9.

THE PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM IF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE III:

STRESS, RHYTHM AND INTONATION. COMPARISON WITH SPANISH.

In this topic about the English phonological system, I will deal with stress, rhythm and
intonation and I will establish a comparison between those aspects and the Spanish
ones. But before I go any further, I´d like to mention the bibliography I’ve used in order
to develop this topic:
Crystal, D. 1985. Linguistics.
Gimson, A. C. 1980. An introduction to the pronunciation of English.
O’Connor, J.D. 1988. Better English Pronunciation

Before concentrating on stress, I would like to establish a difference between

segmental and suprasegmental features. Linguists refer to the inventory of vowels
and consonants of a language as the segmental features of that language.
Suprasegmental features, on the other hand, involve those phenomena that extend over
more than one sound segment. Taking these into account, we can say that stress,
rhythm and intonation are suprasegmental features.

Once this is clear, let’s concentrate on STRESS. The dictionary definition of it is “a

phonological feature by which a syllable is heard as more prominent than
others”. In other words, it could be described as the relative strength with which
syllables are pronounced. In speech, some parts of English words and sentences sound
much louder than others. For this reason, first, I will look at stress within individual
words, then in compounds, and finally in units larger than the word.

As for stress in simple words, it can be studied from two different perspectives. One
is to consider what the speaker does in producing stressed syllables, whereas the other
is to consider what characteristics of sound make a syllable seem to a listener to be
stressed. In other words, stress can be studied from the point of view of production
and of perception.

The production of stress is generally believed to depend on the speaker using more
muscular energy than is used for unstressed syllables. As for the perception of stress,
it is clear that different sound characteristics are important in making a syllable stressed.
From the perceptual point of view, all stressed syllables have one characteristic in
common: prominence. Stressed syllables are more prominent than unstressed
syllables. There are at least 4 different factors which make a syllable prominent:
 Most people seem to feel that stressed syllables are louder than unstressed; in
other words, loudness is a component of prominence.
 The length of syllables. If one of the syllables is made longer than the others,
there is quite a strong tendency for that syllable to be heard as stressed.
 Every voiced syllable is said on some pitch; pitch in speech is closely related to
the frequency of vibration of the vocal folds and to the musical notion of low - and high
- pitched notes. For example, if all syllables are said with low pitch except for one said
with high pitch, that will be heard as stressed and the others as unstressed.
 A syllable will tend to be prominent if it contains a vowel that is different in quality
from neighbouring vowels.
Prominence is then produced by loudness, length, pitch and quality. Generally
these four factors work together in combination, although syllables may sometimes be
made prominent by means of only one or two of them. Experimental work has shown
that the strongest effect is produced by pitch, and that length is also a powerful
factor. Loudness and quality have much less effect.

Now, I will deal with the different levels of stress. Three levels of stress are generally
recognized: primary stress (marked with a raised vertical line ´) and secondary stress
(marked with a low vertical line , ), syllables without stress go unmarked. Examples: tele
´vision inter´national. The designation primary makes reference to those syllables
taking the tonic or nuclear accent and, therefore, which sound with more force than the
rest. Secondary refers to the stressed syllables with pre-tonic accent which are not as
strong as the primary stress. Finally, the designation tertiary refers to unstressed
syllables. Unstressed syllables nearly always have one of these 2 vowels: /o / or /i/.
anthro´pology

Now I come to a question that causes a great deal of difficulty, particularly to foreign
learners: the placement of stress within a word. As is well known, English is not one
of those languages where word stress can be decided simply in relation to the syllables
of the word. Many writers have said that it is so difficult to predict that it is best to treat
stress placement as a property of the individual word , to be learned when the word
itself is learned. In spite of this, the following summary of ideas on stress placement is
an attempt to present a few rules in the simplest possible form. Nevertheless, practically
all the rules have exceptions. Factors that influence stress placement include the
historical origin of a word, affixation, and the word’s grammatical function in an
utterance.

In utterances longer than a word, speakers have considerable freedom. However, within
words, English is quite strict to such as extent that deviant word stress makes it difficult
for the hearer to understand. For instance the word im´portant, if pronounced
´important, could easily be confused with impotent.

Stresses are normally in a fixed position but there is no single position where
the primary stress of a word can be expected to fall, for example it may be on the first
syllable (‘yellow), fourth syllable (famili´arity), and so on.

Therefore, I can conclude that the stress pattern of each polysyllabic word needs
to be learned separately; although knowledge of some generalisations can prove
valuable.

For words of Germanic origin, the first syllable of the base form of a word is typically
stressed (‘father). Moreover, some words that enter English through other languages
are assimilated to that pattern (‘music).

It is important to take into account that there are a number of words that may function as
noun or adjectives and also as verbs: what distinguishes one use from another is a
difference in stress: noun: ‘present, adjective: ‘present, verb: pre’sent.

The main characteristic of compound words is that they can be analysed into two
words, both of which can exist independently as English words. As a general rule,
compound nouns have a primary stress on the first element and a secondary stress on
the second: ´living,room or ´hand,bag. In fact, this is how noun phrases are
distinguished from compounds: ´black,board, ,black´board. If this type of compound is
used to form another compound, the primary and secondary stress are distributed in a
different way so as to maintain the same rhythm: ´ camp,site, ´campsite,owner. There
are a few compounds that do not have primary stress on the first element but which
receive stress instead on the second element, among them are: ,back´fire, ,vice
´chancellor.

In this section, it is necessary to deal with double stress. Double stress refers to a
compound having equal stress on both components of it. For instance in compounds
composed of two nouns, the first indicating the material of which the second is made:
gold-watch, glass-case or in many compound adjectives, the second element being a
participle: old-fashioned, hard-working…

Just as the distribution of stresses in the word is subject to rule, distribution of

stresses in units higher than the word is too, despite the considerable freedom
referred to earlier. Where the head of a noun phrase is the last item in the phrase there
is a heavier stress (shown by a double vertical line /’’/): A rea´listic ,little ,toy ‘’factory.
Post-modified noun-phrases normally have the primary stress on the last stressable
item in the post-modification, which is usually an open class lexical item: The ,toy
´factory he ´got for his ´´birthday. Often a non-contrastive stress falls on the main
verb, or on the following particle if the head is a phrasal verb, or on the operator in an
elliptical verb phrase: ´Will he have ´´ gone? ´Yes, he ´´will. He’s ´washing ´´up. In these
examples the verb phrase is in end position where a climax of prominence is expected,
usually occurring on the last word if it is not a pronoun or preposition: She ´saw the
´´dog She ´´saw it. ´This is who I ´sent the ´´flowers to.

Contrastive stress refers to the placing of stress on a particular word in order to

highlight it. The existence of the two forms means that when the strong form is used it is
to contrast. For example: ´What do you ´´want? ´What´´do you ´want? The normal
accentuation of a single word can also be changed in order to produce contrast : A: The
bed was comfortable. B: Really? I thought it was ´´uncomfortable. The stress would
normally be on the second syllable ´un´comfortable.
 After analysing stress, I am going to move on to my second section, dealing with
RHYTHM. The New Oxford Dictionary of English defines rhythm as “the measured
flow of words and phrases in verse or prose as determined by the relation of long
and short or stressed and unstressed syllables”. It is the word used for the way
stressed and unstressed syllables make patterns in speech. The notion of rhythm
involves some noticeable event happening at regular intervals of time; one can detect
the rhythm of a heart-beat or of a piece of music. It has often been claimed that English
speech is rhythmical.

Many linguists feel that the rhythm of spoken English is based on a regular pattern
of stressed syllables. These follow each other at roughly regular intervals, and are
pronounced more slowly and clearly. Unstressed syllables are pronounced more quickly
and less clearly, and are fitted in between the regular stressed syllables. English is
characterised by having a stress-timed rhythm (or isochronous) based on the use of
stressed syllables which occur at regular intervals in the stream of speech
whether they are separated by unstressed syllables or not. This theory states that the
time from each stressed syllable to the next will tend to be the same. It contrasts with
Spanish for example which is syllable-time, where the syllables have equal force,
giving a marked rat-a-tat-a-tat effect. Contrastive stress apart, connected speech in
English has stresses on open-class words whereas closed class words do not and this
marks the rhythm of the sentence. The other unstressed words are apocopated and
pronounced rapidly. English has a regular beat as the basis of its natural rhythm, giving
approximately equal intervals of time between the stresses. For emphasis, when a
speaker intends something to be accepted without argument or to express irritation or
sarcasm, emphasis is given to equal intervals between the stresses: You will ´never…
´take…´anything…from…my…desk…a´gain.

As can be seen, rhythm is a difficult matter for foreign speakers. So for those who
are learning English it can be helpful to practise repeating strongly rhythmical
utterances since this forces the speaker to concentrate on making unstressed syllables
weak.
 Finally, let’s deal with INTONATION. Intonation is the variation in the pitch of the
voice in connected speech. It is the word for the ‘melody’ of spoken language: the way
the musical pitch of the voice rises and falls. Languages may be classed as intonation
languages or tone languages: English is an intonation language. In spoken language,
it forms part of the structure of sentences and serves to emphasise the relative
prominence of words and sequences, mark the divisions between different sequences
in an utterance and signal attitudes.

The pitch of the voice plays the most important part in the definition of intonation. Only
in very unusual situations do we speak with fixed, unvarying pitch, and when we speak
normally the pitch of our voice is constantly changing. Pitch is defined as the relative
highness or lowness of the voice, and is described in terms of high and low and will
vary from person to person. If I take two speakers at random I will find that one speaker
typically speaks with lower pitch than the other; the difference between them is not
linguistically significant because their habitual pitch level is determined by their physical
structure. But an individual speaker does have control over his or her own pitch ,
and may choose to speak with a higher than normal pitch; this is of linguistic
significance. For pitch differences to be linguistically significant, it is a necessary
condition that they should be under the speaker’s control . Another necessary
condition is that a pitch difference must be perceptible. Together with this it is also
important that in looking for linguistically significant aspect of speech, contrasts must
always be looked for.

We should ask ourselves “What is the form of intonation?” and “What is the function
of intonation?” Two One-syllable utterances will be used to exemplify the form of
intonation: ‘yes’ and ‘no’. The word I will use for the overall behaviour of the pitch in
these examples is tone. I may utter these words with a level tone, that is, unchanging,
or a moving tone. Speakers use moving tones more frequently than level ones. Moving
tone refers to the tone moving higher or lower, at which point we can summarise and
say that the three simple tones in English are level, fall, and rise. A falling tone is the
one which descends from a higher to a lower pitch. A rising tone is the one in which the
movement is from a lower pitch to a higher one. Other more complex tones are also
used. A frequently complex tone is the fall-rise, where the pitch drops and then rises
again; less frequent is the reverse pattern, rise-fall. When a person is speaking
ordinarily they tend to use the lower part of the speaker’s pitch range; however, when
strong feelings are expressed a higher pitch is used. This brings us to the functions of
English intonation. Speakers are said to select from a choice of tones according to how
they want the utterance to be heard, and it is implied that the listener will hear one-
syllable utterances said with different tones as sounding different in some way.

Now, I am going to take a look at the different functions of intonation.

Level tone – a level tone always conveys something is routine, boring, or uninteresting.
A falling tone, the most common one, is considered more or less neutral but giving an
impression of finality. It is used in statements and yes/no questions.
A rising tone conveys that there is more to follow or an invitation to someone to
continue.
A fall-rise is very common in English and has some special functions such as limited
agreement or a response with reservations or hesitation. “What a lovely painting¡” “`
´Yes”. It is especially common with initial adverbials: “F`´inally we decided no to gò”
The opposite, rise-fall, is used to convey strong feelings of approval, disapproval or
surprise. “You didn’t accept, did you? “`´No”. A fall-plus-rise pattern is used to
contradict what a previous speaker has said or to contrast two items found in the same
information unit: A: Caledonio seemed happy. B: Caledonio seemed unhappy to ´me
(you thought the contrary).

When considering the function of intonation in language use, it is perhaps easier to

imagine what would be lost if people were to speak without intonation. Intonation in
fact helps us to understand what a speaker wants to convey.

Four different functions can be distinguished in intonation, although they often overlap:
attitudinal, accentual, grammatical and discourse.
 The attitudinal function is how we express emotions and attitudes when we
speak, for example, a level tone indicating boredom.
 The accentual function helps to produce prominence on syllables and
especially the placing of tonic stress to indicate which word is the most
important.
 The grammatical function is how differences are highlighted between
questions and statements by means of intonation features (such as
 placement of boundaries between phrases, clauses or sentences)
subordination can also be indicated.
 Finally, the discourse function of it is the way in which new information and
information already given are distinguished and signalled to the listener.

After analysing stress, rhythm and intonation in English Phonological System, I am

going to make a comparison with the Spanish phonological system. Spanish is a
syllable-timed language, not a stress-timed one. Every syllable of speech is produced
by an expulsion of air from the lungs. Muscles may or may not move. When they do, it
gives more emphasis to the syllable.

A stress-timed language like English organizes the muscles movements to be

regularly spaced, while syllable-timed languages organize the expulsion of air to be
regularly spaced, so that every syllable occupies more or less the same amount of time;
the distance between the stressed syllables depends on the number of syllables that
intervene. A consequence of this opposition is that Spanish learners of English make
every syllable count, and thus cannot find the typical English rhythm, whereas English
learners of Spanish pronounce unstressed syllables too fast and fail to give the sounds
their full value, often blurring or weakening and de-stressing words, something that does
not happen in Spanish.

Word stress in English is not necessarily as predictable as it is in other languages, nor

does English indicate regularly placed stress patterns through stress or accents marks
in the spelling, which is the case of Spanish. Learners need to understand that a basic
characteristic of every English word containing more than one syllable is its
stress pattern. Thus, our first step as teachers is to clarify the systematicity of stress
placement in words.

English and Spanish intonation patterns are quite different , and learners need to
understand that incorrect placement of stress can cause misunderstanding. In general,
Spanish uses the rising tune much more often than English does, and this can lead to
problem of understanding English speakers who transfer their native patterns to
Spanish, or the other way around. Spanish often associate question exclusively with
rising intonation, and as a result, they have difficulties when producing wh-questions,
which typically have falling intonation in English. Tag questions are also difficult for
Spanish.

The main difference between English and Spanish intonation relies on the way Spanish
produces the melodic tone, that is, with a narrower angle, making the English
intonation of learners sound somewhat flat, bored and disinterested. Non-native
speakers are often misinterpreted as rude, abrupt or disinterested mainly because their
speech sounds choppy and with an unnatural rhythm, sometimes with flat intonation.

To sum up, in this topic I have analyses three features of the English phonological
system: stress, rhythm and intonation, providing a background for establishing a
comparison of this aspect with the Spanish phonological system.