Lecture 5

Stress
• Definition
• Types of stress
• Nature of stress
• Placement of stress within words
• Simple words
• Derived words
• Compound words
• Word class pairs
• Strong form and weak form 1
 Definition
• Stress is an extra force exerted on a particular syllable
or a particular word in spoken language. The stressed
syllable or word is said with greater energy, and stands
out in a word, phrase or sentence. Examples:
father /«få…∂\/ information /»ˆnf\«meˆßn/

John bought a new car yesterday

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 Types of stress
1. Word stress: is an extra force put on a particular
syllable of the word. It is usually fixed. For example:

invite entertain

2. Sentence stress: is an extra force put on a particular

word in a sentence. Sentence stress is not fixed. It
depends on the speaker’s feelings and attitudes and
the message that he wants to get across to the
listener. For example:

John bought a new car yesterday. 3

 The nature of stress
• We can study stress from the point of view of production
and perception.
1. From the production point of view, the production of
stress is generally believed to depend on the speaker’s
using more muscular energy than for unstressed
syllables.
2. From the perception point of view: all stressed syllables
have one characteristic in common, and that is
prominence. At least four factors make a stressed
syllable prominent: loudness, length, pitch and vowel
quality. Generally, these four factors work together in
combination though syllables may sometimes be made
prominent by means of only one or two of them. 4
 Levels of stress
1. Primary stress (tonic/nuclear): is the strongest type of
stress. It is marked by a small vertical line high up just
before the syllable it relates to.
2. Secondary stress (non-tonic): it is weaker than
primary stress, but stronger than unstressed syllables. It
is usually found in words of four or five syllables. It is
represented in transcription with a low mark. For
examples:
photographic economical
anthropology nationality
3. Unstressed: can be regarded as being the absence of
any recognizable amount of prominence.
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 Placement of stress within words
• In order to decide on the stress placement, it is
necessary to make use of some or all of the following
information.
a. Whether the word is morphologically simple or
complex.
(whether the word is a simple, derived or compound
word).
b. The grammatical category to which the word belongs.
c. The number of syllables in the word.
d. The phonological structure of the word.
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 Simple word stress
1. Two syllable words
a. Verbs
b. Adjectives
c. Nouns
d. Adverbs and prepositions
2. Three syllable words
a. Verbs
b. Nouns
c. Adjectives
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 Two-syllable verbs
a. If the second syllable of the verb contains a long
vowel or a diphthong or it ends with more than
one consonant, that second syllable is stressed.
E.g.
provide protest
contain agree
• More examples: select, arrest, design, inform,
invent, prefer, depend, occur, succeed, deny,
apply, record, invite. 8
b. If the second syllable contains a short vowel and
ends with one or no consonant, the first syllable is
stressed. Examples:
enter worry
travel open
• More examples: menace, settle, marry, differ,
equal, answer.
c. The final syllable is also unstressed if it contains
/@U/. Examples:
follow borrow
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 Two-syllable Adjectives
• Two syllable adjectives are stressed according to
the same rules as verbs. Examples:
correct major
polite complete
heavy happy
sincere precise

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 Two-syllable Nouns
a. If the second syllable contains a short vowel, the
stress will be on the first syllable. Otherwise, it will
be on the second syllable.
money reason
office larynx
estate balloon
autumn affair
delight pocket
canoe surface 11
 Notes
• Other two-syllable words such as adverbs and
prepositions seem to behave like verbs and
adjectives. Examples:
beyond never
seldom behind
again very
before after
except across
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 Three-syllable verbs
a. If the last syllable contains a short vowel and ends
with not more than one consonant, the last syllable
will be unstressed, and stress will be placed on the
second syllable.
encounter determine
abandon remember
b. If the final syllable contains a long vowel or a
diphthong, or ends with more than one consonant,
the final syllable will be stressed.
entertain introduce
intervene recommend 13
 Three-syllable Nouns
a. If the final syllalbe contains a short vowel or /@U/, it is
unstressed. If the second syllable contains a long
vowel or a diphthong, or it ends with more than one
consonant, the second syllable will be stressed.
potato disaster
cathedral advantage
b. If the final syllable contains a short vowel and the
second syllable contains a short vowel and ends with
not more than one consonant, both the final and
middle syllalbes are unstressed, and the first syllable
is stressed.
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 quantity cinema
enemy alphabet
animal company
antonym character
c. If the final syllalbe contains a long vowel or a
diphthong or it ends with more than one consonant,
the stress will usually be placed on the first syllable.
paradise exercise
architect marigold
photograph attitude
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 Three-syllable Adjectives
• Three-syllable adjectives seem to need the same
rules as Nouns to produce stress pattern such as:
opportune insolent
possible derelict
important absolute
enormous similar
accurate popular

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 Complex word stress
• Derived words
• Stress on the affix
• No change in stress placement
• The stress remains on the stem but is shifted to
a different syllable.

• Compound words
• Primary stress on the second element
• Primary stress on the first element.
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 Stress in derived words
• The affixes will have one of three possible effects on
the word stress.
1. The affix itself receives primary stress.
circle semi-circle
employ employee
person personality
Portugal Portugese
cigar cigarette
picture picturesque
mountain mountaineer
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2. The word is stressed as if the affix were not there.
comfort comfortable
marry marriage
refuse refusal
wide widen
wonder wonderful
amaze amazing
red reddish
power powerless
punish punishment
poison poisonous
glory glorify 19
3. The stress remains on the stem, not the affix, but
is shifted to a different syllable.
advantage advantageous
proverb proverbial
climate climatic
injure injurious
tranquil tranquility
photograph photographer
economy economical
equator equatorial 20
 Compound words
a. If the first word/part of the compound is, in a broad
sense, adjectival, the stress goes on the second
element with a secondary stress on the first.
loudspeaker
full moon
fast food
new moon
open hearted
ill mannered
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b. If, however, the first element is, in a broad sense, a
noun, the stress goes on the first element.
car ferry
tea cup
suitcase
bottle feed
boatpeople
farm house
airplane
bodyguard
bedroom
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 Word class pairs
• In English, there are pairs of two syllable words with
identical spelling which differ from each other in stress
placement, apparently according to word class. The
rule is as follows: The stress will be placed on the
second syllable if the word is a Verb, but on the first
syllable of the Noun or Adjective.
abstract abstract
conduct conduct
contrast contrast
desert desert
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escort escort
export export
import import
insult insult
object object
perfect perfect
permit permit
present present
produce produce
rebel rebel
record record
subject subject 24
 Strong and weak forms
• There are certain well-known English words that can be
pronounced in two different ways which are called strong
form and weak form.
I like that
I hope that you are fine
• It is possible to use only strong forms in speaking, and
some foreigners do this. Usually, they can still be
understood by other speakers of English, so why is it
important to learn how weak forms are used?
a. Most native speakers of English find an ‘all-strong-form’
pronunciation unnatural and foreign sounding, something
that most learners would wish to avoid. 25
• More importantly, speakers who are not familiar with the
use of weak forms are likely to have difficulty
understanding speakers who do use weak forms. Since
practically all native speakers of English use them,
learners of the language need to learn about these weak
forms to help them understand what they hear.
• Almost all the words which have both a strong and weak
form belong to a category that may be called grammatical
words such as auxiliary verbs, prepositions,
conjunctions... It is important to remember that there are
certain contexts in which only the strong form is
acceptable, and others where the weak form
pronunciation is the normal.
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• The strong form is used in the following cases:
a. When the word occurs at the end of a sentence.
What are you looking at?
I am looking at my pictures.
Where are you from?
I am from Vietnam
b. When a weak form word is being contrasted with
another word.
The letter is from him, not to him.
He likes her, but does she like him?

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• A similar case is what we might call a co-ordinated
use of prepositions.
I travel to and from London a lot.
A work of and about literature.
c. When a weak form word is given stress for the
purpose of emphasis.
You must marry me
I have to go
You must choose us or them.
d. When a weak form word is being ‘cited’ or ‘quoted’
You shouldn’t put ‘and’ at the end of a sentence. 28