Accent

English prosody

Suprasegmental features

Accentuation

Types of accent

Accentuation is gradable. In English, when a word has two or more accents - or accented syllables - pitch movement will naturally start on the last of the accented syllables.

Such an accent, i.e. an accented syllable on which pitch movement starts is called the primary accent and is marked with a diacritic [ ], which precedes the primary accented syllable, or is marked ( * ) in scalar notation.

Other accented syllables in the word, which naturally preced the primary accent are called secondary accents and are marked [ ] or ( + ) in scalar notation.

Syllables which are prominent but not accented, will be marked ( o ) in scalar notation, whereas non-prominent syllables will be marked ( · ).

A.C. Gimson writes on accentuation:

"The most common relationship of pitch and stress in word accentuation may be summarised as follows:

- Primary accentuation is associated with a potential change of pitch direction.

- Secondary accentuation is not normally associated with a change of pitch direction, but may be:

a.- prominent (i.e. signalled by a potential change of pitch level).

b.- rhythmic (i.e. having no pitch prominence, but with rhythmical stress and often quality / quantity prominence.

Stress and pitch variations combined may, therefore, be said to constitute a complex which is most powerful in signalling the situatiion and degree of accent in a word."

Note that Gimson includes rhythm as an element of prominence.

Word accentuation

We have seen that a syllable, in the context of a word, has its own inherent pitch and stress.

The combination of these two elements - pitch and stress - is the primary source of accent.

However, we must distinguish between word stress and sentence stress - or more precisely, the accentuation patterns of words as opposed to the intonation patterns of sentences.

For example, a word spoken in the context of a list of words (e.g. a dictionary) will have its own inherent accentuation pattern.

The same word in the context of a sentence may undergo a change in that pattern.

Word stress is concerned with the stressing of individual words of two or more syllables when they are uttered in isolation.

Sentence stress, on the other hand, is the stress that is put on words of one or more syllables in order to indicate their importance in relation to other words in the sentence.

Word stress

In English, we find that simple words consisting of two or more syllables have a strong accent on one of those syllables as well as a weak accent on the remaining syllables.

In general, any syllable which has as its vowel [ ] or [ ] is weakly accented.

Gimson writes on this:

"In addition to the prominence of sounds, due to their nature or the character of the context in which they occur, certain English phonemes are particularly associated with unaccented situations.

Thus, R.P. / / does not normally occur in accented syllables, and / / and / /, though both of them may receive full accentual prominence, have a high frequency of ocurrence in unaccented syllables.

So, basically, if the syllable in a word contains as its vowel an / / or an / / or an / / it will be non-prominent / unaccented.

We can categorise words for the purpose of analysing their accentuation patterns, in terms of the number of syllables they contain.

Accentuation is a relative concept.

A prominent syllable is prominent only in relation to other syllables that are not prominent.

Therefore, we cannot discuss prominence in words consisting of only one syllable - if they occur in isolation.

Thus, the smallest unit that can be used to analyse word-accentuation pattern is the two-syllable word.

(See Word-stress databases)

Alternative accentuation patterns

2-syllable words

^(*) The normal accentuation pattern is the first one, but if you use the second, it is also correct.

3-syllable words

a. ( o * · ) ~ (* · · ) - ex | qui | site; up | ri | sing; son | o | rous.

b. ( * · o ) ~ ( o · * ) - dis | co | theque; sou | ve | nir; sub | ma | rine.

c. (o · * ) ~ (* · o ) - ci | ga | rette; ca | vi | are; E | cua | dor.

4-syllable words

a. ( * · o · ) ~ ( · * · · ) - con | tro | ver | sy; for | mi | da | ble; ki | lo | me | tre; no | men | cla | ture; e | xi | gen |cy.

b. ( · * · · ) / (* · · · ) - de | mon | stra | ble; hos | pi | ta | ble.

c. (* · · · ) / ( o · * · ) - te | le | vi | sion.

5-syllable words

a.- ( o · * · · ) / ( * · · · · ) - ne | ces | sa | ri | ly; mo | men | ta | ri | ly.

Compound words

A compound word is a short string made up of two or three words.

There are two-element and three-element compound words.

When words are elements forming a compound word, their accentuation pattern as words in isolation may be varied.

So, the accentuation patterns of compound words must be analysed as a distinct category - distinct from word and from sentence (or phrase) accentuation.

The most common type of compound words are what are called single-accented compounds.

With almost all single-accented compounds, the primary accent is carried by the first syllable of the compound.

e.g. `baby-sitter, `stage-coach

Exception: 'stage-`manager

Single-accented compounds

Element 1 + element 2

e.g. `baby-sitter - / | | | /