Stress

• Stress is the degree of emphasis, or force,

or accent we put on certain words or on
certain syllables within words.

• Word Stress
Every word of two or more syllables in
English has a stress pattern. One syllable
is more important than the other syllables.
 Word Stress

1. Primary stress
The primary stress is put on the more
important syllable of words. It is
pronounced longer and louder than the
other syllables. The voice falls from a
high note to a low note on that important
syllable. The stress mark for this is ‘ e.g.
re‘cord
 Word Stress

2. Secondary stress
The second important syllable of words is
said on a high level note (less than the first
important syllable). The voice does not fall
to a low level note. The secondary stress
may come before the primary stress. The
notation for this is ^ e.g. understand
 Word Stress

3. Tertiary stress
The syllable which receives the tertiary stress is
pronounced in a normal level note. The notation
for this is ’. E.g.
engi’neer.
4. The weakest stress
The syllable which receives the least stress is
sometimes muted. The notation for this is ˇ.
This notation is often omitted, e.g.
inter'national.
 What determines the stressed and unstressed words?

The stressed and unstressed words are

commonly determined by the following
factors:
1. The value of the vowels in the words.
There are two English vowels which occur in
weak-stressed syllables, namely /ə/ and /i/.
Record / ‘rekəd/ a noun
reCORD /ri ‘kəd/ a verb
 What determines the stressed and unstressed words?

2. Some suffixes are always stressed in English,

and when they are suffixed to the words they
move their stress to the syllable before them
-ation ‘operate ope‘ration
-itious ‘fiction fictious
-icious d‘elicious
-acious ‘fallacy fall‘acious
-ition ‘transit transition
-ician ‘music mu‘sician
 What determines the stressed and unstressed words?

3. Some suffixes are unstressed, but the

syllable before the suffix is always
stressed.
-ity ‘local lo‘cality
‘possible possi‘bility
-ic ‘vocal vo‘calic
‘hero he‘roic
-ify ‘solid so‘lidify
pa‘cific ‘pacify
 What determines the stressed and unstressed words?

4. Words of the two syllables which can be

nouns or verbs. Nouns of two syllables
usually have the stress on the first syllable
while verbs in the second.
nouns verbs
‘reject re‘ject
‘progress prog‘ress
‘subject sub‘ject