Stress and Rhythm

8/3/2019 Stress and Rhythm

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STRESS & RHYTHM



Sound Features

Segmental

vs.

Suprasegmental



Segmental Features vowels and consonants

single speech sound segment



Suprasegmental Features

stress, rhythm, & intonation

more than a single segment:

a syllable, a complete word/

phrase, whole sentences, or

more



STRESS

emphasis/focus which is put

on particular segment , i.e.syllable, word



There are four phonetic

variables as indicators of stress:

intensity

pitch variation

vowel quality

vowel duration



Intensity

the greater breath and muscular

energy related with stressed syllables

perceived as ´loudnessµ



Pitch variation

highness/lowness of the tone

the most important single factor in determining stress

(higher pitch tends to beassociated with stronger

stress)



Vowel quality

whether a vowel is central orperipheral

Stressed peripheral

Unstressed central

e.g. present (n) - /·preznt/

present (v) - /pr¶zent/



In English, the peripheral vowel in the

unstressed syllable is actually replacedby another phoneme, i.e. / /, /I/, //, or

even a syllabic consonant.

e.g. attention / ¶tenn/

excitable /ik¶saitbl/

The kind of effect is called ´vowel

reductionµ



Vowel duration

whether the vowel is long or short

longer is stressed syllable

shorter in unstressed syllable

e.g. sarcasm /·s:kæzm/

sarcastic /s·kæ:stik/



WORD STRESS the strongest stress primary stress [']

less strong stress secondary stress [']

unstressed unmarked

e.g. ,cate'gorical

,eccen¶tricity

'goal,keeper



In certain languages, stress always fall

on a syllable in a particular position in

the word. language invariable stress

e.g.

- stress on the first syllable: Czech,

Slovak

- stress on the penultimate (last but

one): Italian, Polish, Welsh

- word-final stress: Farsi



In English and some other languages

(e.g. German, Dutch, Danish, etc.),stress not only can occur at any point

in the word but fixed for each

individual word.

lexically designated stress

stress is of great importance for the

phonetic structure of the word.



Characteristics of stressed and unstressed

syllables:

indicators stressed unstressed

1. intensity articulation with greater

breath/muscular effort

Less breath/muscular effort

Perceived as having less

loudness

2. pitch marked change in pitch Syllables tend to follow the pitch

trend set by the previousstressed syllable

3. vowel

quality

- may contain any vowel

(except //)

- vowels have clear

(peripheral) quality

- glides have clearly

defined second element

- generally have central vowels /

/, /I/, // or syllabic consonants

- vowels may have centralized

quality

- glides tend to lose second

element

4. vowel

duration

vowels have full length Vowels are considerably shorter



Word stress guidelines



Words consisting of two or three

syllables Rough guide: primary stress on the first

syllable

e.g. 'culture

'Hesitant

'motivate



Longer words

Rough guide: there is a tendency for the

antepenultimate syllable to have primary

stress, i.e. the last but two

E.g. credi'bility Com'municate

methodo'logical



Prefix words

Rough guide: in shorter words beginning witha prefix, the primary stress typically falls on

the syllable following the prefix

e.g. inter¶ference, in¶tend, ex¶pose, con¶nect,

un¶veil

Exception: a large number of nouns, e.g.¶output, ¶interlude, ¶congress, ¶absence



Numerous verbs with prefixes are

distinguished from nouns by stress switch stress.

The noun generally has stress on theprefix, while the verb has stress on the

syllable following the prefix.

e.g. in¶sert (v) ¶insert (n)

up¶date (v) ¶update (n)



Word endings

Certain word endings may act as stressattractors, falling in 2 groups:

1. stress on ending itself ade (n), -ain (v), -ee (n), -eer, -esque

(adj/n), esce (v), -ess (v), -ette (n), ique

(n/adj, -oon, -self/selves

e.g. pa¶rade, ab¶stain, interview¶ee,

engi¶neer, gro¶tesque, etc.



2. Stress on syllable preceding ending

-ative, itive, -cient, -ciency, eous, -ety, -

ian, -ial, -ic, -ical, -ident, -inal, -ion, -ital, -

itous, -itude, ity, -ive, -ual, ular, -uous, -

wards

e.g. al¶ternative, ¶positive, ¶ancient,

de¶ficiency, ou'trageous, pro¶priety, etc.



STRESS IN ENGLISH COMPUNDS

1. Initial element stress main stress on the

first part of the compound

e.g. ¶apple pie, ¶office boy, 'Russian class

2. Final element stress main stress on the last

element of the compound

e.g. apple ¶pie, office ¶desk, Russian ¶salad



Stress guideline for compounds

1. Word shape

written as one word have IES,

written as two or with hyphen can be

either IES or FES2. The manufacturer rules

the compound includes a material

used in its manufacture, then FESapplies

e.g. apple ¶pie a pie made of apple



Compare with non-manufactured items use IES

e.g. ¶apple tree, ¶paper clip, 'diamondcutter



2. Location rule

describes the strong tendency for a

compound to take FES if location is in

some way involved.

a. FES applies if the first element is the

name of a country, region or town

e.g. Turkish de¶light, Bermuda ¶shorts



b. The vast majority of place-names,

geographical features, etc. have FES.This includes:

- regions, towns, suburbs, districts,

natural features Botany ¶Bay- bridges, tunnels, parks, public

buildings, and sport clubs

Manchester ¶United

- All street names, except street itself

Fifth ¶Avenue



c. Parts of a building tends to have FES

e.g. back ¶door, bedroom ¶window,

office ¶chair

exception: compound with rooms are

IES ¶living room, ¶study room (but front ¶room)



d. FES applies where positioning of anysort is involved

e.g. left ¶wing, Middle ¶Ages, upper¶class, bottom ¶line

Time location also tends to FES

morning ¶star, afternoon ¶tea, March

¶sale, summer ¶holiday.



Other stress patterns

3. IES applies to compounds includingthe names of academic subjects,

skills, etc. ¶ technical college,

¶French teacher

4. Nouns formed from the verb +

particle take IES ¶ make-up, ¶come-

back, ¶look-out

But have changed recently



5. Nouns ending in ²er, or ²ing+particle take

FES hanger-¶on, passer-¶by, washing-¶up

6. Compounds formed from ²ing+noun are of

two types:

- IES applies where an activity is aided bythe object ¶sewing machine, ¶running

shoes, ¶washing machine

- FES applies where a compound suggest a

characteristic of the object, with no idea of aiding an activity leading ¶article, running

¶water, sliding ¶scale



Sentence stressMany potential stresses of word stress are lost

in connected speech (i.e. sentence stress).

The general pattern is that words which are

likely to lose stress completely are words whichconvey relatively little information. The words

are important for the structure of the sentence,

i.e. function words (articles, auxiliary verbs,

verb be, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions).

The content words (nouns, main verbs,

adjectives, most adverbs), which carry a high

information load, are normally stressed.



For example:

I have µheard that µJack and µJane µspent their µholidays in Ja¶maica.

F F C F C F C C F C F C

(C= content word, F= function word)



There are certain exceptions to the general

pattern:

1. Two sets of function words frequently received

stress:

a. wh-words where these form questions, e.g.

where, why, how

b. demonstratives, e.g. this, that, those, these.

These particular function words normally receive

stress when they indicate a contrast. See point 2.



2. Function words normally receive stress

when they indicate a contrast:

I said I gave 'her a kiss, not 'him.

3. Prepositions are frequently stressedwhere a contrast is stated or implied:

X: Would you cal yourself a jazz lover?Y: Actually, I know very little a'bout jazz.

I prefer classical music.



It is noteworthy that repeated lexical items

are not generally stressed:

´There have been 'traffic jams in 'Dagenham

and 'areas 'close to Dagenham.µ

A similar effect can be heard in items which

are direct equivalents:

Are you ' fond of 'chocolate then?

'Given the 'chance, I will 'eat 'tons of the

stuff.



4. At a more rapid tempo, the number of

unstressed syllables will increase, andmore lexical words will be unstressed,

e.g.

I have µheard that µJack and µJane µspent their µholidays in Ja¶maica.



Stress and Rhythm

Sentence stress is the basis of rhythm in English. Stressed

syllables tend to occur at roughly

equal intervals of time. This isbecause the unstressed syllables

between give the impression of

being compressed if there aremany and expanded if there are

few syllables.



Notice how the stressed syllables give

the impression of coming at regularinterval; if we pronounce the words in

regular singsong manner.

baners

___ .

' Alastair 'claimed he was 'selling the 'company.

__ . . ___ . . ___ . . ___ . .

Stress and Rhythm

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