The nature of English word-stress

Задания для дистанционного обучения

студентов гр. 303-а

по дисциплине «ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКАЯ ФОНЕТИКА АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА»

на период с 02.03.2015 по 07.03.2015

Преподаватель: Минина Елена Владимировна

Телефон: 050-608-63-43, 063-151-85-75

адрес для консультаций: goltsmanelena@mail.ru

(в теме письма указывайте свою фамилию, имя и номер группы)

1. Проработать лекцию № 5 и сделать свой собственный конспект по лекции.

2. Подготовиться к написанию КТ по материалам лекции.

3. Проработать семинар № 3, написать конспект по вопросам семинара, выполнить практические задания и прислать подготовленный материал на вышеуказанный электронный адрес.

Lecture 5

Accentual structure of English

Outline:

1) The nature of English word-stress. Types of word-stress in different languages:

· dynamic (force stress)

· musical (tonic)

· quantitative

· qualitative

2) The viewpoints on the degrees of word-stress

British linguists American llinguists

primary primary

secondary secondary

weak weak

tertiary

3) Word accentuation tendencies in English:

· recessive tendency

· rhythmic tendency

· retentive tendency

· semantic factor

4) Functions of word-stress:

· constitutive

· recognitive

· distinctive

KEY WORDS: dynamic (force stress), musical (tonic) stress, quantitative stress, qualitative stress, primary, secondary, weak stress, tertiary stress, recessive tendency, rhythmic tendency, retentive tendency, semantic factor

LITERATURE:

1. Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб. для студ. ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз. / М.А. Соколова, К.П. Гинтовт, И. С. Тихонова, Р. М. Тихонова. – М.: Высш. школа, 1991. – С. 101-112

2. Васильев В. А. Фонетика английского языка: теоретический курс (на англ. яз.) / В. А.. Васильев. – М.: Высш. шк., 1970. – С. 257-285

3. Леонтьева С. Ф. Теоретичская фонетика английского языка: учеб. для студентов вер. и заоч. отд-ний педвузов./ С. Ф.Леонтьева. – 2-е изд., испр. и доп. – М.: Высш. школа, 1988. – С. 179-185

4. Паращук В. Ю. Теоретична фонетика англійської мови: Навчальний посібник для студентів факультетів іноземних мов./ В. Ю. Паращук. – Вінниця: Нова Книга, 2005. – С. 171-182

The nature of English word-stress

A word, as a meaningful language unit, has a definite phonetic structure. The phonetic structure of a word comprises not only the sounds that the word is composed of and not only the syllabic structure that these sounds form, it also has a definite stress pattern. Stress is defined differently by different authors.

1)B.A. Bogoroditsky defined stress as an increase of energy, accompanied by an increase of expiratory and articulatory activity.

2)D.Jones defined stress as the degree of force, which is accompanied by a strong force of exhalation and gives an impression of loudness.

3)H. Sweеt also stated that stress is connected with the force of breath.

4) A. Gimson admits that a more prominent syllable is accompanied by pitch changes in the voice, quality and quantity of the accented sounds.

The auditory impression of stress is that of prominence. If a word contains more than one syllable, the relative prominence of those syllables differs, consequently

this correlation of degrees of prominence of the syllables in a word forms the stress pattern of the word, which is often called the accentual structure of a word.

As stated above, the auditory impression of stress is that of prominence. So a stressed syllable on the auditory level is a syllable that has special prominence. The effect of prominence may be produced by a greater degree of loudness, greater length of the stressed syllable, some modifications in its pitch and quality.

Acoustic analysis shows that the perception of prominence may be due to definite variations of the following acoustic parameters: intensity, duration, frequency, formant structure. All these parameters generally interact to produce the effect of prominence.

In different languages stress may be achieved by various combinations of these parameters. Depending upon which parameter is the principal one in producing the effect of stress, word stress in languages may be of different types.

There are languages with dynamic word stress. Stress in such languages is mainly achieved by a greater force of articulation which results in greater loudness, on the auditory level, and greater intensity on the acoustic level. European languages such as English, German, French, Russian are believed to possess predominantly dynamic word stress. In Scandinavian languages the word stress is considered to be both dynamic and musical.

In languages with musical word stress prominence is mainly achieved by variations in pitch level, the main acoustic parameter being fundamental frequency. The musical stress is observed in such Oriental languages as Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and in some African languages. It is effected by the variations of voice pitch in relation to neighbouring syllables. In Chinese the sound seguence chu pronounced with the level tone means “pig”, with the rising tone - “bamboo”, with the falling tone - “to live”. In Swedish, the word komma (comma) is distinguished from the word komma (come) by a difference in tones.

In languages with quantitative word stress the effect of stress is mainly based on the quantity of the sound, i.e. its duration. In such languages vowels in the stressed syllables are always longer than vowels in unstressed syllables. Some phoneticians insist on the quantitative character of the Russian word stress in Russian because vowels of full formation and full length are never used in unstressed position, therefore the vowels of full length are perceived as stressed. So, Russian word stress is not only dynamic but mostly quantitative and qualitative.

Besides those types of word stress linguists distinguish qualitative word stress, as in many languages the quality of vowels in stressed syllables is unobscured and consequently differs greatly from the quality of vowels in unstressed syllables.

Until recently, English stress was considered to be dynamic, as stress was generally correlated with loudness. But numerous investigations of the acoustic nature of English word stress have made it clear that stress in English does not depend on intensity alone, and that English word stress is of a complex nature.