Word Stress

The sequence of syllables in the word is not pronounced identically: some syllables

are more prominent than the others. They are called stressed syllables.

So stress is a greater degree of prominence of a syllable or syllables as compared to the

other syllables of the word. A particular combination of varying prominence of syllables

in a word forms its stress pattern. The effect of prominence of stressed syllable is achieved by a number of phonetic parameters such as pitch, loudness, length, vowel quality or their combination. As a result there appears a contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables. There are two main types of word stress in the languages of the world: dynamic and tonic (musical). The dynamic stress is achieved by greater force with which the syllable is pronounced. Greater intensity and duration of the stressed syllable which contains a vowel of full ar­ticulation contribute to the effect of prominence. European languages such as English, German, French, Russian, have dynamic word stress. Musical stress is observed in Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and other languages. This type of stress is the result of the change of pitch in the stressed syllable. Word stress performs the following functions: Word stress organizes the syllables into a word. It creates a particular pattern of relationships among syllables, making some syllables more prom­inent than others and thus shapes the word as a whole. Thus word stress performs the constitutive function. Word stress makes it possible for the listener to identify a succesion of syllables with a definite recurrent stress pattern as a word. In other words, it helps us to recognise the word in the chain of speech. This function is called identificatory ( recognitive). Word stress is capable of differentiating the meaning of words or their forms, thus performing its distinctive function. Primary stress placement can distinguish:

-the grammatical category (morphological class) of the word in the oppositions

'import -im'port, 'insult -in'sult, 'conduct -con'duct, in which the stress falls on the first syllable

in nouns and on the last syllable in verbs; the meaning ofthe word, e. g. 'billow be'low; -compound nouns from free word combinations, e. g. 'blackboard 'black 'board, 'greenhouse -

'green 'house.

In compound nouns primary stress is placed on the first element, while in word combinations adjective + noun there is primary stress on both elements.

Among the prosodic features we should mention the following:

Loudness is relatively stable and normal, but close to the phonopas­sage boundaries

there is a gradual decrease of it. Thus it is easy to spot the boundaries by loudness contrasts

between the final and initial into­nation groups of two adjacent phonopassages. The same could

be said about levels and ranges: there is a distinctly marked decrease of them within the

phonopassage. The rate of utterances is normal or rather slow, not noticeably var­ied.

Together with the medium length of pauses the general tempo may be marked as moderate.

The rhythm may be characterized as systematic, properly organized, interpausal stretches

have a marked tendency towards the rhythmic iso­chrony.

Intonation is indis­pensable in communication, because it is instrumental in conveying mean­ing. No

sentence can exist without a particular intonation. No meaning can be expressed without it. Intonation

can be described on the acoustic level (in terms of its acous­tic characteristics), on the perception level

(in terms of the characteristics perceived by human ear) and on the linguistic level (in terms of meanings

expressed by intonation). We would like to start with the description of in­tonation on the perception

and acoustic levels and then pass over to its lin­guistic function.

It is quite impossible to describe intonation in a word or two. Sometimes the ups and downs of pitch

and loudness are com­pared to the waves of the ocean.

According to most Ukrainian linguists on the perception level intonation is defined as a complex,

a whole, formed by significant variations of pitch, loudness and tempo (the rate of speech and pausation) closely related. Some definitions also include timbre (voice quality), which is sometimes regarded as the

fourth component of intonation.

Grammar

Noun

The noun as a part of speech has the categorial meaning of "substance" or "thingness". It follows from this that the noun is the main nominative part of speech, effecting nomination of the fullest value within the framework of the notional division of the lexicon.

The first nounal subclass opposition differentiates proper and common nouns. The foundation of this division is "type of nomination". The second subclass opposition differentiates animate and inanimate nouns on the basis of "form of existence". The third subclass opposition differentiates human and non-human nouns on the basis of "personal quality". The fourth subclass opposition differentiates countable and uncountable nouns on the basis of "quantitative structure". Somewhat less explicitly and rigorously realised is the division of English nouns into concrete and abstract.

The category of number is expressed by the opposition of the plural form of the noun to the singular form of the noun. The strong member of this binary opposition is the plural, its productive formal mark being the suffix -(e)s [-z, -s, -iz ] as presented in the forms dog — dogs, clock — clocks, box — boxes. The productive formal mark correlates with the absence of the number suffix in the singular form of the noun. The semantic content of the unmarked form, as has been shown above, enables the grammarians to speak of the zero-suffix of the singular in English.

Cases: nominative, vocative, dative, and accusative.

English noun does distinguish the grammatical case in its functional structure. However, another view of the problem of the English noun cases has been put forward which sharply counters the theories hitherto observed. This view approaches the English noun as having completely lost the category of case in the course of its historical development. All the nounal cases, including the much spoken of genitive, are considered as extinct, and the lingual unit that is named the "genitive case" by force of tradition, would be in reality a combination of a noun with a postposition (i.e. a relational postpositional word with preposition-like functions).

We have considered theoretical aspects of the problem of case of the English noun, and have also observed the relevant lingual data instrumental in substantiating the suggested interpretations. As a result of the analysis, we have come to the conclusion that the inflexional case of nouns in English has ceased to exist. In its place a new, peculiar two case system has developed based on the particle expression of the genitive falling into two segmental types: the word-genitive and the phrase-genitive.

The undertaken study of the case in the domain of the noun, as the next step, calls upon the observer to re-formulate the accepted interpretation of the form-types of the English personal pronouns.

The personal pronouns are commonly interpreted as having a case system of their own, differing in principle from the case system of the noun. The two cases traditionally recognised here are the nominative case (I, you, he, etc.) and the objective case (me, you, him, etc.). To these forms the two series of forms of the possessive pronouns are added — respectively, the conjoint series (my, your, his, etc.) and the absolute series (mine, yours, his, etc.). A question now arises, if it is rational at all to recognise the type of case in the words of substitutional nature which is absolutely incompatible with the type of case in the correlated notional words? Attempts have been made in linguistics to transfer the accepted view of pronominal cases to the unchangeable forms of the nouns (by way of the logical procedure of back substitution), thereby supporting the positional theory of case (M. Bryant). In the light of the present study, however, it is clear that these attempts lack an adequate linguistic foundation.