WEB-ресурс научно-практических конференций

Сеттарова М.Д.

Крымский инженерно-педагогический университет, г .С имферополь, Украина

SYLLABLE STRESS IN AMERICAN ENGLISH

Syllable is a unit of spoken language consisting of a single uninterrupted sound formed by a vowel, diphthong, or syllabic consonant alone, or by any of these sounds preceded, followed, or surrounded by one or more consonants [3]. Stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. The words accent, accentuation, prominence, emphasis, strength, intensity are sometimes also used with this sense. It should be mentioned that syllable structure interacts with stress. Phonotactic rules determine which sounds are allowed or disallowed in each part of the syllable . Also emphasis may have no meaning; for example, Czech words are regularly stressed on the first syllable. In Latin stress is regularly determined by syllable weight , a syllable counting as heavy if it has at least one of the following:

• a long vowel in its nucleus
• a diphthong in its nucleus
• one or more coda (e)

But English allows very complicated syllables; syllables may begin with up to three consonants (as in string or splash), and occasionally end with as many as four (as in prompts). When you listen to Americans talking you might notice that they always stress some syllables more than others . That's because in English words one syllable is always pronounced with more emphasis than the other syllables in the word. In American English the vowel in the stressed syllable is lengthened and has a very clear sound. Also we can add that the vowels in stressed syllables are pronounced with a higher pitch and longer duration than the other vowels in a word. But the vowel sounds in unstressed syllables often have a schwa sound. And the stressed syllables of content and focus words create stress within a phrase or thought group.

Also it’s significant mentioning that: the first part of a compound word is usually stressed: ‘note-book ,‘foot -ball, ‘air-port, ‘brief-case stress is usually placed on the syllable that contains the root or base word. That means that word prefixes are usually not stressed: un-‘paid, in-‘vest, pre-‘dict, re-‘wind it also means that word suffixes are usually not stressed: ‘slow-ly, ‘fast-er, ‘sleep-ing, ‘thought-ful. Exceptions to the suffix rule are words of French origin such as million-’aire, volun-’teer and picture-’esque. These words are stressed on the suffix itself.

In addition to the above said we can divide them into the following categories: Compound nouns are stressed on the first word in the compound [2].

Bedroom - [ ‘ bed-rHm]

Someone - [ ‘ sAm-wAn]

Compound verbs are stressed on the second word in the compound [2].

Outsmart - [aut- ‘ smRt]

Overdue - [ qu-vq- ‘ djH]

In compound adjectives the stress is on the second part of the compound [2].

Bad-tempered - [ bxd- ‘ tem-pqd]

Old-fashioned - [quld- ‘ fxS-(q )nd ]

Hyphenated compound words often have short words in the middle. Some of these are stressed on the first part of the compound such as:

mother-in-law - [ ‘ mAD-(q)r-In-lL] free-for-all - [ ‘ frJ-fq-Ll]

So in longer words with many syllables, there can be a primary stress and a secondary stress. The primary stress would be the highest in pitch and perhaps the longest, but there might also be another syllable that is important that is brought out somewhat [1:149]. For example, the word embarrassment (em-bar-rass-ment). It is the last two syllables that are not stressed. And it is the second syllable that is stressed (em’bar-). But the first syllable is also somewhat important and higher in pitch than the last two [Im ’ bxrqsmqnt] [2]. Therefore the first syllable there has a secondary stress, and the second syllable has the primary stress. The last two syllables are unstressed. To conclude the issue we should mark out the words with multiple syllables, where one syllable is always more prominent than the others. And prominent stressed syllables are pronounced: a) with a higher pitch, b) a bit louder in volume, c) with a lengthened vowel sound. Yet the syllable stress is one of the main distinctive features of American English. Knowing which syllable to stress, we can improve our American accent.

References:

1. Васильев В.А. Фонетика английского языка. Теоретический курс / В.А. Васильев. – М., 1970. – 283 с.

2. Erin McKean. The New Oxford American Dictionary/ Erin McKean (editor), - Oxford University Press: 2005. - 2051 p.

3. http://www.thefreedictionary.com