Lecture 6. Word accent in English. Accentual structure of English words.

I. Word accent. Word accent in English.

1. In the English language the word accent is the constitutive function of a word as of lexical and morphological element of a language in its absolute form. The word accent can be observed both in monosyllabic and polysyllabic words. For the latter it is typical to single out one or more syllables by increasing the degree of their prominence. Thus, the word accent organizes a word as complex auditory unit and at the same time gives prominence to separate syllables. Such syllables are considered to be singled out accentually (accented) or stressed.

It is a common knowledge that stress or accent means greater degree of prominence to certain syllable or syllables. Such prominence is achieved through the greater force of exhalation and higher level of voice pitch and slight change in the direction of voice.

The nature of an accent - still represents a ground for disputes.

Gimson believes that the effect of prominence is achieved through the combination of 4 major factors: degree of tenseness, tone, intensity and length of a vowel. The prominence of a syllable in the languages with the rhythmic tendency is achieved by higher muscular tension while pronouncing the given syllable.

In the European languages, such as English, German, French, Russian the dynamic tendency in a word accent prevails. In the Scandinavian languages the accent is considered to be dynamic and musical. Musical character of a word accent may be observed in Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese languages.

So, passing directly to the English language, it is necessary to mention, that word accent in the English language is dynamic. It is accepted practically by all the linguists. However, experimental researches testify, and such linguists as Gimson and Crystal point out as well, that the word accents in English is a complex and complicated phenomenon marked by changes in the energy, in the voice height, characterized by qualitative and quantitative changes. Dynamic and tonal features of the English word accent prevail over the other characteristics.

Qualitative and quantitative aspects of a stress or accent are important components of a word accent. In this case we deal with the qualitative or quantitative changes of a vowel in the unstressed syllables in comparison with the stressed ones. It is natural, that in a stressed syllable a vowel is longer and of full quality (possesses all the qualitative characteristics). The qualitative aspect of an accent is revealed through the change of a colour or quality of a vowel in the stressed position while quantitative aspect - with the change in the length of a vowel sound.

The nature of Russian stress differs from English. The qualitative component of an accent plays bigger role in the system of Russian word accent as Russian vowels in the unstressed position always undergo a qualitative reduction. While in the English language we may find vowels of full quality in the unstressed position (we spoke about it at our last lecture).

One more fact that deserves our attention here is the position of a stress in different languages. So, according to this aspect we may single out languages that have fixed stress and those whose word accent has free character.

In the languages with the fixed accent, the position of a word accent is fixed on a concrete syllable. Thus, for example, in the French language it is the last syllable in a word (Paris, a cachenez, an orchestra), in the Finnish and Czech languages - on the first syllable (Helsinki, the Sauna, Карловы Вары, Gold Prague), and in Polish - on the last but one.

In languages with a free stress, the word accent is not fixed on any concrete syllable. For example, appetite, beginning, balloon and lake, weather, milk.

It is necessary to note, that in the English language the accent is not only free, but even has a shifting character, i.e. carries out semantic function, distinguishing lexical units, parts of speech, grammar forms.

The phonologic status of a word accent also doesn’t possess any stability in the world of linguistics. Anyway, all the linguists are of the same opinion - the analysis of a word accent should be carried out from the point of view of its degree.

Thus, it is accepted, that the English word stress has three degrees: primary, secondary and weak stress. These ideas are reflected in the works of Jones, Gimson, Kingdon, Torsuev, Vasiliev. Some phoneticians distinguish four degrees of a word accent: primary, secondary, tertiary and weak stress.

Primary accent falls either on the third or on the second syllable from the end.

In the majority of words the secondary stress falls on the syllable separated from a stressed (nuclear) syllable by one unstressed syllable. Something like in the following words, pro'nunciֽaton, ֽ occupation, governmental, patriotic.

In many derivative nouns the secondary accent falls on the same syllable which has a primary accent in the initial word, i.e. in the word from which the noun is derived: organize - organization, peculiar - peculiarity.