Stress (linguistics)

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In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis given to certain syllables in a word.

The ways stress manifests itself in the speech stream is highly language dependent. In some languages, stressed syllables have a higher or lower pitch than non-stressed syllables — so-called pitch accent (or musical accent). There are also dynamic accent (loudness), qualitative accent (full vowels), and quantitative accent (length, known in music theory as agogic accent). Stress may be characterized by more than one of these characteristics. For instance, stressed syllables in English have higher pitch, longer duration, and typically fuller vowels than unstressed syllables, as well as being dynamically louder. Stressed syllables in Russian are broadly similar, but have lower rather than higher pitch. Contrasting with these, stressed and unstressed vowels in Spanish share the same quality, and the language has no reduced vowels like English or Russian.

The possibilities for stress in tone languages is an area of ongoing research.

Stressed syllables are often perceived as being more forceful than non-stressed syllables. Research has shown, however, that although dynamic stress is accompanied by greater respiratory force, it does not mean a more forceful articulation in the vocal tract.

Contents

1 Timing and placement
2 Historical effects of stress
3 Degrees of stress
4 Notation
5 See also

Timing and placement

Further information: Timing (linguistics)

English is a stress-timed language; that is, stressed syllables appear at a roughly constant rate, and non-stressed syllables are shortened to accommodate this. Other languages have syllable timing (e.g. Spanish) or mora timing (e.g. Japanese), where syllables or morae are spoken at a roughly constant rate regardless of stress.

Some languages have fixed stress. That is, stress is placed always on a given syllable, as in Finnish and Hungarian (stress always on the first syllable) or Quechua and Polish (stress always on the penult: one syllable before the last). Other languages have stress placed on different syllables but in a predictable way, such as Latin (where stress is conditioned by the structure of the penultima). They are said to have a regular stress rule.

French words are sometimes said to be stressed on the final syllable, but actually French has no word stress at all. Rather, it has a prosody whereby the final or next-to-final syllable of a string of words is stressed. This string may be equivalent to a clause or a phrase. However, when a word is said alone, it receives the full prosody and therefore the stress as well.

There are also languages like English and Spanish, where stress is unpredictable. Rather, it is lexical: it comes as part of the word and must be memorized, although orthography can make stress unambiguous for a reader, as is the case in Spanish and Portuguese. In such languages, words may differ only by the position of the stress, and therefore it is possible to use stress as a grammatical device. English does this to some extent with noun-verb pairs such as a récord vs. to recórd, where the verb is stressed on the last syllable and the related noun is stressed on the first; record also hyphenates differently: a réc-ord vs. to re-córd.

It is common for dialects to differ in their stress placement, as in British English and American English.

Historical effects of stress

It is common for stressed and unstressed syllables to behave differently as a language evolves. For example, in the Romance languages, the original Latin vowels /e/ and /o/ have generally become diphthongs when stressed. Since stress takes part in verb conjugation, this has produced irregular verbs in the Romance languages. For example, the Spanish verb volver has the form volví in the past but vuelvo in the present (see Spanish irregular verbs). Italian shows the same phenomenon, but with /o/ alternating with /uo/ instead. This behaviour is not confined to verbs; for example, Spanish viento "wind" vs. ventilación "ventilation", from Latin ventum.

Degrees of stress

Primary and secondary stress are distinguished in some languages. English is commonly believed to have two levels of stress, as in the words cóunterfòil [ˈkaʊntɚˌfɔɪl] and còunterintélligence [ˌkaʊntɚ.ɪnˈtɛlɪdʒəns], and in some treatments has even been described as having four levels, primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary, but these treatments often disagree with each other.

Phoneticians such as Peter Ladefoged believe these multiple levels are mere phonetic detail and not true phonemic stress. They report that often the alleged secondary stress is not characterized by the increase in respiratory activity normally associated with stress. In their analysis, an English syllable may be either stressed or unstressed, and if unstressed, the vowel may be either full or reduced. This is all that is required for a phonemic treatment. In addition, the last stressed syllable in a normal (default) intonation unit receives additional intonational or "tonic" stress. (The intonational stress may occur elsewhere to mark contrast or other prosodic effects.) This combination of lexical stress, phrase- or clause-final prosody, and the reduction of some unstressed vowels conspires to create the impression of multiple levels of phonetic stress:

Lexical stress

1. Plus tonic stress: A syllable with both lexical and prosodic stress in Ladefoged's account corresponds to primary stress in the traditional account.

2. Without tonic stress: A syllable with only lexical stress corresponds to secondary stress in the traditional account.

No stress

3. On a full vowel: An unstressed syllable with a full vowel also corresponds to secondary stress in the traditional account, and to tertiary stress in the fuller account.

4. On a reduced vowel: An unstressed syllable with a reduced vowel is said be unstressed or to have quaternary stress.

Therefore, in a phonemic transcription of English words that indicates reduced vowels like schwa, only a single symbol for stress is required. For example, cóunterfòil is only stressed on the first syllable, /ˈkaʊntɚ.fɔɪl/; the last syllable is an unstressed but unreduced vowel. (Unstressed oi does not normally reduce in English.) In còunterintélligence both marked syllables are stressed, /ˈkaʊntɚ.ɪnˈtɛlɪdʒəns/. The apparent differences in stress are due to prosody and appear when the words are said alone in citation, as, ironically, they are when being sounded out for transcription. They disappear when the words are moved to non-final position, for example in counterintelligence operations are going well, where only well has "primary" stress. (For some speakers, the first syllable of counterintelligence may be unstressed but unreduced, /kaʊntɚ.ɪnˈtɛlɪdʒəns/. Unstressed ou/ow does not normally reduce in English.)

Notation

Different systems exist for indicating syllabification and stress.

In IPA, primary stress is indicated by a high vertical line before the syllable, secondary stress by a low vertical line. Example: [sɪˌlæbəfɪˈkeɪʃən] or /sɪˈlæbəfɪˈkeɪʃən/.
In English dictionaries which do not use the IPA, stress is typically marked with a prime mark placed after the stressed syllable: /si-lab′-ə-fi-kay′-shən/.
In ad hoc pronunciation guides, stress is often indicated using a combination of bold text and capital letters. Example: si-lab-if-i-KAY-shun or si-LAB-if-i-KAY-shun
In Slavic-language dictionaries, stress is indicated with an acute accent on a syllable's vowel. Example: вимовля́ння.
In Dutch, ad hoc indication of stress is usually done with an acute accent on the vowel, or the first two vowels in case of a diphthong, of the stressed syllable. Example: achterúítgang (deterioration) vs. áchteruitgang (back exit).

Stress (linguistics)

Timing and placement

Historical effects of stress

Degrees of stress

Notation

See also