sbifikeifn 1 1 Sift efrikat a:tikjuleifn voism sil ' gn dif0nn 1 konektid ud spitk vb] astikj —brnnaind frevel ecksent. falaizeifn prosodi reijn fooniun sa bikwnd ton bisl stop tid Porson konsonant simbl daiokritik raw hias su:prasegmentl noiz frikj{n weiv raul d3 mans pitf hed teil wstarisk okse i fort ign difOon glaid levi gwids rekognifn pasepfn risepf kwolati koran! no: susegmentl metrikl vnset veerieifn k haiettas lengwid3 ju:nivais| akarons kompavnd_freiz ilisn_difMon visla_naelatl sdi Atrons. kriOriginalmente publicado como Cuadernos de la Facultad, coleccién Monografias Tematicas N? 16, Facultad de Historia, Geografia y Letras, Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educactén, Santiago de Chile, mayo de 1998. © Héctor Ortiz-Lira 1998 Se prohibe toda reproduccién ‘otal o parcial por cualquier medio escrito 0 electrénico sin autorizactén escrita del autor.FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF THE THEORY Of PROMINENCE, 3.6 SIN ENGLISH SIMPLE WORDS... CONTENTS Introductio Prominence... Suess and accent Accent and prominence. Degrees of word stress. Word sess notation. Suess shin. Introduction. . Word stress and syllable patterning. Word stress and suffixation. Word stress and grammatical category Word stress in RP and American English Alternative stress patterns Word stress patierns. : Two-syllable words. ‘Three-syliable words. Four-syllable words. Five-syltabie words. Six-syllable words. Seven-syllable words IN ENGLISH COMPOUND WoRD: Introduction. Terminology zi Compound word stress and EFL dictionaries Labels for stress in compounds and coliocations..... Single stress in compounds and coilocations.. RECord player. OXford Street, DEANSgate 5.13 Miscellaneous... “ s ouble stress in compounds and collocations.. 6.1 KiTchen SIN: BOOKshop. 3 RAINdrop... 3 WIRE-tapping, TIME-consuming 3 WALKing stick, LENDing library. 3.5.6 » BLACKboard, RALDhedd.. 3 MOTH-eaten, V-shaped. 3 HOME Sick. 3.5.9 COOKbook, DAYbreak, 3 TAKE-off. 3 BACKground. 3 5. De 3.37 SENTENCE ACCENT. 4.1 Iniroduction. 42 Nuclear accent. 43° Naclearity 44 Nucleus placement theories 4.4.1 The traditional model.. 44.2 The syntactic model. 4.4.3 The semantic model. 44.4 The focal model. 44.4.1. Broad and narrow focus.. 4.4.4.2 Advantages of the focal Appiah 4.4.4.3 Newnes and givenness. 44.4.4 Nucleus placement and givenness... 4.4.4.5 Exceptions 10 LT rule... 44.4.5.1 Event sentence: 44.4.5. Nounstinfinitives. Wh-questions ending with a verb; Final relative clauses. Nouns+adjectives/participics.. ‘Transitive verbstobject+verdal particle. Indirect quesuots.. Subject+passive verb Objects of general referenes.. Final vocallves. pal reporting clauses... nal advcrbials. si 5 Other pattems in broad and narrow foc NOTES ese : REFERENCES PRACTICE MATERIAL... BAby BOY. BUCKingkam PALac: APple PIE so COMpect DISC, SECond-HAND, BRAND-NEW... i OLD-FASHioned.... HAM-FISTed, HOME-MADE. ROLLIng STONE. DARK BLUE... PeRSAbROR 5.6.10 3.6.11 3.6.12 ‘Three-word. compounds... 7 3.7.1 SECond World WAR. 3.7.2 moming AFter pille« 3.7.3 MERRY-go round,Word sess ond sentence cccnt sinracnanscsnecencsN AS Se mmnannmenenneene (7) PRESENTATION The materials contained in this booklet have been designed to meet the needs of the sudents who ave taking the last courses in English phonetics at teacher-training college level. We intend 10 offer the latest theory available in a way which is accessible 10 sudents, together with plenty of practice material for marking ‘und reading This booklet is divided into four main sections. In the first, an analysis is carried out of the basic notions related to prominence: in the second, the problem of stress in simple words is revisited; the third addresses the topic of stress in compounds, and in the fourth, postlexical (or sentence) accentuation is examined in detail. We are aware that the students’ success in matters of prosody is particularly influenced by their mother tongue, and that is why constant comparison with Spanish is made, in an effort to point out differences and similarities. A final appendix contains practice material for users to analyse and mark. This, together with the examples in the chapters, represents the largest collection of data on the subject ever published for EFL purposes. A key to the exercises together with a casseite containing the majority of the examples in the text are also available, PRESENTACION El material de este cuaderno ha sido diseftado con el fin de satisfacer las nécesidades de los alumnos de los tilimos cursos de fonética inglesa a nivel universitario. Es nuestro pro- pésito ofrecer los més recientes contenidos tedricos de una manera que reculie accesible a los alumnes, ademas de abundante material para practicar lectura y ejercitar marcacién. Eltrabojo std dividido en cuatro secciones. En la primera, se analican las nociones bésicas relacionadas con prominencia; en la segunda, se revisa el tema de la acentuacién en palabras simples; la tercera parte desarrolta ta aceniuacién de palabras compuestas, y la quarta examina en detalle le acentuacién contextual. Estamos cons- cientes de que la lengua materna ejerce particular influencia sobre tos resul- tados que logran los alumnos en ‘materia de prosodia y es por eso que, en un esfuerzo por resaltar diferencias ‘ysimilitudes entre las dos lenguas, se Tecurre a constantes comparaciones con el casiellano, El apéndice al final del texto comtiene material de préctica para ser analicado y marcado. Este, junto con los ejemplos de tos captulos, representa el mayor corpus publicado para propésitos de ensenanca. Existe una clave para los ejercicios y wa grabacisn en casete de la mayoria de los ejemplos.Word stress ond sentence occent Ante 1 Fundamental concepis of the theory of prominence Lt Intropucrion In this opening chapter we shall look al various concepts which are coniral to a theory of promincnce. This includes an analysis of notions such as stress, accent and prominence, a discussion of the thorny issue of degrees of stress, notation systems for stress and accent, and finally a re-examination of siress shill, Since we are catering for learners whose mather tongue is Spanish, constant reference to similar problems in that language is included in our discussion. 1.2 PROMINENCE The first task we must embark upon is to clucidate the distinction between the notions responsible for highlighting portions of utterance, We shall begin by analysing the most basic of the concepis, that of prominence.’ When we spoak we give more emphasis to some parts of an ultcranes than to others. We can make a syllable siand out with respect to its neighbouring syllables in a word, and in doing so the word containing that particular syllable will stand out with respect to the rest of the words in the uticrance. The clements which produce prominence at syllable level are: ()) pitch contrast, (ii) loudness, (iii) length and (iv) quality. As with all aspezts of speech, these conretates can be described and defined in articulatory, acoustic and auditory terms, i.c. from the point of view of the person (speaker) who produces prominence, from the physical viewpoint (hat i8, sound wave ochaviour), and from the listencr’s angle (ic. the way he perecives prominence). In the EPL situation acoustic criteria seem to be of limited application and consequently we shall concentratc on the production and, more particularly, on the reception stages, rather than on the transmission phase. E21 prc Differences in pitch are produced al the vocal folds: the tenser the vocal folds, the faster they vibrate, and de higher the now that is produced an articulatory characterisation. Bub ‘we cannot actually feel Our vocal folds vibrating faster or slower. What we hear is a higher or lower note. So articulatorily pitch depends mainly on the wension and consequent raie of vibration of the vocal folds. Auditorily, it is that property of a sound, in terms of which it can be placed ona scale running from high to tow. 1.2.2, Loupness From an articulatory point of view, loudness is caused by greater muscular energy and. breath force. Auditorily, it is defined as that property of a sound which enables us, using only our ears, to place iton a scale going from loud to soft. So the speaker feels this feature in one way extra cnorgy- and th: Hstoner hears it in another way ~cxtra loudness,Héctor Ortiz Lira {ARAN AB NAA NNN 1.2.3, Lunar Itis not necessary for our purposes to define length from the pointof view of the person who produces it. Auditorily, itis that property of a sound which enables us, using only our cars, to place it on a scale that goes from long to short. 1.2.4 Quantry Articulatorily, quality depends on the shape of the cavitios or resonators (mainly the mouth), whose function is to modily -sometimes amplify, sometimes suppress— the almost inauditle note produced at the vocal folds (commonly known as ‘voice’ but more appropriately, vocal fold vibration). Auditorily, quality is defined as that feature in terms of which two sounds, similarly presented and having the same pitch, loudness and length, are still perceived as different; we say that [2] and (az, for instance, differ in terms of quality. In English, syllables containing (0), (i), [u] and syllabie consonants are normally pereaived a5 weak; te vowels, 7] and [ol glay’a dual role, and the est are strong, Another way of referring to these two types of vowels is full and reduced. ‘The following table summarizes the auditory correlates of prominence. c.g. Correlates Syllables pret high 6 low LOUDNES: loud «> soft LENTIL long «short QUALITY strong weak Awe analyse the tie of this chapter from the point of view of prominence, we will most probably conclude that there are four syllables which stand out from the rest. Here we show them in small capitals, c.g. FUNdamental CONcepts of the ‘THEOTY of PROMIncnee. These four syllables are made prominent mainly because they contain strong vowel sounds produced with relatively grater loudness and, more important, with pitch movement or contrast.’ Tn sum, all four elements can play a part in making a syllable stand out over the rest. They co not all play an equally important part, though, nor are all four always present together. In the example above there are also cight non-prominent syllables. ‘These are, from Teftto right, -de-, -ral, of, the, -ry, af, -in-, -ence, all of which consist of weak vowels or, in the case of “tal, absence of vowel. There are two syllablés which are more prominent than the eight weak ones, bul less prominent than the first four we analysed, c.g. -men- und -cepts. These two contain the strong vowel [e], and il is fairly possible that in a normal reading of the utieranco, a native speaker would identify syllable-men- with some kind of a ‘thythmic beat’, i.e. a combination of extra loudness and length. The really prominent syllables arc so identified because they display the most decisive of the elements producing prominence ~pitch contrast. ‘There is a notation system called ‘interlinear tonctic’, which is a type of narrow tcanscriplion for intonation. in which cach syllable is represented by a dot; a large. Got indicates a prominent syllable; a smal! dot, @ non-prominent one. Since the upper Tine corresponds to the speaker's lop pitch range and the otiom line to his bottam pitch range, itWn i id ian oon seccmnncnonennnsitcnnn i eS a maaancemamaacny (7) follows that the pitch of cach individual syllable, prominent ard non-prominent, can be shown. In the following diagram the size and hight of cach syllable indicator represent only relative values, ¢.g.- (1.1) fandomentl konsepts ov 80 Grori av prominans 1.3. STRESS AND ACCENT ‘The labels stress and accent have along tradition in prosodic studies but it is oaly since the beginning of the seventies that the majority of phoncticians have come to agree on the notions they refer to. Whereas prominence is exclusively a phonetic notion ‘uscd to refer to the general distinctivenoss of an utterance of any length’ (Crystal, 1969: 120), stress and accent have phonological status. In this booklet we are also using prominence as blanket term which covers all phenemene related to tho highlighting of sylables in words tind Of words in longer utterances; hence the tile of the chaptor. Important differences can be established between stress and accent, In the first place, stress is a feature of the word, a lexical abstraction or a decontoxtualised form whic becomes concrete realisation only if the word gets an acceat in an uticrance; henes, accent a feature of the utterance, i.c. a concrete, contextualised category. ‘This makes accent an observable phenomenon, as opposed to stress, which is merely analytical, To sum up, stress isa potential for accent and accent is an exponent of stre: Let us explain the above in practical terms. Dictionaries give every word of two or more. syllables a stress mark; each stress pattern represents not only an entry in the dictionary but also an entry in our mental lexicon, i.c. each word is stored in our mind in the form’ of a pattom of sounds (ie. a phonemic pattern) and a pattern of prominences (i.c. a stress pattem); in more technical terms, stress is a phonological propery of words.’ Stcsscs in words, however, cannot guarantee that the word will get an accent in a particular context, since this will depend on tivo main factors —the rhythmic structure of the utterance, as will be explained in §1.7— und pragmatio-discoursel principles, which regulats accenwalion according to (i) word classes content words are much more acceatable than structural words, Gi) the information structure of the utterance (roughly, words representing. information got an accent while those conveying given information tend not to), and language specific rules which, in the case of English, assign more accents to nouns than to verbs in particular constructions. (Sce chapter 4.) Monosyilables are never shown bearing stresses in dictionaries. This docs not mean that they do not have a stress but simply that showing tho stress on the only syllable available would be redundant. This explains why an unstressed dictionary form may very well nood an accent in a given context, as is the case in STRESS and ACcent have been NEAR SYNonyms Jor a LONG Tis, where a normal reading would assign accent to four monosyliabies,Héctor Oris Lira (2) mss HHOANANANANIMANATANISH ARAL ‘The fact that words make use of pitch contrast in ultcranees in order to convey prominence -a festue they do not display al lexical, decontextualised level has made various authors differentiate between siress and accent according to which of the correlaics of prominence is the most dominant feature. Therefore, they define accent as a feature of prominence whose main perceptual component is pitch change; this has originated the tem ‘pilch accent’, widely used in modern descriptions; by way of contrast, they define stress as a feature of prominence in which the dominant perceptual component is loudness. According ‘o this view, in (1.1) the first thee prominent syllables hear stress, and the lasl, accent Followers of this view are. A.C. Gimson (1962). Crystal (1969), Lehisie (1970), O'Connor & Arnold (1973), and Cruttenden (1997) 14 Ac ENT AND PROMINENCE, As was pointed out earlier, tho most casily perceived type of prominence is pitch prominence: signalled by changes in pitch; but since pitch contrast also happens to he the main indicator of accent, the two phenomena, accent and prominence, are often confused in certain contexts, In this Section we shall attempt to point out the danger implied and clear up this confusion, There are three main places in an intonation group* where pitch prominence an be confused with pitch accent. The first occurs just aftcr the lasi (nuclear) accent, particularly if the prominent syliabl is said on a relatively high pitch, e.g. some in example (1.2), or if it performs a rising pitch movement after an accented fall, e.g. does in (1.3). In interlinear notation, prominent syllables are marked as 0, e.g. (1.2) dju wont sam (1.3) bobi daz ° Confusion between accent and prominence in this position is the most troublesome of all, since the major part of the meaning of the whole utterance is conveyed by the portion beginning at the last accent (technically known as ‘nuclear tone’). Wha is crucial in our theory is that neither of these prominent syilables is accented because they do not initiate Bitch contrat, but simply complicit some completes a rise and docs, the sing end of a all-rise. We shall say that a syllable is accented when it begins pitch contrast. As can be seen in the interlinear representation of examples (1.2) and (1.3) (Contextualised below as (1.4) and (1.5), respectively), the last accents -WAWT and BOB-— are actually beginning pit movement: the former, a movement ‘up-from’ and the latter, @ movement. ‘down- from Spanish learners often mistake prominent syllables lor accented ones at the end of utterances, Particularly when a rising tone is involved, which resulls in an unmistakable sign of foreign accent, cf. (1.4) ‘These grapes are deLicious. D'you WANT some? (*D' you went SOME?) (15) At Nobody ever WRITES to her. B: BOBby does. (*Bobby DOES.) Ambiguity between accent and prominence can also take place before the first accent inWord stress and sentence accent AEAULA Lea the intonation-group, in the stretch of utterance technically known as ‘pre-head’, and it involves. words which are of the unaccentable type and usually take weak-form pronunciations, e.g. pronouns, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, ctc., as in (1.6) tt dgast didnt oka: Here the syllables it just are prominent but unaccented. The first pilch accent is ‘step-down’ on did and the nuclear accent -cur, as a movement ‘down-from’. In normal circumstances, the first two syllables would be very near the ‘baseline’ ic. slightly above the boltom pitch. (This high, though unaccented, stretch of utterance conveys an emphatic clfect.) Examples such as There are NO possiatlities! [Sara nau posabilatizi and You'dl've THOUGHT it was FEAsible! [jud av Oo:t it waz fizzabl/ can be said with a pitch pattern very similar to that in (1.6), particularly if a protesting overtone was to be attachod; both can begin with two high (therefore prominent), unaccented syllables. Finally, ambiguity between prominence, and accent can occur when the first pitch accent, which indicates the beginning of the * head” *, and the last pitch accent, which is the nucleus, form a sequence of level tones, either high or low. The accentual status of any other prominent syllables occurring between these two accenls will be obscured by the absence of pitch contrast, as is the case of the syllahles ask- and who's in It's NO good ASKing WHO'S fo BLAME, Some authors refer to these syllables as ‘tertiary stresses’, since stresses do not involve pitch prominence. In the present analysis we shall leave the question unsolved and rofer to these syllables as either accented or prominent, Fortunately, in this position in the intonation-group, the neutralisation of the contrast does not have any practical clfect o.g. realised as a (1.7) its nev gud askin hu:z ta blerm The pitch accents in a head such as that in example (1.1), sometimes refered to as, ‘stepping head’, form a series of steps-down in which they do in fact iniGete a movement and will be considered accents In summary, (i) rotall prominent syllables are accented, and (ii) the majority of accented syllables are prominent, though given the phonological status of accent— il is periecily possibic to find accented syllables which are perceived as non-prominent and, in oxime cases, accented syllables which are hardly perceived at all, c.g. the gesture which realises the first accented syllable in Jones” much quoted utterance Thank you pronounced [kKkju] (1956: 245). The formulaic overtone implied by syllable thant siarling rising movement from a rather low pitch makes the listener perceive only the second, prominent syllable, you. (Gones said there was a subjective stress on the first double consonant.) This solution posesdct Ort ira another problem for the identification of accent, that of the ‘subjective effort” hypothesi: ‘The view is disputed by phoncticians who deny the possibility of considering syllable which are not perceived by the listener. We can think Of similar patterns in Spanish, c.g. jClarof as an answer implying the obvious, with a very low, voiccless first syllable. Th interlinear notation of the English utterance shows a prominent syllable only, c.g, (8) k kju ° The native speaker and listener do not always depend on the same clues as the foreign student for the perception of accent. When two native speakers communicate, they ant sharing the same linguistic code, and consequently will make judgements based no on what Uhy actually hear, but on what they know they should hear: From this point of view, the native lisiener’s perception of accent is subjective as it is influenced by his previous Knowledge of the language. He normally knows where accent is and will scidom confuse it with promincnce. This type of confusion may lead to ambiguity. 1.5 DEGREES OF WORD STRESS The question of how many levels of stress can be distinguished in English words is not without problems. The same ean be said of Spanish, for that matter. Spanish speakers are normally aware of the existence of one syllable in every word (of more than one syllable) which they identify as accented: this is the syllable carrying primary stress. The oxistence of other (secondary) stresses in relatively longer words is an aspect of Spanish phonology native speakers tend not to be aware of, and one on which linguists do not fully agree. ‘The existence of at least two degrees of stress in certain English words of «wo or more syllables is an issue more firmly settled. The traditional American school of prosody accounts for four degrees primary, secondary, tertiary and weak (e.g. Trager & Smith, 1951: 37). Chomsky & Halle (1968: 16) speak of primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary or zero. In the British school, Kingdon (1958b) recognises the existence of three. Ucgrecs ~primary. secondary and weak or unstressed, The lates. version (1989) of the IPA (international Phonetic Association) alphabot provides marks for two degrees only, primary and secondary. OF the two pronouncing dictionaries published in Britain in the 90's, LPD (Wells, 1990: 683) recognizes three main degrees of siress (primary, secondary and trary) plus two further degrees, which are typical of syllables carrying no stress marks but which, have a strong vowel (fourth degree) and a weak vowel (Lifth degrec). Although EPD (Jones, Roach & Hartman, 1997: xii) recognizes three levels, it finally sticks 10 only two in order 6 avoid unnecessary complexity. Roach (1991) operates with three primary and secondary stress and prominent syllables. Lastly, GPE (Gimson & Cruttenden, 1994) distinguishes four degrees primary, secondary, full vowel and reduced vowel-, but al citation level, however, it operates with only two marks, one lor primary and one for secondary. ‘The following table shows the various levels of word stress according t9 GPE (1994), LPD (1990) and the present author:Word stress and sentence accent ALA GPE LPD This_work L primary stress, primary stress primary stress 2 secondary stress secondary stress Sccondary stress 3 fall vowel tertiary stress prominent syllable 4° reduced vowel strong vowel on-prominent syllable 5 weak vowel ‘Only two degrees of stress will be accounted for and conscquently marked in the present analysis, ‘These two stresses have phonological status, i.e. their distribution in the word, togolher with the phonemic pattern that is, each word taken asa sequence of phonemes and stresscs~ specify the phonological information with which the lexical item is recorded in the mental lexicon. The other two types of syllable, prominent and non-promineat, ar: mere i |. A syllable is prominent when it contains a sirong, vowel or displays (but does not initiate) some kind of pitch movement or performs a thythmie beat If we want to establish a correlation between degrees of stress, as a purely lexical feature, and accent, 2s a contextual feature, we can conclude that primary stresses ar the most logical candidates for nuciear accents and that secondary stresses can become nuclear accents only in utterances implying some kind of contrast. (Problems related to accentuation in contexts will be analysed in chapter 4.) This type of difference between primary and secondary stresses is, then, of a functional nature; another view would be to differentiate between them in sirictly phonetic terms and say that one is stronger (or weaker) than the other. A characterisation in perceptual terms is, however, subjective and liable to lead us into difficulty. The following diagram shows the possible correlations, starting from the least marked (i.c. ‘normal’) contexts; -> means ‘can he realised as’. c.g. Lexical level Contextual level primary stress > nuclear accent, prenuclear accent, unaecented sylluble in pre-head and tail; secondary stress > prenuclesr accent, unaecented syllable in pre-head and tail, nuclear accent in contrastive contexts; prominent syllable, ~> —unaccented syllable in pre-heaé and tail, nuclear accent in very contrastive contexts; non-prominent syllable _-> _unaccented syllable in pro-head and tail. 1.6 Worn stRess NOTATION Phoncticians have. used different notation systems to represent word stress. Some of them show primary stresses only, while others show primary and sccondary stress nolations ae of a more phonological nature, whereas others, more phorctically indicate tho pitch movement which normally accompanies siressed syllables usually a falling tone on the last, primary stress. The following are the most common types:Héctor Ort ire 1.6.1. The syllable carying primary stress is capitalised; tho secondary stress is loft unmarked, eg. PronunciAtion, BAby sitter, plum PUDding 1.6.2 The stressed syllable is underlined; cither the primary only or both, primary und ‘ondary siresses, can be shown, e.g * pronunciation, pronundation, baby sitter, plum pudding, plum pudding 1.6.3. The stressed syllables are assigned numbers, 1 for prima etc.; other numbers can be used to indicate further degrees of stress, €. 2 for secondary, baby sitter, plam pudding, brand-new car, elevator operator 1.6.4 Stress marks are placed cither before or on top of cach syllable bearing the Stress; several sub-systems can be identified, among which the system that uses " for Primary stress and , for secondary is the most widespread in BFL dictionaries and other reference books produced in the UK; these marks have been recommended hy the IPA far over 70 years. The tonetic-stress marking system invented by Kingdon (1939) continues to be the most widely used in intonation courses produced in Britain, c.g. 1.6.4.1 (‘=primary, , =secondary,. =tertiary) sdecon, tamination, ‘baby sitter, 'baby sitter, 'baby , siticr 1.6.4.2 (~ =primary, ' =secondary) 'decon'tam? nation, “baby sitter, plum pudding, ‘plum ‘pudding 1.6.4.3 (> =primary,' =secondary,, =tertiary) ‘decon, tamination, “ele, vator ‘ope.rator, “black, board ‘rubber 1.6.4.4 (“ =primary, * = secondary, * = tertiary) décontimindtion, White House, white héuse (=not a brown onc), élevAlor SperMlor 1.6.5 All syllables are accounted for in ‘inteelincar notation’ -a sort of pictorial, narrow transcription indicating steesses/accents and pitches. The conventions are as fellows! alarge tailed dot = primary stress; a large filled dol = secondary stress; a large mply dot = prominent syllable; a small dol = non-prominent syllable. ‘This transcription was originally invented o show intonation, but at this point we shall use it to indicate word siress. In (1.9), lwo words are transcribed with their citation pronunciation, which normally implies falling intonation ~first with tonetic-stress marks and then in interlinear notation, e.g. (1.9) ‘di:part'mentl ‘di:kon'tamimeit e0%) o-% 1.6.6 (@ =primary, @ = secondary, o = prominent, « = non-prominen). This notation,Wor a it tana mee SC tr eT icone (TB) sometimes referred to as ‘tadpole’, is a simplification of the inteslinear notation; it accounts for all four types of syllable with no indication of pitch movement, c.g. brand-new car © 0 ® differentiate © +6 +0 In this work we shall normally ui the tonetic stress marking system, a sort of broad transcription which fulfills two roles: it displays accenwation by prescnee and pitch movement according to the shape of the mark; as explained before, prominence is left anmarked. The pictorial nature of the notation, which makes it relatively casy 10 interpret, together with the economy represented by the small number of marks it Consists of, explain why the system has been successfully adopted in various intonation courses. ‘The use of * for primary stress shows the normal association of this stress with a falling nuclear tone, typical of citation forms. For instance, the citation pronunciation of the word departmental Pein t°mentl/ contains all four levels of prominence/stress. If we number the syllables from 1 (left) to 4 (right) we find that syllable | bears sceondary stress; syllable 2 is prominent; syllable 3 has primary stress, and syllable 4 is non-prominent. Notice, however, that in the cilation pattern of the phrase departmental meeting /'di:pa:tment! “mistig/ the syllable starting pitch contrast is no longer the third syllable, but the first. This phenomenon is explained in the next scction. 17 STR SHIFT By definition, a syllable bearing primary stress is the one. which normally initiates pitch contrast; a secondary stress is less likely to be pitch contrast initiator, but it can certainly play that role. when the. rhythmic pressure of the context (ic. the neighbouring prominences) causes the redistribution of stresses called ‘stress shift’. This change of roles is the result of the tendeney in English to separate strong, primary stresses by weak, unstressed syllables. AA similar tendency is not unknown in Spanish. The problem is that there is still fairly amount of research to be done in order to identify the accentual behaviour of double-siresscd items which reverse their stress patterns in a way similar to English when used in connected speech. This would explain why a word such as 'veinti “cuatro, wilh two potential stresses, becomes ‘veiniicuatro “mil, and why the question ¢Estds de ‘acuerdo? can cither got the answer Abso ‘luta* mente or Abso ‘lutamente de acuerdo. This tendency towards stress shilt scemis more noticeable in English than in Spanist. The pressure exerted by adjacent stresses jn Spanish, for instanco, would make an English speaker say the names “Ivan, “Torres and ‘Fidel ° Castro, rather than the normal Spanish pattems [ ‘van “Torres and Fi ‘del “Castro. Other patiems, of the BBC type "bi: bi: ‘si, "be be “se/—are the same in both languages, eg. JVC, KLM, FBI, etc. Stress shift in English affects both simple and compound words whose citation pattem consists of a secondary siress followed by a primary stress in the same word. This double- stress pattern, however, accommodates {0 the pattem of stresses which procede and follow in the text, in such a way thal stresses on consecutive (or almost consecutive) syllables art avoided. For instance, tne accentuation of the phrase preconceived ideas comes from the citation patterns ‘precon’ceived +i deas. The resulting pattem is, however, ‘preconceived ideas, in which syllable pre-, originally carrying secondary stress, becomes the only pitch movement initiator in the word, and the original primary Stwess, -ceived, becomes a mere rhythmic beat for which there is no mark available in’ our system, 7 (In other notation systems a mark is provided for these. prominent syllables.) This stress pattern reflects theHéctor Onis Lig attributive function of the adjective, ic. the adjective premodilics the head of the NP. In Your i 'deas are precon*ceived the adjective is predicative, ic. itis part of the predicate, and consequently it is the secondary stress on pre- which is lost. Othor examples’ with double~ stressed simple words aro, 0.g. (1.10) citation forms: ‘atmos “pheric, ‘audio “visual, ‘auto°matic awibutiveuse: ‘Let's di 'scuss ‘atmospheric “pressure ‘Why not ‘use ‘audiovisual “aids We 'made the ‘rip on ‘automatic > Predicative use: The ‘music was ‘highly atmos “pheric The ‘system we use is audio ‘visual The ‘process is ‘fully auto‘ matic Double-stressod compounds can also be subject to stress shift when used as adjectives or advorbs, cither atributively or predicatively, c.g. (111) citation form: ‘double “decker attributive use: 'Double-decker ‘buses are ‘typically ~British predicative uso: 1 love double-“deckers (1.12) citation form: 'second-"hand attributive use: I'm ‘talking about ‘second-hand ‘furniture predicative use: The ‘books were ‘bought second-hand (113) citation form: —yetl-"formed aunbutive use: This is an e 'xample of a ‘well-formed ~sentence predicativeuse: Sentences ‘must be well-formed Similarly, proper names and names represented by initials can also undergo stress shift in the same conditions, e.g, (1.14) citation form: ‘Pica “dilly auributive use: Let's ‘go to ‘Piccadilly Circus predicative use: She ‘lives near Piccadilly (1.15) citation form: 'C SD aliributive use: The ‘new ‘version's on 'CD “Rom predicative use: I ‘have iton C*D Stress shift also affects phrasal verbs, the citation pattems of which consist of two stresses, ¢.g. (1.16) citation form: "come ‘out altributive use: The ‘pictures ‘came out “wellMord sens and sntence accent momannnrnnsnnnacn Ett tt enamtnanencncanne (17) predicalive use: The ‘pictures ‘didn't come “out A small group of single-, latc-suressed adjectives, exhibit a similar wndency. Their predicative pattem is the same as their citation pattem *, c.g. (1.17) citation forms: excess, compact, di “rect alributiveus: We ‘had to ‘pay ‘excess “baggage I'd ‘like to ‘buy her a ‘compact “disc A ‘transitive ‘verb takes a ‘direct “object (1.18) predicative use: I'ma 'fraid he ‘smokes to ex°cess The ‘new ‘flat is 'very compact We ‘went 10 the ‘beach direct The above ulso ozcurs in a number of single-siressed place names, c.g (1.19) citation forms: Ber “in, Bel fast atitutive use: ‘When was the ‘Berlin “Wall knocked down? He ‘ives on ‘Belfast “Avenue predicative use: We ‘went through ‘East Ber” lin The ‘capital of ‘Northern ‘Ireland's Belfast Finally, short phrases containing two stresses and which combine with further stressed material can also be affected by stress shifi, c.g. (1.20) ‘very “warm + "welcome = a ‘very warm “welcome (21) Mairly “new + ere*ation = a \jairlynew ere “ation (1.22) 'good “night + kiss = a 'goodnight ~kiss (1.23) a 'hard “day + night = = a ‘hard day's (1.24) a "lot “more + rain = a ‘iotmore “rain (1.25) a ‘lot “less + *money = a lot less “money (1.26) 'not “very + much = ‘not very “much (1.27) ‘much “more + at™ention = ‘much more at*tention (1.28) Yor “less +ex°citing ‘far less exciting (1.29) ‘quire a ~bit + “older = ‘quite a bit “older (1.30) ‘very “little + time ‘very little “timeHéctor Ort Lice ‘suman ee goes dll nn ANNES 2 Stress in English simple words 2.1 INTRODUCTION ‘The first thing that necds to be clarified is to state what we understand by simple word. Strictly speaking, a simple word is onc which is made up of a single grammatical unit called scm, ¢.g, photograph, judge. Derivatives such as photography, photographic and pre- Judgement are not, technically speaking, simple words, but complex, becituse they contain alfixes (cithor prefixes andior suffixes). For EFL purposes, howover, it will be better 0 consider all three cxamples as simple words. Stress in compounds will be dealt with in chapter 3 The second aspe (© the way in which Spanish speakers can Icam English stress patiems. The two main views on the subject are that () ke rules that govern English stress placement in words are so complicated, that students had beuer lear the patiern of cach word as they learn the word itself; (ii) the Icamor should keop in mind the most common nukes that predict stress placement in words and apply thom whenever necessary: these are phonological rules, which establish relationships between phonemic palteming and stress (in §2.2 stress is related to English vowols), and morphological rules, which indicate the relationship between suffixes and stress (sec §2.3) end also between grammatical class and stress, ¢.8. “progress (noun)~ pro “gress (verb; sce §2.4). A further rule, which has to do with etymology, predicts stress placement according to whether the word is, for instance, of Germanic, Greck or Latin origin. However, given that our students of English arc, on the whole. not familiar with dizchronic studies, we shall not take up this analysis. Finally, a special difficulty is met with stress variation —the stress patiem of a few words depends on British vs. American preference and, furthermore, RP speakers sometimes vary in the strss pattern they use. the result being that a few words have altemative patterns (sc §2.5 and §2.6, respoctively.) Spanish speakers are recommended to make use of as many different types of information as possible in order to predict stress placement in simple words. They should also beaware of the large number of exceptions to the rules. Rules and main exceptions are analysed in the next scetions.” 2.2 WORN STRESS AND SYILAQLI: PATTERNING The English phonological yowel system may be said to consist of two separate subsysicms, ‘strong and weak, cach one corelating with syllable siress. ‘Thus, whercas stressed syllables can only have sirong vowels, unstressed syllables can be made up of either Suong or weak vowels. In the table below, the column ‘stressed’ indicates what vowel Phonemes can gei a siress in English syllables; the last two columns indicate what vowels make syllables either ‘prominent’ or ‘non-promineat’. The following conclusions may be drawn from the table: (| Any vowel apart from /2, i, w/—the so-called ‘unstressable vowels’ may occur with either a primary or sccondary stress, /i, u/ are not to be confused with fiz, ud, c.g. bikini for kivnil. The rest of the vowels may be siresscd or unstressed.Word suees ond sentence accent onmcrcennecmsmnaa te mance (ii) All long vowels and certain short vowels always make syllables prominent; this means that thoy arc inherently prominent. (iil) A, v/ belong to both subsystems. For instance, in the word minimum /'minimam/, Jv plays the part of a strong vowel in syllable 1 and a weak vowel in the next syllable. Syllables containing /i, u/ arc prominent if they are stressed; this is because thesc vowels do not have inherent prominence. The last four types of syllables are always considered non- prominent. prominent _non-prominent Strong vowels (long): is . . a: : : o . . ur . . 3 . . all diphthongs . . Strong vowels (short): 1 ° . ‘ « : . ¢ * . v ® o 5 ‘ Z Weak vowels: i a j . o 2 a . 5 . syllabic consonants : Other rules help predict stress in words depending on the phonological structure of the. syllable involved. For instance, in the verbs supply, prefer, explain, vtc., the stress coincides with a long vowel, whereas in vary, differ, ctc., the final short vowels. are unstressed. Something similar occurs with the’ nouns control, desire, debate, on the onc hand, and with story, metre, apricot, on the other. Still other rules are based on the number of syllables and final consonants a word has. This type of information is probably the mostHéctor Ore Lire complicated to remember, but experience has shown that the meaningful element is brought into the discussion. For instar Kk is made if a more 2 comparison of long Spanish cognate words with the corresponding English forms may help learners fix stress patterns in their minds, e.g. English vorb forms ending in -ate(d), and Spanish forms in -ar, -ado, ctc. bring out marked differences, as in (2.1) “complicate, “complicated compli car, compli” cado decorate, “decorated deco rar, deco” rado “modify, ‘modified modifi car, modifi cado “satisfy, “satisfied satisfa” cer, satis “fecho | “organize, organized organi” zar, organi *zado i realise, realised realizar, reali” zuclo ify (ified), ‘ise(d), cw. In general, English three-syllable words have a strong tendency to bear stress on the =antepenultimate syllable. '° In the next section, the influenee of suffixes on word stress is Jooked at in greater depth 2.3. WORD STRESS AND SUFFIXATION Word siress is partly predicted from morphology. This means that the addition of suffixes will determine stress placement according to whether the suffix leaves the stem pattern unaliered, or whether it attracts stress towards itself, or shilts it to the preceding syllable. The following are among the most productive examples: 2.3.1 SUBFIXES NOT AFI ECTING STEM STRESS -able,-ible _re“ly, reliable; “notice, ‘noticeable; di” vide, divisible ful “plenty, “plentiful; for “get, forgetful less colour, “colourless; re*gard, re “gardless -by ‘passionate, ‘passionately; “separate, “separately -ment “manage, “management; develop, de “velopment -ness de“ cisive, decisiveness; “arbitrary, “arbitrariness Exceptions: admire, “admirable; Elect, eligible; neglect, “negligible. Also in ielligible 2.3.2 SUMMIXES ATTRACTING STRESS “ee address, caldress" ee; “interview, ‘interviewee ~ese journal, journal “ese; Japan, Japan ese ete disc, di~skeite; “laundry, ‘launder ette 2.3.3 SUPPIXES REJECTING STRESS ‘The following suffixes reject “ic artist, aF tistic; economy, ‘eco? nomic: -ion © blige, ‘obli*gation; inspire, ‘om pare, “comparable; prefer, “preferable ress to the immediately preceding syllable, cg.Word stress ond sentence accent sececnnacnncsicnsunn SE et et Set cmaamnmacnenanecae (2) sity “curious, ‘curiosity; “solemn, solemnity Exceptions: - “Arab, “Arabic. Also arithmetic, “catholic, “lunatic, politic, “rhetoric: Leamers are well-advised to pay attention to the rules governing the so-called ‘stress alternations” resulting from the addition of affixes to stems so as to form relatsel words. ‘Tho application of phonological rules may cause changes in both the pattern of phonemes and stress placoment. An examination of the correspondence between phoneme and spelling reveals that vowels vary with stress. ‘These rules may provide students with futher clues to predict stress patterns. In the following cxamples. the tadpole notalions da not indicate prominent, unstzessed vowels, as in diplomat /*diplamaet/, c.g. 22) (+) Ger) © @ms diplomat diplomacy diplomatic photograph —__photogrophy photographic benefit beneficence beneficial democrat democracy democratic polities political politician competence competitor competition. (2.3) (w) * ©: explain explanation compete competition incline inclination derive derivation repeat repetition invite invitation 2.4 WORD STRESS AND GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY Stress placement may distinguish between certain nouns and adjectives, on the one hand. and verbs, on the other, most of which are two-syllablo words with identical spellings and identical or similar phonemic patiers. This is one of the easiest rules for the prediction of stress placement which learners can put into practice. All they have to remember is: that nouns and adjectives take stress on the first syllable and verbs on the second. Notice that @ similar rule operates in the Spanish noun “rérmino and we adjective “wiliime and the corresponding verbs ter mino, termi°né, ul Yimo, ulti ~mé. In this Section we shall examine 40 of the most common pairs. In the majority of cases, the unstressed syllable of the verb contains a weak vowel (¢.g. suspect /Sa°spekU/, contest /kan test, bul this tendency is not So strong with nouns and adjectives, since the unstressed syllables of these words ary prominent, c.g. /kontest/, /sAspekt/, as can be soon it (24) accent annex attribute conduct conflict contest —_comtruct contrast convert convict decrease defect. — desert —estort exploit export extract frequent object perfect permit pervert present produce ‘progress project protesi_—_ rebel record subject survey suspect