II. Types of stress.

The word stress is closely interrelated with sentence stress. Sentence stress usually falls on the very syllable of the word which is marked by word stress. Thus the accentual structure of the word predetermines the arrangement of stresses in a phrase. At the same time the stress pattern of a phrase is always conditioned by the semantic and syntactical factors. The words that usually become stressed in a phrase are notional words. They convey the main idea of the phrase. For example,

In ˇthis "room │there are a'pproximately ﺍ thirty ﺍstudents │that are 'taking 'notes during the \lecture \\ .

All the marked words bear the so-called sentence stressed proper. This stress falls on the lexical words. In all the three syntagms the last lexical words are stressed to signal the end of a signal. This stress is called syntagmatic stress.

The common character of word stress and sentence stress is also observed in their rhythmical tendency to alternate stressed and unstressed syllables and pronounce them at approximately equal intervals. Word stress is applied to a word, as a linguistic unit, sentence stress is applied to a phrase. The distinction of the rhythmical structure of a word and a phrase is clearly observed in the cases when the word stress in notional words is omitted in a phrase. For example,

I 'don’t think she is mis'taken.

Or when the rhythmic structure of the isolated word does not coincide with that of a phrase. For example,

'Fourteen. 'Classroom Four'teen. 'Fourteen 'books.

. So in a speech chain the phonetic structure of a word obtains additional characteristics connected with rhythm, melody, and tempo. Though the sentence stress falls on the syllable marked by the word stress, it is not realized in the stressed syllable of an isolated word but in a word within speech continuum. Sentence stress organizes a sentence into a linguistic unit, helps to form its rhythmic and intonation pattern, performs its distinctive function on the level of a phrase.

III. Functional aspect of word stress.

Word stress in a language performs three functions:

1). Word stress constitutes a word, organizes the syllables of a word into a language unit having a definite accentual structure, that is a pattern of relationship among the syllables; a word doesn’t exist without the word stress. Sound continuum becomes a phrase when it is divided into units organized by word stress into word. It fulfills the constitutive function.

2). Word stress enables a person to identify a succession of syllables as a definite accentual pattern of a word. Correct accentuation helps the listener to make the process of communication easier, whereas the distorted accentual pattern of words, misplaced word stresses prevent normal understanding. This function is known as identificatory (or recognitive).

3). Word stress alone is capable of differentiating the meaning of words or their forms, thus performing its distinctive function. The accentual patterns of words or the degrees of stress and their positions form oppositions. For example,

'import – to im'port (to differentiate the noun from the verb).

'billow – be'low.

We can’t help saying a few words about logical and emphatic stresses. The main idea of the logical stress is to single out a word or a word combination which is the most essential from the point of view of meaning. For example,

This 'blackboard is \green.

The idea of this sentence is to say that the colour is green not red, yellow or brown. This concept is based on the contrast because the word which is marked by stress is opposed to any group of words that can be contrasted to the word in question. Thus in the sentence we contrast the word “green’ to any other colour. It should also be noted that in the same sentence logical and syntagmatic stresses fall on one and the same word “green’. Thus the function of these stresses are widened and in this case when two stresses are merged in one they signal the end of the sentence, show the logical centre in the sentence and bring up the idea of contrast.

The major function of emphatic stress is to express emotional and evaluative overtones. For example,

• Where were you born?

• I was found.

• Found?! (Oscar Wilde)

It often happens that different types of sentence stress go together and sometimes are hard to distinguish from each other. In this example “Found ?!” is marked by both an emphatic stress and a logical one. Since our speech is more frequently attitudinal in the sense that we often speak not only for the sake of conveying information but also for the sake of conveying attitudes and emotions. It would be correct to speak of a logical-emphatic stress.