11.The perceptual aspect of English words stress as syllable prominence. The art and acoustic nature of English word stress. Word prosody.

The phonetic structure of a word comprises not only the sounds that the word is composed of and not only the syllabic structure that these sounds form, it also has a definite stress pattern. And if a word contains more than one syllable, the relative prominence of those syllables differs. There may be one prominent syllable in a word as compared to the rest of the syllables of the same word, there may be two equally prominent syllables, two unequally prominent syllables or more prominent syllables.And this correlation of degrees of prominence of the syllables in a word forms the stress pattern of the word, which is often called the accentual structure of a word. Monosyllabic words have no stress pattern, because there can be established no correlation of prominence within it. Yet as lexical units monosyllables are regarded as stressed. Actual speech does not consist of isolated words. And the stress pattern of a word is deduced from how the word is accented in connected speech. The placement of utterance stress is primarily conditioned by the situational and linguistic context. In different languages stress may be achieved by various combinations of these parameters. Depending upon which parameter is the principal one in producing the effect of stress, word stress in languages may be of different types. English word stress was considered to be dynamic, as stress was generally correlated with loudness. pitch movement in English is also one of the most important cues for prominence. But it is not the pitch direction that is significant in English, it is the pitch contrast that really matters. English does not depend on intensity alone, and that English word stress is of a complex nature.

12. Linguistically relevant types of word stress: primary, secondary, weak. Functions of word stress.

There are 2 views of the matter. Some (Jones, Kingdon, Vassilyev) consider that there are 3 degrees of word stress in English: primary (strong stress), secondary (partial stress), weak ( unstressed syllables have weak stress).All these degrees of stress are linguistically relevant as there are words in English the meaning of which depend upon the occurrence of either of 3 degrees in their stress patterns.But auditory analysis shows that there are certain positions in the stress patterns of English words where the vowel generally remains unobscured and its duration is considerable, though the syllable it occurs in does not actually bear primary or secondary stress. On this account some American linguists distinguish 4 degrees:-primary stress (cupboard),-secondary stress (discrimination),-tertiary stress (analyse),-weak stress (cupboard)American phoneticians consider that the secondary stress generally occurs before the primary stress (examination), while tertiary stress occurs after the primary stress(handbook).

Linguistically, tertiary word stress as there are no words in English the meanings of which depend on whether their stress pattern is characterized by either secondary or tertiary stress.That is why the stress pattern of English words may be defined as a correlation of 3 degrees of stress.Word stress has a constitutive function as it moulds syllables into a word forming its stress pattern. Without a definite stress pattern a word ceases to be a word and becomes a sequence of syllables.Distinctive function exists in English because there are different words in English with analogous sound structure which are differentiated in speech only by their stress patterns.Word stress has an identificatory function as well, because the stress patterns of enable people to identify definite combinations of sounds as meaningful linguistic units.Thus, it is obvious that word stress performs its linguistic functions only as a structural element of a word. It is actually the stress pattern of a word that performs both the distinctive and the identificatory functions. And it is in the stress pattern of a word that the degrees of stress can be differentiated and opposed one another.

13. Accentuation tendencies in English. Basic stress patterns (accentual structures) of English words.

There are languages in which stress always falls on the first syllable {as in Czech and Finnish), or on the last syllable {as in French and Turkish). Word stress in such languages is said to be fixed. The stress patterns of the bulk of English words are regular and stable. G.Torsuyev, who has made a special analysis of the English stress patterns, distinguishes more than 100 stress patterns, which he groups into 11 main types. Though word stress in English is called free, there are certain tendencies in English which to a certain extent regulate the accentuation of words. The linguists who have made a thorough analysis of English stress patterns have agreed upon the existence of two main accentuation tendencies in English : the recessive tendency and the rhythmic tendency. According to the recessive tendency, stress falls on the first syllable which is generally the root syllable (e.g. "mother", "father", "sister", "brother") or on the second syllable in words which have a prefix of no special meaning (e.g., "become", indeed). The recessive tendency in stressing words is characteristic of words of Anglo—Saxon origin, but the tendency has also influenced many borrowings. In words with more than four syllables we very often find the influence of both the rhythmic and the recessive tendencies. This regularity is sometimes called the retentive tendency in English.

14. Modifications of phonemes in connected speech.Stylistic differentiation of vowels and consonants in English.

Every phoneme displays a vast range of variation in connected speech.Among the different types of variation we distinguish idiolectical,diaphonic and allophonic variation. IDIOLECTICAL variation embraces the individual peculiarities of articulating sounds,which are caused by the shape and form of the speakers’ speech organs and by his articulatory habits.DIAPHONIC variation affects the quality and quantity of particular phonemes.It is caused by concrete historical tendencies active in certain localities.The less noticeable variation of phonemes is a ALLOPHONIC variation,which is conditioned by phonetic position and phonetic environment. It has already been mentioned that in connected speech the sounds undergo various modifications under the influence of neighboring sounds and the intonation patterns they occur in.English vowels are considerably modified in unstressed syllables.The weakening of articulation and shortening of the duration of unstressed vowels results in modification of their quality and quantity.This phonetic phenomenon is known as REDUCTION.English vowels are also modified by the neighboring consonants,mainly by the following consonant.There is always an overlapping of articulatory movements of neighboring sounds.The process of adapting the articulation of a vowel to a consonant, or a consonant to a vowel,is known as ACCOMODATION.