INTRODUCIN

G
STRESS
“FONÉTICA Y FONOLOGÍA
INGLESA II”
PROF ESP LAURA SORDELLI
2014
STRESS
 Degree of force of utterance (Jones 1978)
 Stressed sounds or syllables are articulated
with relative great breath effort and
muscular energy (Gimson 1996)
 STRESS is defined in terms of energy of
articulation for the speaker and loudness for
the listener (Gimson 1995)
 STRESS is conveyed by a “stress mark” / ˈ/
right before the stressed syllable
e.g. “again” /@ˈgen/
WORD (OR LEXICAL)
STRESS
 The degree of stress carried by a words
in isolation
 E.g. arithmetic(n) /@ˈrITm@tIk/
 Degrees of lexical stress:

Primary
e.g. alone /@ˈl@Un/
Secondary  
e.g. understand / ˌVnd@ˈst{nd/
SENTENCE (OR
SYNTACTICAL) STRESS
 Degreeof stress borne by words in
connected speech

e.g. He said his name was John

/hi ˈsed Iz ˈ neIm w@z ˈ dZQn / ˈ

GENERAL RULES FOR
SENTENCES STRESS
 CONTENT WORDS (words that carry
meaning) are usually stressed:
Nouns/Adjectives
(Main) verbs/Adverbs
Interrogative Pronouns
Demonstrative Pronouns
e.g. He said that she needed a horse
/hi ˈsed D@t Si ˈni:dId @ ˈhO:s/
 GRAMMATICAL WORDS (also known as
“form” or “function” words, they join words
that carry meaning) are usually
unstressed:
 Articles
 Auxiliary Verbs
 Connectors
 (Most) pronouns (spec. personal ones)
 Prepositions
(some) EXCEPTIONS (to the gral
rule for SENTENCE STRESS)
1 ) The various parts of the verb “to be” are
usually UNSTRESSED, (even when it´s a
main verb)
e.g. He was my ˈ best ˈfriend
2) Except when in final position
e.g. I ˈ don´t know ˈ where it ˈ is
3) However, it´s unstressed in final position
when preceded by a stressed subject
e.g. He ˈ asked me ˈ what the ˈ time was
4) When the noun “street” is preceded by its
name, it is usually unstressed
e.g. ˈ Oxford Street, ˈ Bond Street
5) Words which have just been mentioned are not
stressed the second time
e.g. –ˈHow many ˈ times have you been ˈ here?
- ˈ Three times
The pronoun “it” is stressed on very few occasions
e.g. ˈ That´s ˈ it
BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Ashby, Patricia (1996) Speech sounds:
Routledge, New York
 Catford, JC (1988) A Practical
Introduction to Phonetics: OUP, Oxford
 Cruttenden, A (1994) Gimson´s
Pronunciation of English: New York,
Arnold.
 Jones, D (1978) An Outline of English
Phonetics: CUP, Cambridge