, cigarétte, antíque, sèntiméntal, pìcturésque,

còalésce, whatéver, salóon, himsélf.

-Latin: these suffixes shift stress towards the right:

-ical, -ity, -iar, -graphy, -ic, -ion, -ial.

– Polítical, valídity, famíliar, photógraphy, èconómic,

èlevátion, provérbial (exception: cátholic).
Compound nouns and syntactic units (syntactic
category)
They are different in respect of their stress patterns
and meaning:

CNs SUs
bláckbird bláck bírd
the Whíte House a whíte hóuse
rédneck réd néck
Sléeping bag sléeping bág
blúebell blúe béll
Énglish teacher Énglish téacher
Gréenhouse Gréen hóuse
Compound nouns and syntactic units (syntactic
category)
• When the compound has acquired a meaning
in the history of the language that goes
beyond that of its components used
separately, we say that it is a LEXICALIZED
form.

• LEXICALIZATION, then, implies treating a

complex form as though it were
monomorphemic.
Compound nouns and syntactic units (syntactic
category)
• CNs usually have only one strong stress
because the one which was on the second
element has been lost in the history of
English.

(Please not that there are double-stressed

compounds, which won’t be dealt with)