UNIT 3:
SUPRASEGMENTALS
Stress
SUPRASEGMENTALS
• Suprasegmentals are so called in contrast to consonants and vowels, which are treated as
serially ordered segments of the spoken utterance.
• Suprasegmental features, also called prosodic feature:
• A speech feature such as stress, or tone that accompanies or is added over consonants and vowels;
• These features are not limited to single sounds but often extend over syllables, words, or
phrases.
SUPRASEGMENTALS
• In Spanish the stress accent is often used to distinguish between otherwise identical words:
• término means “term,” termíno means “I terminate,” and terminó means “he terminated.”
• In Mandarin Chinese, tone is a distinctive suprasegmental:
• shih pronounced on a high, level note means “to lose”; on a slight rising note means “ten”; on a
falling note means “city, market”; and on a falling–rising note means “history.”
STRESS-TIMED VS SYLLABLE-TIMED
• Syllable-timed languages: syllables have similar lengths or duration.
• Stress-timed languages: Syllables have different lengths because important (i.e. stressed)
syllables are longer, and less important (i.e. unstressed) syllables are shorter.
• If a syllable isn't important, we don't need to hear it clearly and it's often 'reduced' (very little).
STRESS-TIMED VS SYLLABLE-TIMED
STRESS-TIMED VS SYLLABLE-TIMED
WORD STRESS
PRONUNCIATION & STRESS
For people to understand
your English, stress can be
more important than
pronunciation
WHAT IS
STRESS?
• In English, stress is indicated by four
variables: intensity, pitch variation,
vowel quality and vowel duration.
• These qualities make syllables or words
more prominent than others.
• Generally these factors work together in
combination, although syllables may
sometimes be made prominent by
means of only one or two of them (e.g.,
pitch and length).
Intensity
The greater breath effort and muscular
energy associated with stressed syllables.
Stressed syllables are louder.
Pitch variation
Changes in pitch. Higher pitch means
stronger stress.
Vowel quality
Whether the vowel is central or
peripheral. Central vowels, such as
/ɪ/, /ʊ/ and /ə/, are more likely to be
unstressed.
Vowels length. Unstressed vowels are
Vowel duration shorter than stressed ones.
LEVELS OF WORD STRESS
• We mark stressed syllables in transcription by placing a small vertical line (') just before the
syllable it relates to.
• At the word level,
• Primary stress is denoted by a superior vertical stroke (/'/)
• As in organization /ˌɔː.ɡən.aɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/
• Secondary stress is denoted by an inferior vertical stroke (/ˌ/)
• As in organization /ˌɔː.ɡən.aɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/
LEVELS OF WORD STRESS
• Primary stress:
/ˌɔː.ɡən.aɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/
• It is the stronger degree of stress.
• It is very important in compound words.
• Secondary stress:
/ˌɔː.ɡən.aɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/
• It is the weaker of two degrees of stress in the pronunciation of a word.
• It is important primarily in long words with several syllables.
PLACEMENT OF STRESS WITHIN THE
WORD
In order to decide on stress placement, we should consider the
following:
• How many syllables the word has (e.g. more than 3).
• Whether the word is morphologically simple, or if it is complex as a result
either of containing one or more affixes (i.e., prefixes or suffixes) or being a
compound word.
A FEW USEFUL GUIDELINES
Words consisting of two or three syllables
• Rough guide: primary stress on first syllable, e.g. ‘culture, ‘hesitant, ‘motivate.
Longer words (four or more syllables)
• Rough guide: there is a tendency for the antepenultimate syllable to have primary stress, i.e. the last
but two, e.g. credi’bility, com’municate, methodo'logical, etc.
Prefix words
• Rough guide: in shorter words beginning with a prefix, the primary stress typically falls on the syllable
following the prefix: inter’ference, in’tend, ex’pose, con’nect, un’veil. Exception: a large number of
nouns, e.g. ‘output, ‘interlude, ‘congress, ‘absence.
A FEW USEFUL GUIDELINES
Word endings
• Certain word endings may act as stress attractors, falling into two groups.
Stress on ending itself
• -ade (nouns), -ain (verbs), -ee (nouns), -eer, -esque (adjs/nouns), -esce (verbs), -ess (verbs), -ette (nouns), -ique
(nouns/adjs), -oon, -self/-selves, e.g. pa’rade, ab’stain, interview’ee, engi’neer, gro’tesque, conva’lesce, as’sess,
statu’ette, cri’tique, lam’poon, her’self, your’selves.
Stress on syllable preceding ending
• -ative, -itive, -cient, -ciency, -eous, -ety, -ian, -ial, -ic, -ical, -ident, -inal, -ion, -ital, -itous, -itude, -ity, -ive, ual, -ular, -uous, -wards /wedz/, e.g. al’ternative, ‘positive, ‘ancient, de’ficiency, ou’trageous, pro’priety, pe’destrian,
super’ficial, melan’cholic, ‘radical, ‘accident, ‘criminal, o’ccasion, con’genital, infe’licitous, ‘multitude, incre’dulity,
a’ttentive, per’petual, ‘secular, con’spicuous, ‘outwards. Note that many of these lead to antepenultimate stressing.
PLACEMENT OF STRESS WITHIN THE
WORD
In order to decide on stress placement, we should also consider the
following:
• What the phonological structure of syllables is (i.e., vowel quality).
• What the grammatical category of the word is (e.g. noun or verb).
PLACEMENT OF
STRESS WITHIN
THE WORD
• There is a general tendency for verbs
to be stressed nearer the end of a
word and for nouns to be stressed
nearer the beginning.
• REcord
• reCORD
WORD STRESS CAN CHANGE THE FUNCTION
OF A WORD
Noun
Verb
• PERmit
• PerMIT
• OBject
• ObJECT
• PREsent
• PreSENT
• ADdress
• AdDRESS
• DIScount
• DisCOUNT
• REcord
• ReCORD
• PROtest
• ProTEST
REPRESENTING WORD STRESS
- e/lec/TRO/nic
- CHI/na
- a/BOUT
- con/ver/SA/tion
SENTENCE STRESS
WORD STRESS IN SENTENCES
• English words can be classified into content and function/grammatical words.
• Within sentences,
• All words of more than one syllable are stressed (most of the time).
• Words of one syllable are generally not stressed if they are purely grammatical/function words like
pronouns, prepositions, and articles.
• Content words such as full verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs are generally stressed.
WORD STRESS IN SENTENCES
• However, what really is stressed are the
syllables of the content words.
• The remaining syllables and the function
words are pronounced weakly, often
squeezed into the spaces between the strong
syllables.
• Note the following sentences:
1.
Where’s Dave’s lunch? OOO
• The tendency for weak syllables to be
squeezed often gives students the impression
that English is hard to understand because it
is spoken very quickly.
2.
Where was Marta’s party? OoOoOo
3.
Who was at Jennifer’s barbecue? OooOooOoo
CHANGING
SENTENCE
STRESS
PATTERNS
SENTENCE STRESS PATTERNS
• Are you going to eat THAT?
• Sometimes we stress words
without following the previously
explained patterns.
• In this way we can indicate
changes in meaning within a
sentence.
• [meaning: it’s so big! / It’s disgusting!]
• Are you going to EAT that?
• [meaning: I’m not sure that it’s really ‘food’!]
• Are YOU going to eat that?
• [meaning: I thought you bought it for me!]
• ARE you going to eat that?
• [meaning: you are sitting here just looking…]
STRONG AND WEAK FORMS
• Some words have two different pronunciations, a
strong and a weak form.
• We normally we use the weak form but if the word
is stressed because it is especially important, or
because we want to show a contrast, we use the
strong form.
• Most pronouns, possessives, conjunctions,
prepositions, determiners (e.g., a, an, the), and
auxiliary verbs have a strong and a weak form.
SOME EXAMPLES