PROMINENCE

When we speak we give more emphasis to some parts of a

sentence, statement, word than others.

A syllable in a word. A word in a sentence.

Elements that Produce Prominence

Loudness

Length

Pitch

Quality

Loudness

Most people feel stressed syllables are louder than unstressed ones

Length

If a syllable in a word is made longer than the others, there is quite a strong tendency for that syllable to be heard as stressed.

Pitch

Every syllable is said on some pitch. It is essencially a perceptual characteristic

of speech.

Quality

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

Prominence, then, is produced by four main factors: loudness, pitch, length

and quality.

Generally these factors work together in combination though syllables may

sometimes be made prominent by means of only one or two of them.

These four factors are not equally important;

The strongest effect is produced by pitch.

Length is also a powerful factor.

Loudness and quality have much less effect.

STRESS

It is almost certainly true that in all languages some syllables are in some sense stronger than other syllables; these are syllables that have the potential to be described as stressed.

1. Speaker/Production More muscular energy

2. Listener/ Perception The stressed syllables have one

characteristic in common: they are more prominent

How do we identify stress?

Loudness Length Pitch Quality

Manifestation of stress

We can find defferent levels of stress and they do not happen at random.

If we change the stress in the word we can change its meaning

(n) (v)Ex: insult insult

present present record record

Some types of words most commonly occur in an unstressed form in connected speech.

Other types of words most commonly occurring without a stress (and with reduced vowels) are auxiliary verbs, personal pronouns and shorter prepositions and conjunctions,

whereas the majority of nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs, numerals,

quantifiers, and personal pronouns commonly occur with a stress.

Degrees of stress

The majority of English phoneticians assert that there are three degrees of stress in

English: primary, secondary and unstressed.

Degrees of stress

1) PRIMARY STRESS involving the principal pitch prominence in the word. We mark the

strongest or primary stress with a short raised stroke [‘].

‚funda'mental;

2) SECONDARY STRESS, involving a subsidiary pitch prominence. We mark the

middle level or secondary level with a short lowered stroke [,].

ex‚peri'mental;

3) UNSTRESSED, involving a non-prominent syllable containing no pitch change and one of the vowels /I, U, ə /.

in‚vesti'gation.

Every word unit has at least one primary stress and one or more unstressed syllables.

Polysyllabic words in English also show, in general, primary and secondary stress, apart from unstressed syllables.

Polysyllabic in English usually refers to words with 3

syllables or more and compounds

RULES OF WORD STRESS

RULE # 1:  stress in two-syllable words:

Except for verbs, two-syllable words are usually stressed on the first syllable.

Examples: 1. answer                       2. conduit                       3. dealer

 

RULE # 2:  stress in words that end in –tion, -sion, and –cian:For words that end in –tion, -sion, or –cian, the stressed syllable comes just before the –tion, -sion, or –cian.

Examples:   1. articulation                        2. celebration                        3. commission 

RULE # 3: Stress in words that end in –ic and  –ical:

*For words that end in -ic, the stressed syllable comes just before the –ic.

* For words that end in –ical, the stressed syllable comes just before the –ical.Examples: 1. analytic        1. classical

2. anesthetic     2. ecumenical 3. energetic      3. vertical

RULE # 4: Stress in two-syllable nouns and verbs

When a two-syllable word can be used as a noun or a verb, the verb form is usually stressed on the second syllable.

Examples:     Noun                Verb                     1. confine              confine      

2. conscript           conscript      3. contact             contact                                

RULE # 5: Stress in two-word verbs Some verbs are made up of two words.

These two-word verbs are commonly stressed on the second syllable.

Examples:     Noun                   Verb                   1. letdown               let down                   2. shutout               shut out                    3. takeover              take over

RULE # 6: Stress in compound nouns English often combines two nouns to make

a new word, called a compound noun. For example, the words “house” and “boat” can be combined to form a new noun. Compound nouns are pronounced as a single word, whit the stress on the first part.

Examples: 1.overpass                       2.longtime                       3.output