32. The definition of word-stress. The degrees of word-stress.

Word-stress is connected with the changes of the force of articulation, pitch, colour and length of a vowel in a stressed syllable.

Certain types of word-stress are also distinguished according to the degree of special prominence.

It is usually quite sufficient to distinguish three degrees; the majority of British phoneticians share this opinion. The strongest stress is called primary stress, the second strongest stress is called secondary, while all the other degrees of stress are grouped together under the cover term of weak stress. The syllables bearing either primary or secondary stress are termed stressed (strongly-stressed and weakly-stressed, correspondingly), while syllables with weak stress are called unstressed.

In the phonetic transcription the position of word-stress is indicated by placing the stress mark before the accented syllable, the primary stress mark is raised, the secondary stress mark is lowered, so the stress mark indicates simultaneously the point of syllable division. In explanatory dictionaries, like Webster’s, the primary and secondary stresses are indicated correspondingly by a heavy mark and a light mark at the end of the syllable. In Russian linguistic literature the stress marks are placed over the vowel letter.

The American phoneticians distinguish a greater number degrees of word-stress; they use other terms to denote them and other marks to indicate each degree.

Thus, B. Bloch and G. Trager distinguish four contrasting degrees which are numbered from 1 (the strongest) to 4 (the weakest) or called by descriptive names:

1) loud, indicated [´];

2) reduced loud, indicated [^];

3) medial, indicated [ ̀];

4) weak, which is not indicated.

H. Gleason also distinguishes four degrees but terms them:

1) primary [´];

2) secondary [^];

3) tertiary [ ̀];

4) weak [ˇ].

H. Sweet distinguishes the following degrees of word-stress:

1) extra-strong or emphatic [^;];

2) strong [˙];

3) medium or half strong [^׃];

4) weak [ˇ].

American phoneticians place the stress-mark above the vowels of the stressed syllable and even indicate the stress in monosyllabic words pronounced in isolation whereas linguists in most other countries take the presence of stress in such cases for granted and do not mark it.

In the Russian word-stress system there are two degrees of word-stress – primary and weak. Some Russian words may have a secondary stress in addition to the primary one, but it is weaker than in English and often is not obligatory.

The above mentioned degrees of word-stress were established for words pronounced in isolation. But if a word is used in a sentence, the factors determining the degree of stress are more numerous, varied and altogether different from the factors, determining the degree of accent in a word pronounced in isolation. The degree of stress which a word receives in a sentence depends on the semantic factor (as semantically more important words are pronounced with greater stress), on the position of logical stress, on the turn of intonation, on the presence or absence of stressed syllables before and/or after it, on the speaker’s emotions, on the rhythm of the intonation.