.linguistica inglese., Dispense di Lingua Inglese

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Stress

 It’s the relative prominence given to a syllable. In phonetic transcription indicated by a vertical line (stress mark) preceding the stressed syllable. Money [ˈmʌni]

Word stress

 Words with more than one syllable carry an accent or stress on one syllable.  Diacritic indicates suprasegmantal features  [ˈ] indicates main stress  Protest (n) /ˈprəʊtest/ to protest (v) /prəˈtest/  Photography /fəˈtɒɡrəfi/  photographer /fəˈtɒɡrəfər/  photographic /ˌfəʊtəˈɡræfɪk/  [ˌ] secondary stress

Main types of stress patterns

 2 - syllable words with a full vowel on the first syllable and primary stress on the second syllable – Type strong+strong. although [ɔːlˈðəʊ], myself [maɪˈself]  3 - syllable words with primary stress on the first syllable – Type strong+weak+weak. family [ˈfæməli], manager [ˈmænɪdʒə]  3 - syllable words with primary stress on the first syllable, and a full vowel on the third syllable – Type strong+weak+strong. telephone [ˈtelɪfəʊn], summertime [ˈsʌmətaɪm]

Main types of stress patterns

 3 - syllable words with primary stress on the first syllable, and a full vowel on the second – Type strong+strong+weak. newspaper [ˈnjuːzpeɪpə], grandmother [ˈɡrænmʌðə]  3 - syllable words with primary stress on the second syllable – type weak+strong+weak. remember [rɪˈmembə], agreement [əˈɡriːmənt]  3 - syllable words with full vowel on the first syllable and primary stress on the second syllable – Type strong+strong+weak sensation [senˈseɪʃn], transparent [trænsˈpærənt]  3 - syllable words with a full vowel on the first syllable and primary stress on the third syllable – Type strong+weak+strong. afternoon [ˌɑːftəˈnuːn], understand [ˌʌndəˈstænd]

Stress patterns

 Italian is a syllable-timed language (syllables with similar length, articulated at regular intervals, basic unit of rhythm)  English is a stress-timed language (the time of an utterance depends on the number of stressed syllables, rather than the total number)

Stress patterns 09

 English is a stress-timed language (the time of an utterance depends on the number of stressed syllables, rather than the total number)

Rhythmic shift in stress

 A shift in stress happens (without changing meaning, e.g. protest) when a lexical item acting as adjective precedes a noun in order to avoid two stressed syllables occurring in close succession:  He’s an OVER-paid exECutive  Most exECutives are over-PAID  Stress-timed rhythm prevails over normal rules of word stress

Strong and weak forms 14

 Listen to the following sentences and underline stressed syllables

Strong and weak forms

 a

Sentence stress

 As in polysyllabic words we find primary and secondary stress, in sentences some words have stronger stress than others (usually those providing new or important information)

Contrastive stress

 Sometimes we emphasise one word rather than another in order to make intended meaning clear.

Contrastive stress 21

 Sometimes we emphasise one word rather than another in order to make intended meaning clear. This may be applied to function words too

Pitch and intonation

 Intonation plays an important role in grammar and discourse, influencing the meaning of large stretches of speech.  A tone may be rising or falling, or a combination of these  ↗ rising  questions and incomplete clauses  ↘ falling  statements  ↘↗ fall-rise  uncertainty and doubt  ↗↘ rise-fall  surprise and admiration, or strong emotions

Pitch and intonation

 Main functions of intonation are:  Attitudinal (feeling and attitudes; other prosodic and paralinguistic features)  Grammatical (segmentation in meaningful units) I ↘ ‘fed her / ↗ ‘dog ‘biscuits I ‘fed her ↗ ‘dog / ↘ ‘biscuits  Accentual (stress on nucleus indicating focus of information)  Discourse (connected to accentual): end-focus for new information. Foregrounding can take place also trough intonation 20