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

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 /'fa:də/ information /ˌɪnfərˈmeɪʃn/
John bought a new car yesterday.

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 enterain
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.

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.
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.

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.

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

Two-syllable verbs
a. If the second syllable of the verb contains a long vowel or a diphthong or
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.
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 /əʊ/. Examples:
follow borrow

Two-syllable Adjectives
● Two-syllable adjectives are stressed according to the same rules as verbs.
Examples:
correct heavy major happy
polite sincere complete precis

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 autumn affair
office larynx delight pocket
estate balloon canoe surface

Notes
● Other two-syllable words such as adverbs and prepositions seem to behave
like verbs and adjectives. Examples:
beyond never before after
seldom behind except across
again very

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

Three-syllable Nouns
 a. If the final syllable contains a short vowel or /əʊ/, 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 syllables are unstressed, and the first syllable is stressed.
quantity cinema
enemy alphabet
animal company
antonym character
c. If the final syllable contains a long vowel or a diphthong or ends with more
than one consonant, the stress will usually be placed on the first syllable.
paradise exercise
architect marigold
photograph attitude

Three-syllable Adjectives
● Three-syllable adjectives seem to need the same rules as Nouns to produce
stress patterns such as:
opportune insolent
possible derelict
important absolute
enormous similar
accurate popular

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.

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 cigar cigarette
employ employee picture picturesque
person personality mountain mountaineer
Portugal Portugese

2. The word is stressed as if the affix were not there.

comfort comfortable red reddish
marry marriage power powerless
refuse refusal punish punishment
wide widen poison poisonous
wonder wonderful glory glorify
amaze amazing
3. The stress remains on the stem, not the affix, but is shifted to a different
syllable.
advantage advantageous tranquil tranquility
proverb proverbial photograph photographer
climate climatic economy economical
injure injurious equator equatorial

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 new moon
full moon open hearted
fast food ill mannered

b. If, however, the first element is, in a broad sense, a noun, the stress goes
on the first element.
car ferry people farmhouse
tea cup airplane
suitcase bottle bodyguard
feed boat bedroom

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 perfect perfect
desert desert permit permit
escort escort present present
export export produce produce
import import rebel rebel
insult insult record record
object object subject subject

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 when 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.
● 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 that have both a strong and weak form belong to a
category that may be called grammatical words such as auxiliary verbs,
prepositions, and 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 normal.
● 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? Where are you from?
I am looking at my pictures. 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?
● 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’ and the end of a sentence.