Stress
Posted on Friday, 21 December 2012
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- Syllable Stress
The emphasis that is given (through greater breath force) to any particular syllable in a word is known as stress. In all polysyllabic words, one of the syllables receives greater stress than the others. The syllable in a word which receives stress is called the stressed syllable. All other syllables are known as unstressed syllables. The stressed syllable is shown in many dictionaries, by a short vertical mark which is placed above and just ahead of the first letter or the first IPA symbol. - Stress Shift
The migration or movement of the stress from one syllable to another in related words is known as stress shift. - Stress Variation
Certain pairs of words like 'conduct', 'desert', 'object', 'present', 'rebel', etc have the same spelling but belong to different grammatical classes. Such words can be used as noun or verbs. However, there is a shift in stress in these words. When they are used as nouns, the stress is on the first syllable and when used as verbs, they are stressed on the second syllable. - Stress Patterns in Compound Words
In compound nouns, the stress is on the first part. (blackbird, greenhouse)
In compound adjectives, the stress is on the second part. (good-natured, old-fashioned)
In compound verbs, the stress is on the second part. (understand, overflow) - Stress Pattern in Sentences (Sentence Rhythm)
Sentences, like words, have stressed as well as unstressed syllables. Stress is put on words which give us the main information, while the words which are not important for meaning are left unstressed. This pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in sentences gives English speech its typical rhythm.
English words can be divided into two categories: content words and structure words.
Content words are usually stressed, while structure words are usually unstressed and reduced.
Content words:
- Nouns, main verbs, adjectives and adverbs
- Demonstrative pronouns
- Question words in a question
Structure words:
- Pronouns, prepositions, articles auxiliary verbs and determiners. - Stress-timed and Syllable-timed languages
When the stressed syllables are close to each other, the rate of speaking slows down, but when the stressed syllables are far apart, the rate of speaking becomes faster.
English is called a stress-timed language because the time taken to speak a sentence depends on the number of stressed syllables and not on the total number of syllables.
Languages such as Hindi, Oriya, etc., on the other hand are called syllable-timed languages, because the time taken to go from one syllable to the next, whether stressed or unstressed, is always the same. The time taken to speak a sentence depends on the total number of syllables and not on the number of stressed syllables, as in English.
English, therefore, has a very different rhythm from Indian languages. To an English ear, Indian languages have a sing-song rhythm (like the sound of chanting mantras), while to the Indian ear, English has a staccato rhythm (like the sound of a machine gun). - Contrastive Stress in Sentences
Stress is not always pre-determined, and can be moved from the normal position in a sentence. When stress is placed on other syllables, which do not normally take stress, special meanings can be created (mostly depicting the emotional state and intention of the speaker).
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