23. Place of word stress, degrees and types of word stress

The sequence of syllables in the word is not pronounced identically. The syllables which are uttered with more prominence than the other syllables of the word are said to be stressed or accented. Stress in the isolated word is termed word stress.

Languages are differentiated according to the PLACEMENT OF WORD STRESS. There are

- fixed stress (the occurrence of the word stress is limited to a particular syllable in a multisyllabic word. For instance, in French the stress falls on the last syllable of the word (if pronounced in isolation), in Finnish and Czech it is fixed on the first syllable);

- free stress (its place is not confined to a specific position in the word. In one word it may fall on the first syllable, in another on the second syllable, in the third word — on the last syllable, etc. The free placement of stress is exemplified in the English and Russian languages)

There are actually as many DEGREES OF STRESS in a word as there are syllables. The opinions of phoneticians differ as to how many degrees of stress are linguistically relevant in a word.

The British linguists usually distinguish three degrees of stress in the word: the primary stress (the strongest), the secondary stress is the second strongest and weak stress. Unstressed syllables are supposed to have weak stress. The American scholars Bloch and Trager find four degrees: loud, reduced loud, medial and weak stresses.

TYPOLOGY OF ACCENTUAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH WORDS was worked out by Torsuev. He classifies them according to the number of stressed syllables, their degree or character (the main and the secondary stress). The accentual types are:

I. i_ - This accentual type marks both simple and compound words. The accentual structures of this type may include two and more syllables, e.g. 'father, 'possibly, 'mother-in-law;

П. ii - in compound words usually with separable prefixes, e.g. 'radio-'active, 're'write;

Ш. iii and IV iiii - are met in initial compound abbreviations like U'S'A;

V. ij_ - both in simple and comp. words, e.g. 'hair-‘dresser, 'substructure.

VI. ji_ - great number of simple words and some compound words as well - maga'zine; hospi'tality;

VII. iji_ - small number of simple words with the separable prefixes, e.g. ‘mis’repre’sent

VIII. jji_ - small number of words – ‘indi’viduali’zation

IX. iij_ - is met in rare instances of compound words – ‘un’sea’worthy

X. i_jj – simple and comp – ‘soda-‘water ‘bottle

XI. jij – comp. words of three components – ‘ginger’beer-‘bottle

24. Sentence-stress in English.

Sentence stress is the governing (руководящий) stress in connected speech. All words have their individual stress in isolation. When words are connected into thought groups, and thought groups into sentences, content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) keep their stress and function words (служебные) lose their stress.

The most important words in a sentence receive stronger stress. The last stressed word in a sentence receives the strongest stress with the help of falling or rising intonation. If it is necessary to keep the rhythm, the stress in some words can be shifted or weakened in a certain way.

Sentence stress has a very important function OF MARKING THE WORDS that are necessary for understanding an utterance. When native speakers of English listen to their conversation partners, they listen for stressed words, because stressed words provide important information.

It is often difficult to understand the meaning of the sentence in which even one content word is missing. It is also difficult to understand the sentence in which an important word is not stressed or a function word is stressed.

Unstressed function words make sentences grammatically correct. They are not important in terms of the information, because even if you don’t get some quickly pronounced function words, the meaning of the whole sentence will be clear to you.

Sentence stress is THE MAIN MEANS OF PROVIDING RHYTHM IN SPEECH. Rhythm is the key to fluent English speech. The stressed syllables are like the beats of the metronome: regular, loud, and clear. The unstressed syllables between the beats are shortened, obscured and joined together.

Sentence stress is the key component of English intonation. Intonation organizes words into sentences, distinguishes between different types of sentences and adds emotional coloring to utterances.