Download Stress

2016 January 14
STRESS
What is stress?
 Syllable-level property
 Increased volume/amplitude
 More prominence
 Higher in pitch
 Longer in duration
Diacritic for stress
 [ˈ] = used for primary stress
 Placed before the stressed syllable.
 Controversy
 RP: conˈtroversy
 SAE: ˈcontroversy
Properties of stress
 Some languages have stress in a fixed
position:
 French
 aˈmi ‘friend’; amicaleˈment ‘kindly’; heuˈreuse
‘happy (fm sg)’; heureuseˈment ‘happily’
 Final stress
Properties of stress
 Finnish
 ˈkiitos ‘thanks’; ˈanteeksi ‘excuse me’; ˈisomaa
‘large’; ˈpikkunen ‘small’
 Word-initial stress
Properties of stress
 Some languages have weight-dependent
stress
 Syllable weight
 Some languages distinguish between “heavy”
and “light” syllables
 “Heavy” syllables attract stress
Rhythm
 English is a stress-timed language
 Stress-timed language: tendency for stressed
syllables to occur at regular intervals
 Most other languages are syllable-timed
Rhythm
 BIRDS EAT WORMS
 The BIRDS EAT WORMS
 The BIRDS EAT the WORMS
 The BIRDS will EAT the WORMS
 The BIRDS will have EATEN the WORMS
 The unstressed words will have schwas.
What are heavy syllables?
 Sometimes a syllable with a coda
 Sometimes a syllable with a long vowel
 Language dependent
Question of the day
 Can you think of any two English words that
are minimal pairs through only stress
(placement)?
Stress in English
 English has lexical stress
 We can form near-minimal pairs with stress
placement
 ˈreject vs reˈject
 ˈobject vs obˈject
 ˈsubject vs subˈject
 First syllable stress – nouns; second syllable
stress - verbs
Word stress
 There are some general rules where you can
predict stress placement in many – but NOT
ALL – words.
 Noun rule: stress the penultimate syllable if
heavy
 If penultimate syllable is light, stress the
antepenult.
Word stress
 Penultimate – one before the final syllable
 Antepenultimate – two before the final
syllable
 a.RO.ma
 a.GEN.da
 DI.sci.pline
Word stress
 Verb rule: stress the final syllable if heavy
 If the final syllable is light, stress the penult
 o.BEY
 u.SURP
 a.TONE
 TA.lly
 HU.rry
Now, let’s take a look at
this…
 Flapping
 [ɾ]
 Why do native English speakers “flap” when
we see words like “butter” and “water”?
Take a look at the following
data
[ɹaɪd]
[ɹaɪt]
[daɪɹ]
[ˈɹaɪɾɪŋ]
[ˈlɛndɚ]
[əˈtæk]
‘ride’
‘write’
‘dire’
‘riding’
‘lender’
‘attack’
[ˈɹaɪɾɚ]
[ˈɹaɪɾɚ]
[taɪɹ]
[ˈɹaɪɾɪŋ]
[ˈistɚ]
[əˈdobi]
‘rider’
‘writer’
‘tire’
‘writing’
‘Easter’
‘adobe’
Where does flapping take
place?
 Between vowels
 First vowel must be stressed; second vowel
must be unstressed
 What’s the rule for this?
Phrasal stress
 When words are combined into phrases or
sentences, one syllable receives greater
stress than all others
 Only one primary stress per phrase/sentence
(much like only one primary stress per word)
Examples
Tight + rope 
A TIGHTrope
‘a rope for acrobats’
A tight ROPE
‘a rope pulled taut’
Hot + dog 
A HOTdog ‘frankfurter [sausage]’
A hot DOG ‘an overheated dog’
Examples
Red + coat 
A REDcoat
A red COAT
‘a British soldier’
‘a coat that is red’
White + house 
The WHITE house
A white HOUSE
‘the President’s home’
‘a house that is white’
Examples
 How about these?
 Glass flower case
 Garbage can collector
Phrasal stress
 What other compound nouns vs. adjectival
phrases can we come up with (with the same
words in each)?
 Does this phrasal stress tendency work?
So, what does phrasal stress
do here?
 Stress on first part of each pair
 Indicates compound nouns
 Stress on second element of each pair
 Indicates adjective + noun combination