Word stress in English Plan

constitutive– word stress constitutes a word, it organizes the syllables of a word into a language unit. A word does not exist without the word stress. Thus the function is constitutive – sound continuum becomes a phrase when it is divided into units organized by word stress into words.

Word stress enables a person to identify a succession of syllables as a definite accentual pattern of a word. This function is known as identificatory (or recognitive).

Word stress alone is capable of differentiating the meaning of words or their forms, thus performing its distinctive function. The accentual patterns of words or the degrees of word stress and their positions form oppositions (“/import – im /port”, “/present – pre /sent”).

There are actually as many degrees of word stress in a word as there are syllables. The British linguists usually distinguish three degrees of stress in the word. The primary stress is the strongest (e.g. exami/nation), the secondary stress is the second strongest one (e.g. ex,ami/nation). All the other degrees are termed “weak stress”. Unstressed syllables are supposed to have weak stress. The American scholars, B. Bloch and J. Trager, find 4 contrastive degrees of word stress: locid, reduced locid, medial and weak.

In Germanic languages the word stress originally fell on the initial syllable or the second syllable, the root syllable in the English words with prefixes. This tendency was called recessive. Most English words of Anglo-Saxon origin as well as the French borrowings are subjected to this recessive tendency.

Languages are also differentiated according to the placement of word stress. The traditional classification of languages concerning the place of stress in a word is into those with a fixed stress and a free stress. In languages with a fixed stress the occurrence of the word stress is limited to a particular syllable in a multisyllabic word. For example, in French the stress falls on the last syllable of the word (if pronounced in isolation), in Finnish and Czech it is fixed on the first syllable.

Some borrowed words retain their stress.

In languages with a free stress its place is not confined to a specific position in the word. The free placement of stress is exemplified in the English and Russian languages

(e.g. E. appetite – begin – examination

R. озеро – погода – молоко)

The word stress in English as well as in Russian is not only free but it may also be shifting performing semantic function of differentiating lexical units, parts of speech, grammatical forms. It is worth noting that in English word stress is used as a means of word-building (e.g. /contrast – con/trast, /music – mu /sician).

Questions:

1. 
   What features characterize word accent?
   
2. 
   Identify the functions of word stress.
   
3. 
   What are the types of word stress?
   
4. 
   Do AmE and BE have any differences in the system of word stress? Give your examples.
   

1. 
   Name the basic components of intonation.
   
2. 
   What is the connection between pitch and tempo?
   
3. 
   What for do we need different nuclear tones?
   
4. 
   Which nuclei are the commonest?
   

Literature:

1.Antrushina G.B. English Lexicology. M., 2006.

2. Arnold I.V. The English Word. M., 1986.

3. Ginzburg R.S. et al. A Course in Modern English Lexicology. M., 1979.

4.Dubenets E.M. Modern English Lexicology. M. – S.-P., 2004