30. Types of word stress
Word stress is an articulatory and acoustic prominence which is accompanied by the change of the force of the utterance (intensity, loudness), pitch of the voice (tone), qualitative (vowel colour) and quantitative (length, duration) characteristics of the sound.
Languages can be differentiated according to the placement of word stress. The traditional classification of languages concerning place of stress in a word is into those with a fixed stress and those with a free stress. In languages with a fixed stress the occurrence of the word stress is limited to a particular syllable in a multisyllable word. For example in French the stress falls on the last syllable.
In languages with a free stress its place isn’t confined to a specific position in the word. In one word it may fall on the 1st syllable, in another one on the 2nd syllable, in the 3rd word – on the last one. The free placement of stress is exemplified in English and Russian languages.
The word stress in English as well as in Russian isn’t only free but it may also be shifting, performing the semantic function of differentiating lexical units, parts of speech, grammatical forms.
But sometimes the word stress may be non-shifting/ that means the same syllable is stressed in different forms (`person – `personal).
There are actually as many degrees of stress in a word as there are syllables. But in English there are 3 main degrees of word stress:
Primary – strong
Secondary – partial
Weak – in unstressed syllables
The large group of polysyllabic simple words bear both the primary and the secondary stresses.
American Descriptivists (B. Bloch, G. Trager):
- Loud
- Reduced Loud
- Medial
- Weak
Other American linguists (H.A. Gleason):
- Primary, Secondary, Weak
- + Tertiary:
'terri tory, 'dictio nary, 'simpli fy
(-ate, -ory, -ary, -ony, -y)
The diference between the secondary and tertiary stresses seems subjective.
31. Word accentual patterns in English and in Russian
The accentual structure of the word = its stress pattern
In Russian there is just the primary and the secondary stresses and actually there aren’t any accentual patterns in the Russian Language.
The numerous variations of English word stress are systematized in the typology of accentual structure of English words worked out by Torsuev. He classified them according to the number of stressed syllables, their degree or character (the main and the secondary stress).
The accentual types are:
1. [┴ ─ ] – one primary stress. The accentual type which include two or more syllables. This accentual type marls both simple and compound words, e.g. father, mother-in-law.
2. [┴ ┴] two primary stresses. This accentual type is commonly realized in compound words, most of them are with separable prefixes, e.g. radio-active, rewrite
3. [┴ ┬ ─] one primary and one secondary stresses. This accentual type is commonly realized in simple and compound words, very common among compound words, e.g. hair-dresser
4. [┬ ┴ ─] secondary, primary stresses. The stresses fall onto:
1. the prefix and the root: magazine
2. the root and the suffix: hospitality
3. the prefix and the suffix: disorganization
This 4 types are the most widely spread.
Tendencies of Word Stress
Recessive Tendency
the stress is on the initial(начальный) syllable
unrestricted:
'father, 'window, 'error
restricted (the root is stressed):
be'gin, be'come, in'definite
Rhythmic Tendency
the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables: proˌnunci'ation
- synchronically rhythmical
- diachronically rhythmical: family, radical
Originally stressed: ___ ___ _|_
Once pronounced: _|_ ___ _|_
Today’s pronunciation: _|_ ___ ___
Retentive(удерживающ) Tendency
the retention of the primary stress of the parent word
'person – 'personal
'similar – ˌsimi'larity
Semantic Tendency
compound words → the most important part(s) is (are) stressed: 'booking-office, 'give 'up
32. Intonation, its components and related features. Speech melody. Sentence stress.
Intonation
A complex unity of the following prosodic features:
- melody (the pitch of the voice tone)
- sentence stress (the force of breath)
- temporal characteristics (duration, tempo, pausation)
- rhythm (in close combination with sentence-stress and temporal components)
- tamber (voice quality, or the emotional colouring of the voice).
A. Melody
change in the voice pitch:
a terminal tone
a clause-terminal
The main functions:
- to make up separate sense-groups of a sentence
- to express the communicative type of a sentence (a statement, a question, an exclamation, an order, a request, an address and so on)
V.A. Vassilyev Low Fall High Wide Fall High Narrow Fall Low Rise High Narrow Rise High Wide Rise Rise-Fall Fall-Rise Rise-Fall-Rise Level (High, Mid and Low) |
R. Kingdon six tones: Low Fall High Fall Low Rise High Rise Fall-Rise Rise-Fall
|
Main Tones
The Falling Tone - the expression of finality - the categoric nature of the utterance - its independence on a following utterance
- its greater semantic weight |
The Rising tone - non-finality (continuation) - the non-categoric nature of the utterance - its dependence on a following utterance or the reaction of the listener - its smaller semantic weight |
B. Sentence Stress
The functions:
- to single out words in a sentence to show the degree of their significance
- the attitudinally distinctive function:
emphatic sentences unemphatic ones
The stress of a word in a sentence ← its semantic role
Sentence Stress |
||
Nuclear |
Non-nuclear |
|
the strongest: the most important information |
Full (the Head)
|
Partial (the Prehead, the Tail)
|
Functional Types of Sentence-Stress
syntactical stress: ˡJohn ˡworks ˡhard at his English.
logical stress (the semantic centre of the sentence is marked out): ˡHe knows me, and ˡI know him.
emphatic stress: She ˡˡis beautiful.
rhythmical stress: ˡOn his ˡshoulders he ˡcarried a ˡsack.
33. The problem of the definition of intonation. Tempo, pausation, rhythm and tamber |timber
Intonation
a language universal
a two-fold message:
1. information about the speaker himself
2. a communicative message
Main Approaches to the Problem of Intonation in Great Britain
1. The Contour Analysis
- H. Sweet, D. Jones, G. Palmer, J. O’Connor, L. Armstrong, I. Ward, R. Kingdon, A. Gimson and others
- a tone-group (sense-group)
- Intonation: a layer that is superimposed on the lexico-grammatical structure
2. The grammatical approach
- M. Halliday
- The main unit of intonation is a clause
- Three systematic variables: Tonality, Tonicity, Tone
- The syntactical function of intonation
The American School of Intonation
- The founder: K. Pike
- The main units of intonation: pitch phonemes and contours
- The description of different contours and their meaning
Linguists in Russia
- Intonation on perceptional level:
A complex, a whole, formed by significant variations of pitch, loudness and tempo closely related
Intonation
A complex unity of the following prosodic features:
- melody (the pitch of the voice tone)
- sentence stress (the force of breath)
- temporal characteristics (duration, tempo, pausation)
- rhythm (in close combination with sentence-stress and temporal components)
- tamber (voice quality, or the emotional colouring of the voice).
C. Tempo
the means of emotional expressiveness
Tempo |
||
Normal |
Slow |
Fast |
D. Pausation
- delimitative and distinctive functions:
Tom said his mother was fond of meeting.
Tom said his mother was fond of meeting.
- voiced pauses are used to signal hesitation, doubt, suspense:
She is rather … a good student.
Three Kinds of Pauses
short
longer
very long
|
to separate intonation groups within a phrase to manifest the end of the phrase to separate phonetic wholes |
Functional Types of Pauses
Syntactic
Emphatic
Hesitation(al): silent and filled
So … Uhm … Well … look a picture of young David.
E. Rhythm
the regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables
A rhythmic group: a piece of speech united by one stress
A sense-group (syntagm) A rhythmic group
Clitics: unstressed syllables in a rhythmic group
Clitics |
|
proclitics |
enclitics |
cling to the following stressed syllable |
cling to the preceding stressed syllable |
Rhythmic Groups
I’ll ˡgive you the ˡbook as
ˡsoon as I have read it.
Russian and English the Rhythmic Groups
coincide with the limits of the words |
may not coincide with the limits of the words |
Rhythm
Languages
stress-timed every rhythmic group is pronounced within equal amount of time |
syllable-timed (e.g. French, Spanish) each syllable is pronounced within equal amount of time |
F. The Timber / Tamber
Functions:
- to express various emotions and moods
- in some languages: to characterize different communicative types of the sentence
34. Functions of intonation
T.M. Nikolajeva:
Delimitating (разграничивающая), integrating (объединяющая) and semantic functions
E.Ya. Antipova:
sentence-forming, sentence-delimiting, distinctive and attitudinal
The main function:
the communicative one
Functions of Intonation
Constitutive: sentence-forming (а) and sentence-delimiting (b)
(a) Intonation, along with words and grammatical structure, is an indispensable feature of the sentence. A chain of words correctly used according to grammatical rules does not necessarily make an unambiguous(точный) utterance with a clear communicative aim, if pronounced without differentiations in pitch and stress. For instance, “He’s passed his exam” may be taken for a statement, or a question, or an exclamation, while with a definite intonation contour superimposed on this chain of words, the communicative aim of the utterance is clearly revealed.
(b) The end of a sentence is always recognized by a pause of varying length combined with a moving (or nuclear) tone on the most important word of the sentence; the end of a non-final sense-group is usually signalled by a shorter pause in combination with a nuclear tone on the semantic centre of the sense group.
E. g. Like most old people, he was fond of talking about old days.
Distinctive: the main communicative type of the sentence: a statement, a question, an exclamation, etc.
Expressive
Attitudinal the mood of the speaker, his attitude to the situation and to the listener are also expressed only by intonation.
Stylistic: a particular style or variety of oral speech