english word stress section 1

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二嵩

English Word-Stress

English Word-Stress

Erik FudgeProfessor ofLinguistics, University ofHull

London

GEORGE ALLEN & UNWINBoston Sydney

© Erik C. Fudge, 1984.This book iscopyright under theBerne Convention. Noreproductionwithoutpermission. All rightsreserved.

GeorgeAllen& Unwin(Publishers) Ltd,40 Museum Street, London WClAILU, UK

George Allen & Unwin(Publishers)Ltd,Park Une, Hemel Hempstead, Herts HP2 ATE,UK

Allen & Unwin Inc.,9Winchester Terrace, Winchester, Mass. 01890,^USA^

George Allen & UnwinAustralia Pty Ltd,8Napier Street, North Sydney, NSW 2060, /

First published in 1984.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Fudge, ErikEnglish word-stress.

1.English language - Text-books forforeign speakers 2. Englishlanguage - Accents and accentuationL Title

428M PE1128ISBN(MI4-418004-7ISBN 0-04-418005-5 Pbk

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Fudge, Erik C.English word-stress.

Includes bibliographical references andindex. 1.English language-Accents and accentuation.I. Title.

PEI139.F81984 42r.6 84-6258ISBN 0-04-418004-7ISBN0-04-418005-5 (pbk.)

Set in 10on 11 pointTimesbyBedford Typesetters Ltd,andprinted inGreatBritain byBiddies Ltd,Guildford, Surrey

Contents

Preface page xi

Introduction 11.1 What Is Stress? 11.2 The Notation 51.3 Kingdon's Innovations 101.4 The Approach of Chomsky and Halle 111.5 The Work ofPaul Garde 12Exercises and Further Reading 13

2 Preliminaries 172.1 General Outline ofthe Approach 172.2 Words and Syllables 192.3 Words and Morphemes 23Exercises and Further Reading 27

3 Stress inSimple Roots ^3.1 The Basic Rules 293.2 Secondary Stress 313.3 Stress-Shifts in Noun-Verb Pairs 32Exercises and Further Reading 32Appendix 3.1 Finally-Stressed Simple Roots 34

(a) Words Other than Proper Nouns 34(b) Geographical Proper Names (SelectList) 36(c) Personal Proper Names (SelectList) 37

Appendix 3.2 Simple Roots with Anomalous Non-FinalMain Stress 37

(a) Words with Penultimate Stresswhere OurRules Predict Antepenultimate Stress 38

(b) Words with Antepenultimate Stress whereOur Rules Predict Penultimate Stress 38

4 Suffixes and Stress4.1 Inflectional and OtherStress-Neutral Suffixes4.2 'Autostressed' Suffixes4.3 'Pre-Stressed' Suffixes4.4 'Mixed' Suffixes4.5 Secondary Stress by SuffixExercises and Further Reading

X English Word-Stress

Appendix 4.1 ListofSuffixes withtheirProperties 52Appendix 4.2 List ofWords with Mixed Suffixes 103

5 Stress in Compounds 1345.1 Compounds with Initial Stress 1345.2 Compoundswith Final Stress 1365.3 Contextually-Determined Stress-Shift 1375.4 Compounds Involving Bound Forms 138Exercises and Further Reading 142Appendix 5.1 Construction-Type and Stress-Type 144Appendix 5.2 Bound Compound-Initials and their

Accentual Properties 150

6 Prefixes and Stress 1646.1 Stress-Neutral Prefixes 1646.2 Stress-Repellent Prefixes 1656.3 Prefixes and Noun-Verb Pairs 1666.4 'Mixed'Prefixes 167Exercises and Further Reading 168Appendix 6.1 List of Prefixes and their Accentual

Properties 169Appendix 6.2 Stress-Shiftacross Parts of Speechfor

Words Involving Prefixes but No Suffixes 188(a) Wordsin which No Stress-Shift Takes Place 188(b) Words in which Stress-Shift Does Occur 189

7 Vowel Quality Changes 1937.1 VowelReduction in Relation to SecondaryStress 1937.2 SyllableTypesProtected from Reducing 1957.3 Vowel Shortening Rules 2037.4 VowelLengthening Rules 207Exercisesand Further Reading 210Appendix 7.1 Anomalies in Vowel Reduction 212

(a)-(c) Expected Reduction Not Applied 213(d)-(f) ReductionAppliedUnexpectedly 216

Appendix 7.2 Anomalies in VowelShortening 220(a) Exceptions to Shortening before Suffixes 220(b) Exceptions to TrisyllabicShortening Other .

than before Suffixes 221Appendix 7.3 Anomaliesin VowelLengthening 222

Solutionsto Exercises 223

Index 239

Preface

There are those treatments of English stress wMch consist ofmore than longlistsof wordswithan indicatibn of the striess-pattem ofeach, and there are those which demand familiarity with a sophisticated theoretical apparatus and in which the theoretical aspectsassume primary importance. Extreme examples of both kinds are oflittle use to the foreign learner who wishes to grasp the essential basisof English stress so that he or she can go on to predict the stress-patterns of new words. A good treatment from this point of view mustbridge the gap between the anecdotal and the abstract, the practicaland the theoretical, the lists and the principles.

My own contribution' to the huge volume of discussion on En^ishword-stresssparked off by Chomskyand Halle's TheSound Pattern ofEnglish- was uncompromisingly of the second kind, and it was thereforewith the greatesttrepidation that I aigreed to give a lectur^onthetopic to a group of Portuguese teachers ofEhgUsh^ inwas surprised and gratified bythe keeii interesttheyshowed, ind waspersuaded to produce some notes for them giving an outline of theprinciples I had put forward.

This made the idea of 'bridging the gap' seem a distinct possibility;the present book is the fruit of my efforts to turn this possibility intoreality. It is aimed primarily at helping the teacher of English as aforeign or second language to understand the basic pattern of Englishword-stress and to communicate this understanding to his or herstudents. Furthermore, sufficiently motivated students should be ableto teach themselves from the book, using the exercises provided. Ihope, too, that the full word lists will be of use as reference material toa wide range of readers. Finally,since the book sp^ls but in dets^ tlieproposals I made in my theoretical article (see note 1), and in one ortwo respects goes beyond them and modifies them, I would expect it tobe of interest to scholars and students in phonetics and in linguistics.

Sections 1.1 and 1.2 are indispensable to the understanding of thebook, but those who have no interest in the historical development ofthe understanding of English stress can omit Sections 1.3-l.S mthoutill effects. Section 2 is quite straightforward, and again is ofbasic importance infollowing theargument ofthe book.Actions3-Sarie moredetailed, but should pose no complex problems for the reader. Section6 may be more difficult, but the reader should persevere. If Section7 proves too indigestible, little is lost in the way of understanding

xii English Word Stress

the stress-system proper; on the other hand, readers who cope successfully with the content of this section should be in a position toattempt the studyof someof the originalsourcesif theyare interested:M. Halle and S. J. Keyser, English Stress*and the secondchapter ofChomsky and Halle's The SoundPattern of English are suggested asgood places to start. Other suggestions will be found under 'FurtherReading' at the end of each section.

The list of acknowledgements must begin with recognition of mymother's invaluable contribution to the finished book. On a number ofoccasions I wasableto spenda weekinexclusive andmessy occupationof her kitchentable, makinguninterruptedprogressout of reachof theeveryday demands of home and office; I think it is true to say that,without this,the bookwould neverhavebeencompleted. Anumber ofpeople saw earlier drafts of certain chapters and made helpfulcomments; in alphabetical order these were: Constance Cullen,GeorgeHewitt,Nigel Vincent and PaulWerth. I would dearly love toblame them for the shortcomingsof the book, but realise I haven't ahope of gettingaway with it. I am alsogratefulto all the people whokept asking 'How's the book going?'; in addition to all the above-named, I would especially like to mention Nfichael Bowen, LaurieBrown, Rosie Brener, Ryan Carpenter, David Hatcher, ArthurHunter, John McKennaand Terence Waightin this connection.

Then I would like to thank those who have played a part in theprintingand publishing process, especially Allen & Unwin, mentioning in particular Keith Ashfield for his encouragement, and theanonymous readers, who made some very useful and constructivesuggestions. Aboveall in thisconnection I am grateful to ValHunterfor her unfailing ability to turn the roughest of rough drafts intoimmaculate typescript inwhat seems likeseconds. TryasI might, withthatwhole battery ofthewriter's evil devices which include scratchingsout, carets, inserts, arrows, balloons and scribbled additions, I havenever succeeded in undermining her.

Finally, thewriting ofa book never fails tocause theauthor's familyamodicum ofprotractedsuffering, andthepresentcaseisnoexception;even when I was not away from home writing, there were manyoccasions when theonlysign ofmypresence at homewas a light in thestudy. I thank allmyfamily for theirpatience, and especially mywifefor her unfailingsupport and encouragement.

Erik FudgeWinchester, December 1982Deogratias.

Notes: Preface

1 E. C. Fudge, 'English word-stress: an examination of some basic assumptions', inD. L. Goyvaerts andG. K. Pullum (eds). Essays on theSound Pattern of English(Ghent: Story-Scientia, 1975), pp. 277-323.

2 N. Chomsky and M. Halle, The SoundPattern of English (New York: Harper&Row, 1968).

3 It is to this group that this book is dedicated.4 M. Halleand S. J. Keyser,English Stress (NewYork:Harper& Row, 1971).

Section 1

Introduction

1.1 What Is Stress?

Stress means essentially that one phonological element is singled outwithin another, longer, phonological element. Sentence-stressinvolvesthe pickingout of one word or phrase within a sentence;this word orphraseisusually givenspecial emphasisofsomekindinpronunciation.Whichword the speaker picksout willdepend on the situation inwhichhe finds himself, and about which he wants to inform the hearer. Thusthe stringof wordsJohn hasn't arrived can be uttered in three ways:

(1) John hasn't arrived.(2) John hasn't arrived.(3) Joiin hasn't arrived.

The first of these might be spoken in a context where it is known thatJohn has set out to get here, but is not yet here; the second might beuttered as a correction to someone else's assertion that John hasarrived; the third might be said if John was expected to be among thepeoplewho havearrived, but is not in factamongthem.

Word-stress, on the other hand, essentially picks out one syllablewithin a word; in English, the syllable singled out in a given word isnearly always the same one, irrespective of the context: the wordarrived, for example, is always arRIVED, never ARrived.' Sometimesthe syllable is picked out from a stretch which is longer than a singleword: in the postman hasn't arrived, the word the normally has nostress of its own at all, and it would make sense to say that the syllablepost is picked out of the longer stretch the postman rather than out ofjust the singlewordpostman. We shall refer to suchlongerstretches asstress-groups, although other terms are in current use.^ Word-stressalso differs from sentence-stress in that the stressed syllable of a wordisnot alwaysgivenspecialprominence in pronunciation; if the word isnot an important one in the sentence, it is quite likelythat none of itssyllables will be emphasised. For example, let us imagine thatEdward's golfstyle is the topic of conversation, and that Edward hasjust been specifically mentioned; if someone utters sentence 4, theword Edward is likely to show few signsof emphasis, and in that caseneither of its syllables will before prominent than the other fromthepoint of viewof its physical properties.

2 English Word-Stress

(4) But I've neveractually seenEdwardplaying golf.

The placewhere we can be most sure' that prominence will showison the syllable which bears word-stress within the word which bearssentence-stress; in the examples we have had so far, the syllablesconcerned are (1) -rived, (2) has-, (3) John and (4) seen. The termnuclear syllable is used to denote this syllable, and the stress on thenuclear syllable is often referred to as nuclear stress.

The signs of prominence (i.e. the physical properties which signalstressed syllables, and nuclear syllables in particular)vary somewhatfrom language to language. Certainly, various head or hand movementsare likelyto accompanyprominence, and this takes place in justabout all languages.However, the commonassumptionthat a stressedsyllable is simply said more loudlythan other syllables in the wordorsentence is not completely substantiated by research. A number ofexperimental studies" have indicated that when English-speakinglisteners have to determine which syllables in an utterance actuallybear stress they maypay at least as muchattention to pitch changesorto increased duration as they do to differences of loudness.

For example, sentence 4 above, in the stated situation, might beuttered with the pitch-pattern and time characteristicsrepresented inFigure1.1. The nuclearsyllable seenis not necessarily much(if at all)louderthan the rest, but it carriesa verynoticeable pitchmovement,and is longer than any two-syllable stretch in the utterance (untilthe very last syllables, which tend to be prolongedin any utterance).(Notethat the twosyllablesofEdwarddifferfromeachotherverylittlein pitchand durationin thiscontext.)Thisnoticeable inequality intheduration of syllables is the basisof English speech-rhythm, and that of

pitch-pattern

High

Low

bat aiv ne var aek tja wad pi e I o I

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100% of utterance

Figure 1.1 The lower half of the diagram shows the relative duration ofthe syllables of an utterance of sentence 4, while the upper part of thediagram indicates typical pitch movements associated with such anutterance.

Introduction 3

a number ofother languages, including German, Swedish, Persian andMandarin Chinese.

This is in strong contrast to the rhythmic principle in languages likeFrench, Hindi, Finnish, Cantonese and Vietnamese, in which syllablesoccur at approximately equal intervals of time; the rhythm of theselanguages is often called syllable-timed, for this reason. Speakers ofsuch languages often experience particular difficulty in mastering therhythm of the languages listed in the previous paragraph.' Moreover,the imposition of syllable-timed rhythm on English is probably farmore detrimental to intelligibility than any distortion of vowel orconsonant pronunciation, and so the effort to master the Englishrhythmic principle is well worth making.

To see what this principle is, we have only to look again at Figure1.1; if we consider stressed syllables, we in fact find that they occur atapproximately equal intervals of time.* Thus the beginnings of thesyllables ne- of never-, ac- of actuallyy^^and seen occur at approximatelyequal intervals of time. Furthermore, although the pitch evens outfrom Edward onwards, and the physical loudness of the utterance diesaway over this stretch (a fact which is not shown in Figure 1.1, butwhich is true for most normal utterances of sentence 4 and similarsentences), yet the stressed syllables of the words after the nuclearsyllable (^-, play and golQ still maintain a comparable rhythm.English, together with the other languages mentioned with it twoparagraphs back, is therefore often called a stress-timedlanguage, andis said to have isochronous stress. The lines marking the beginnings ofstressed syllables in Figure 1.1 are almost like musical bar-lines fromthis point of view.

Stresses in a sentence which are not nuclear are usually referred to assecondary stresses; thus ne-, ac- and, on rhythmic grounds, Ed-, play-and golf in our sentence 4 have secondary sentence-stress. One respectin which word-stress is like sentence-stress is that secondary stressoccurs at this level also. In the word undenominational, for example,the main word-stress falls on the syllable -na-, but other, less important, stresses fall on un-and-no-.

In some languages the place of main word-stress when a word is saidin isolation may differ markedly from its place in that same word whenit is part of a longer utterance. Thus the French word channante is[Xar'ma:t] in isolation (with final stress), but in a phrase like unecharmante petite maison the first syllable of charmante is very likely tobe stronger than the second.'

In English, however, in allcases other than those cited in note 1, theplaceof word-stresswithinthe word remainsconstant. The bestwayofdetermining where stress will fall within a word is to hear a nativespeaker pronounce that word in isolation, as if it formed a one-word


High

(a)

Low-

ib)

Low-

in. ter. 'cede

High

'ca. ter. pil. lar

Figure 1.2

answer to a question. In this situation it forms a one-word sentence,and the nuclear stress is then bound to show up on one particularsyllable, normally in terms of a falling pitch-pattern, cf. seen in Figure1.1; for further examples see Figure 1.2. This is the basis for the use ofthe marking ' for the main stress in a word; its precise implication isthat a fall occurs either on the syllable following it (as in case a ofFigure 1.2) or beginningfrom the syllable following (as in case b ofFigure 1.2).

Because English rhythm is stress-timed, a wrong stressing will leadto a wrong and misleading rhythm, even if the principle of stress-timingis correctly handled by the speaker. Comprehensibility depends onrhythm, and therefore the placing of stress within words can play alarge part in determining how well a native En^ish hearer will understand the foreign speaker. The problem is made much more complexby the fact that English is not a language in which stress is placed on afixed syllable within every word (e.g. on the initial syllable as in Czechor Hungarian, or on the last but one as in Polish or Welsh). Historically, English is a blend of Germanic elements (typified basically byinitial stress) and Romance elements (typified bystress on one of thelast three syllables) and clearly such a blend is likely to be somewhatchaotic in its results.

There are, however, some clear and useful principles for decidingwhere stress falls in an English word, and this book is intended to give afull treatment of these principles, together withdetails of exceptionsof

Introduction 5

manykinds. Our firstneed isfor a viablenotation, and this isdealt within the next section.

1.2 The notation

The placeof mainword-stress in the wordis indicated(as stated in 1.1above) by placingthe mark' before the relevant syllable; 'hat, 'letter,po'sition. Secondary stresses before the main stress are indicated byplacing the mark ' before the relevant syllable: en'cyclo'pedia,'unde'nomi'national. Other syllables with a certain degree of prominence (usually reflected by a pronunciation with a full vowel rather thana reduced vowel [a]) are indicated by placing the mark , before them:.fan'tastic, 'for,mat, 'e,xor,cise, 'in.can'tation. In the tables whichfollow, 'stressed' means 'when in a syllable preceded by \ ' or'unstressed' means 'when in a syllable not marked in this way'.

Occasionallywe shall use a phonetic transcription conforming to the

Table 1.1

Symbol Keyword Symbol Keyword

b boy ai mine

d day aid tyre

<i3 jaw, gin hat

6 that a: car

f for, phone au cow

g go tower

h hay D hot

j you A hut

k key, cow e pet1 lie late

m may ed where

n no 9 about

0 sing go

P pie 3: bird

r ray i: see

s see, cite 1 hit

J show 19 hear

t toe d: saw

tJ chew 01 boye thin u: too

V view u pushw way U9 tour

z zoo, ease

3 leisure


Table 1.2

Combined with following r

et

Stressed

[a:(r)]'star, 'starry[3:(r)]con'fer,con'ferring[3:(r)]'stir, 'stirring[3:(r)]'store, 'storage[3:(r)]'fur, 'furry[3:(r)]'myrrh

Unstressed

[3(0]'polar, 'binary[3(0]'after,'aite'ration

[3(0]'extir.pate[3(0]'factory[3(0]'conur'bation

[3(0]'martyr

Not followed by r

Stressed Unstressed

[S]'bat

[e]'bet

[«]'bit

[D]*'pot[A]'but

[I]'pyx

[3]A'merica

[3]'woollen

[•]'rabbit

[3]'random

[3]'minus

[I]'city

* 'Short' o in most varietiesof American Englishis pronounced [a:] or [d:], phonetically on a par with the long vowels rather than the short ones.

t Word-final e is unpronounced. It often has the effect of lengthening the vowelbefore it, if this is stressed: 'hope [hdup], 'tape [teip].

system used by Gimson in his Introduction to the Pronunciation ofEnglish (London: Edward Arnold, 3rd edn, 1980) (and in the latesteditions of Daniel Jones's English Pronouncing Dictionary (London:Dent, 14th edn, 1977));such representations willappear within squarebrackets, as in ['in.kaen'teijn]. A key to this transcription system isgiven in Table 1.1. Thus our transcriptions will almost always represent varieties of the RP type (Standard Southern British English);other varieties (notably American) may be transcribed sporadically,though no systematic attention will be given to vowels and consonants

a

e

I

d

ii

y

Table 1.3

Pronunciation

:«]e]I]D

A

I]

Examples

'carry, a'sp^ragus, 'Analogue'sharry, te'merity, 'credit'stirrup, 'liver's6rry, 'hdnest'hurry, 'punish'lyric, 'ana'iytic

The mark' appears only in stressed syllables, and is accompanied by no difference inpronunciation before a following r.

a

e

i

6

Table 1.4

Combined with follpwing r

e3(r)] 'stare, 'staringi3(r)] 'here, reVeringai9(r)] 'fire, 'wiryNot distinct from unmarked

o in this context)[ju3(r)] 'pure, 'furious

[j3(r)]'penury

[ai3(r)] 'byre, 'tyre

Introduction 1

Not followed by r

ei] 'paperi:]'scene,'evilai] 'bite, 'Ivyau] 'wrote, 'token, 'veto

[ju:] 'tune, 'music

[ja] 'regular

[ai] 'Hyde, 'cycle, 'al.ly

stressed

u

unstressed

y

in these varieties. On the other hand, where American stressings differfrom British, this will always be explicitly stated.

Often the spelling of a word gives sufficient indication of how it ispronounced, provided that some fairlygeneralconventionsare understood (for example, that the ending-tlonis usually pronounced [Jn]).Where further guidance is called for, we adopt one of two solutions:

(a) The addition of diacriticmarks (see belowfor a fulldescription);(b) The use of hybrid 'semi-phonetic' representation, sometimesappearing withinslant lines: thus pharmacopoeiaisassignedthe representation /farmakSpea/.

The remainder of this section deals with the system of diacriticswhich we use both in 'semi-phonetic' representations and in normalspellings of words to indicate exact pronunciation. Unmarked singlevowels indicate the 'short' pronunciation of the letter concerned, as inTable 1.2. Where there is a need to emphasise that a vowel is shortrather than long, the short mark' may be used: Table 1.3 givesdetails.The macron ' means that the vowel has its long pronunciation, as

e

i

d

Table 1.5


(Not distinct fromunmarkeda in this context)i] e'raseia(r)] na'dir3:] 'wordU3(r)]'lurid

Not followed by r

[a:] 'drama, ,a'men

i] ca'tastrophe, e'quip, 'nucleusi: ma'chineA]'c6veru:]'jubi,lee


shown in Table 1.4. The double-dot diacritic " has no systematicmeaning of its own: the implications of its combinations with thevarious vowel letters are seen from Table 1.5. Notice that &and i arelong, u is long phonetically but may count as short, and £ and d areshort; also that e normally occurs in unstressed syllables, fi and i instressed syllables only, and d and u in both stressed and unstressedsyllables.

FormostRP-type varieties, a letterr occurring aftera vowel mergeswith the vowel, usually affecting its quality; a consonant sound [r],however, occurs onlywhenthesoundfollowing the r isa vowel (eitherinthe sameword,or the initialsoundof the nextword).Evenwhenthesound [r] does not occur, the written r needs to be taken into account asa consonant letter in determining the phonological structure of theword containing it. Most American varieties, on the other hand,togetherwithScotsand Irishvarieties, and the speech of manyspeakersfrom south-western England, haver aftera vowel pronounced asaretroflex approximant after all vowels.

A combination of vowel letters sometimes indicates a vowel soundwhichforms the centre of a singlesyllable. Table 1.6 showshow vowelsequences of this kind should be pronounced when no diacritics arepresent, while Table 1.7 gives those combinations with diacritics whichcommonly occur as centres of a single syllable. All vowel sequencesnot mentioned ineither of these tables represent centresof twodistinct

2nd

element

-a

[a:] 'Saar

=a

ei] 'braecs] 'aeroplane

=a

ei

es

Table 1.6

Istelement

=e

i:] 'beatis] 'rear

i

i:] 'beetla] 'beer

a

eil

=o

3u] 'boato:] 'soar

=6

-i.-y'grey] 'aim, 'day [ei] 'rein,

»]'air [e3]'heir

[au] 'toe

[oi] 'coin, 'boy

M'good

au] 'cloud, 'downquo] 'flour

-o

-u,-w

[o:] 'sauce, 'lawn

[e] 'leoparda*

ju:] 'few, 'neuterjus] 'neural

* Replaced by u after r, I, ch, j, s, z (and after t, d, n in someAmerican varieties):crew, pleurisy, chew, jewel, sewer, (dew, neuter).

au

ea

ea

ei

eyie

fe

do

ou

du

dw

ua

ue

ue

ui

ui

ui

Introduction 9

Table 1.7


e9(r)] 'bear, 'bearingsearch

weird

ia(r)]pierai3(r)] flierU3(r)] 'bodrishua(r)] tour, 'touring

[9(r)]'labourer

[we9(r)] 'square, 'squaring

[ju3(r)] Muir

Not followed byr

au] 'sauerkrautei] steake] breadi:] seize, re'ceivei]'donkeyi:] shriekai] lieu: food

u:] wound ('injury')a] 'double

stressed

[9]'grievousunstressedau] lowwei] per'suadeju:] 'valueu:] triiewi:] suiteju:] 'nuisanceu:] fruit

syllables (e.g. hiatus [.hai.'ei.tss], museum [,mju:.'zi:.3m], where asingle dot represents a boundary between two syllables), with thefollowing exceptions:

(a) ia, ie and io (without diacritics) become monosyllabic whenboth the following conditions hold;

(i) They are preceded bye, g,s,t, or x;and (ii) No stress is placed on the a, e or o.When this happens, precedingc, s, t, and x become palato-alveolar inpronunciationand usually coalesce with the i. Thus in Christianbothconditions are fulfilled, and the pronunciation is [^kris.tjdn] or['kris.tjdn] withtwosyllables; in Ciiristiaiiity mainstressfallson the a,violating condition (ii), and the pronunciation is therefore['kris.ti.'ae.ni.ti]. The word previous is normally pronounced withthree syllables,as it does not meet condition (i).

(b) ua may be monosyllabic when both the following conditionsare satisfied:

(i) The a is part of the suffix-al;and (ii) No stress is placed on the a.When this happens, preceding d, s, t, or x may become palato-alveo-lar. Thus individu^ may be pronounced ['in.di.Vi.djv.3l] or


['in.di.Vi.djul] or ['in.di/vi.dsul], whereas in individualitycondition(ii) is violated, and the only possible pronunciations are['in.di.,vi.dju.'ae.li.ti] or ['in.di.,vi.d3u.'ae.h.ti].

1.3 Kingdon's Innovations

We next proceed to the study of the main essentials of some otherapproaches to the question of Englishstress. 'Thefieldof Englishwordstress is practically virgin soil,' claims Kingdon (Groundwork ofEnglish Stress, 1958, p. xii), 'it having been generally held that itfollows no rules.' In fact his investigations showed that there were anumber of principles that could be stated, and that the main problemsarose from what he referred to as 'compounds'. He distinguishes threetypes of these:

(i) 'Romanic' - consistingof root plus affixes;(ii) 'Greek' - consistingof root plus root, where the roots are not

able to stand on their own as complete words;(iii) 'English' - consistingof root plus root, where the roots are

independent words.The great contribution of Kingdon's work is to show how suffixes

affect stress-placement in Romanic-type compounds, and how thefinal root of a Greek-type compound exerts the greatest influence inthat type of word. He demonstrates, furthermore, that in many casesthe suffix or the final root can have only one possible effect on theoverall stress pattern: the suffix -ity always causesstress to be placedone syllable back in the word, while the ending -metric invariablyattracts stress on to its own first syllable. In fact just over one-third ofthe book isdevoted to a listingof suffixes of Romanic-typecompoundsand elements of Greek-type compounds.

A number of ways suggest themselves in which Kingdon's conclusionsmight be refinedand strengthened. First, he does not distinguish'strong' and 'weak' syllables; a number of common affixes cannot beaccounted for without this distinction. He claims, for instance, that -al'is too weak to showa definitestress habit whenit isadded directlyto aroot' (p. 64),whereasthe pattern isquiteclearoncethe 'strong'/'weak'distinction is established (cf. p. 21 below). Second, he does notexplicitly recognise that an affix which normally places stress twosyllables back will inevitably place stress one syllable back if there arenot two syllables there, and that therefore this does not constitute aseparate pattern of stress assignment. Third, the part played by individual suffixes in combinations of suffixes is never sorted out; thus thestress effects of the ending -metiric (see previous paragraph) can beaccounted for in terms of the properties of the single affix -ic.

Introduction 11

1.4 The approach of Chomsky and Halle

In The Sound Pattern of English (1968), Chomsky and Halle aim toshow that it is possible to predict where stress will fall in an Englishword on the basis of two types of information:

(a) The segmental make-up of the word, i.e. whether particularvowels are long or short ('tense' or 'lax' in their terms), and whetherconsonants occur singly or in sequences of more than one. Each wordis divided into 'clusters', i.e. sequences beginning with a vowel andending immediately before the next vowel, or at the end of the word ifthere are no further vowels. The dinerence between 'weak clusters'(which consist of a short vowel followed by at most one consonant) and'strong clusters' (short vowel followed by two or more consonants, orlong vowel followed by any number of consonants) is crucial in determining certain differences in stress-placement.

(b) The internal structure of the word, i.e. whether the word can bedivided into smallerparts, and what relations hold between the variousparts. Chomsky and Halle reject Kingdon's 'suffix-based' approach asunnecessary; they assert that their rules account directly for stress-placement without the need for classifying suffixes s 'placing stresstwo syllables back' or the like. Instead they invoke the principle of the'cycle': certain rules applyin order, first to the root, then over again tothe next larger constituent, and so on until the boundaries of the wordare reached. Thus in theatricality, the rules apply first to theati« (theroot of the word) giving primary stress on the first syllable: theatre;then to thieatrical, giving primary stress on the antepenultimatesyllable, and weakening the primary stress on the e to secondary:thratrical; and finally to theatricality, giving primary stress on theantepenultimate syllable and weakening the other stresses by onedegree: thratricality.

I have incorporated the 'strong v. weak' distinction into the presentwork in the slightly different form 'strongsyllable v. weak syllable' (seeSection 2.2). There is no doubt that some such distinction is indispensable. Another feature of the Chomsky and Halle proposals which Ihave adopted (with modifications) is the set of rules for lengtheningshort vowels in certain contexts, shortening long vowels in others, andfor applying vowel reduction. These rules account for alternationssuch as those affectingthe vowelof the root in explain[ei], explanatory[se] and explanation[d](see Section7).

On the other hand I have not followed Chomsky and Halle'sthoroughgoing use of the cyclicprinciple (restricting its applicabilityineffect to certain combinations of suffixes - see Section 4.5), nor have Irejected Kingdon's 'suffix-based' approach: from a practical point of

12 Engim Word-Stress

view, it makes a great deal of sense to remember the stress patterns ofwords in terms of the properties of endings like -Ity, -ology, etc.

1.5 The Work of Paul Garde

In addition to his work with Chomsky on stress in English, Halle hasdone extensive work on the corresponding features of the Slaviclanguage-group. Interestingly, another very stimulating approach tostress has come from the pen of another Slavicist, the French scholarPaul Garde. In his fairly short but substantial hook L'Accent (1968),and in a number of articles, he has outlined a method of assigningword-stress in languages with 'free stress' (i.e. languages in whichthere are no rules specifying that stress isalways initial, etc.). The basisof this method is to consider the accentual properties of eachmorpheme, which in general are twofold:

(a) Every morpheme (i.e. prefix, root or suffix) in such a languagehas its place of stress, i.e. the propensity to place stress in a certainposition in the word. Thus, some attract stress on to themselves, othersplace stress one syllable after them, others cause stress to fall on thefirst syllable of the word they occur in, and so on.

(b) There is a hierarchy of accentual strength of morphemes, i.e.certain morphemes have the power to impose their 'place of stress' onthe other morphemes in the word they occur in.

My own approach to English stress owes a great deal to this. As faras Englishisconcerned, aspect(b) of the matter is relatively simple: itis the last suffix in the word (ignoring inflections and a few othersuffixes) that imposes itspropertieson theword(seeSection 4below).If there are no suffixes, then a differentprinciple operates (seeSection3); stress falls on the last syllable but one of the word, or the last buttwo, depending on properties of the varioussyllables(and not those ofmorphemes). There are exceptions to this principle, most of themfinally stressed.

Aspect (a) of Garde's approach, on the other hand, is much morecomplex for English than is aspect (b), so much so that I use the termaccentualproperties almost as being synonymous with Garde's 'placeof stress'. The accentualproperties of Englishmorphemes(especiallysuffixes) need to be stated in considerable detail. For some suffixes,several different principlesof stress-assignment need to be recognised(see Appendix 4.1). It is clearly such properties that Kingdon wasaiming to state in his Groundwork (see Section 1.3), and, like him, Ihave devoted a great deal of space to a statement of them.

Introduction 13

Notes: Section 1

1 There are two types of exception to this principle:

{a) Caseswhere the word wasnot propertyperceivedbythe hearer ('I saidarrivednot derived');

(b) Certain typesof phraserequirea shiftinword-stress inoneof theircomponents- this matter is discussed in detail in Section 5.3 below.

2 Such terms include 'phonologicalword' as used by Chomskyand Halle in TheSoundPattern ofEnglish.

3 Experiments have shown that in a sentence as actuallyspoken it quite often happensthat no syllable shows the physicalproperties normally associated with prominence.

4 For example, D. B. Fry, 'Experiments in the perception of stress*. Language and5peec/i, vol. 1,(1958), pp. 126-52.

5 See C. Adams, English Speech Rhythm and the Foreign Learner (The Hague:Mouton,1979),p.87.

6 The actual timings are affected by other factors (number of syllables occurringbetween stressed syllables, number of sounds in each syllable, etc.).

7 See L. E. Armstrong, The Phonetics c/Fre/ic/i (London: Bell, 1932), pp. 140-1,'Emphasis for Intensity*.The word 'intensity*is used by Armstrong and many otherwriters on French phonetics to denote affective or emotional intensity, but it must benoted that such shifts of stress placement in French occur in many contexts where thiskind of factor is not present. Thus in such phrases as I'annte derail, 'last year*,stress most often fallson theirs/syllable of ann^, even when there is no emphasis onthe phrase.

Exercises

1 Transcribe the following words phonetically, using Gimson'snotation:

(a) let, {b) thick, (c) ball, {d) grace, (e) home, (f) wash, (g) write,{h) right, (/) through, {k) though, (/) thought, (m) power.In)cheese, (o) ginger, (p) finger.

2 What diacritics would need to be added to the spelling of thefollowingwords in order to specifythe proniuiciation j^ven?

(a) 'ar.row ['ae.rau] (g) .Lou'ise [,lu:'i:z]lb) 'borough [^bAra] (A) 'oven ['AV3n](c) 'breakfast ['breMast] (j) re'frige.rator [ri'frid33,reita]{d) .ca'shier [.kae'Jia] {k) 'staff ['sta:f](e) de'fy[di'fai] (/) 'suitable 'su:tabl](f) 'granular ['graenjdls] (m) 'suitable ['sju:t3bl]

3 Divide the following set ofwords into three categories:

(a) Those for which the spelling predicts the pronunciation withno need for stress marks or diacritics;


(b) Those for which the spelling would predict the pronunciationwith the introduction of appropriate stress marks and/ordiacritics (state the diacritics needed in each such case);

(c) Those for which the pronunciation cannot be predicted fromthe spelling even if stress marks and diacritics are added(suggest if you can a hybrid representation which wouldpredict the pronunciation in each case).

(i) bleak (X) honest (xix) rush

(ii) both (xi) lamb (xx) sour

(iii) calculate (xii) make (xxi) suet

(iv) camomile (xiii) nitric (xxii) through(V) door (xiv) plough (xxiii) trail

(vi) enormous (xv) prove (xxiv) tread(vii) freezing (xvi) pseudonym (xxv) trough

(viii) great (xvii) pseudonymous (xxvi) volcanic(ix) growl

Further Reading

7.7 What Is Stress?

The classic work on the physical cues which English hearers use to determinethe place of stress is D. B. Fry's article, 'Experiments in the perception ofstress'. Language & Speech, vol. 1,1958, pp. 126-52; also reprinted in D. B.Fry (ed.). Acoustic Phonetics: a Course of Basic Readings (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1976), pp. 401-24. A more accessible summaryof Fry's findings is given by A. C. Gimson, An Introduction to the Pronunciation ofEnglish, 3rd edition (London: Edward Arnold, 1980),pp. 221-6.

Some more recent treatments of stress may be found in L. M. Hyman (ed.).Studies in Stress and Accent (Los Angeles: University of Southern CaliforniaLinguistics Department, 1977). The papers by Hyman himself (pp. 37-82),J. J. Ohala (pp. 145-68) and L. Nessly (pp. 121-44) are of particular interest.

The rhythm ofEnglish speech isdealt with byK. L. Pike in TheIntonation ofAmerican English (Umversity of Michigan Press, 1945)and D. Abercrombie,'Syllable quantity and enclitics in English', in D. Abercrombie et aL, InHonourofDanielJones (London: Longman, 1964),pp. 216-22, also reprintedin D. Abercrombie, Studies in Phonetics and Linguistics (London: OxfordUniversity Press, 1965), pp. 26-34. A more specialised treatment (though onewhich isconcerned particularly with the problems of the non-native speaker) isto be found in C. M. Adams, EnglishSpeech Rhythmand the Foreign Learner(The Hague: Mouton, 1979).

7.2 The Notation

The phonetic transcription used is that of Gimson (An Introduction to the

Introduction 15

Pronunciation of English, pp. 93-4, 151-2), which is also that of the latesteditions of D. Jones's Pronouncing Dictionary (London: Dent, 14thedn, 1977). The standard work for American pronunciation is still J. S.Kenyon and T. A. Knott A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English(Springfield, Mass: Merriam, 1944); this uses a rather different transcriptionsystem.

The systemof diacriticswhichwe applyin this book to orthographic formstoindicate how they are pronounced is similar, but not identical, to that used inthe Concise Oxford Dictionary,

1.3 Kingdon's Innovations

R. Kingdon The Groundwork of English Stress(London: Longman, 1958) isrelatively easy reading, and needs no commentary; slightlymore detailed fromthe historical point of view, though less complete as a work of reference, isO. Jespersen, A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (London:Allen & Unwin) Part I (1909), Chapters V and IX; and Part VI (1942).

1.4 The Approach ofChomsky and Halle

The basic work is N. Chomsky and M, Halle, The Sound Pattern of English(New York: Harper & Row, 1968);Chapters 2 and 3 relate to the topic ofstress. This isnot an easybook. Chapter I ofM. Halle and S. J. Keyser, EnglishStress: its Form, its Growth^ and its Role in Verse (New York: Harper & Row,1971)gives a rather simpler and clearer exposition of the matter, though at thesame time it must be noted that the approach has been modified at a number ofpoints.

The Sound Pattern ofEnglish generated a great deal of specialist discussion,much of which is represented in the book Essays on the Sound Pattern ofEnglish (Ghent: Story-Scientia, 1975), edited by D. L. Goyvaerts and G. K.Pullum. As well as four detailed reviews of the whole book (each with something of interest to say about the question of word-stress assignment), thiscontains several articles specifically on English stress, including a furthermodified version of the original proposals (yjHaUe , 'Stress ru^^new version^ pp. 261-76) the theoretical article on which much of thepractical approach of present book is based (E. C. Fudge, 'Englishword-stress, an examination of some basic assumptions', pp. 277-323). Oneimportant critical article not included in these Essays is J. R. Ross, 'Are-analysisof Englishword-stress:part F, inM. K. Brame(ed.). Contributionsto Generative Phonology (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1972),pp.229-323.

For those who read French, there is an invaluable work which combines atheoretical treatment of English stress with word lists of rather more practicalvalue, and that is L. Guierre, Essai sur Vaccentuation en anglais contemporain(Paris: Universite de Paris VII, 1979).

Finally, a highlyinfluential new development in stress-assignment is to befound in M. Liberman and A. Prince, 'On stress and linguistic rhythm'.LinguisticInquiry, vol. 8 (1977), pp. 249-336.


1.5 The Work ofPaul Garde

P.Garde, L'AccentXPam: Presses Universitairesde France, 1968) says ratherless about English thananumberofotherlanguages, butistodatetheauthor'smost complete treatment ofstress. Those whodonotreadFrench will prefer toread the briefer treatment in Garde's translated article, 'Principles of thesynchronic description of stress', in E. C. Fudge (ed.). Phonology(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973), pp.309-19.

english word stress section 1

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