University of Basra

College of Arts
Department of English

Second year students

English Phonology
Tutor : Dr. Abdulkareem Al-Hadithi
Lecture 13

Stress
University of Basra / College of Arts / Department of English

 We have learned earlier that any word consists

of syllables. Either one syllable or more than
one syllable.

 And we knew that the syllable is either strong

or weak.

 The strong syllable is produced with an amount

of energy higher than the weak syllable.

 The syllable is strong or weak depends

completely on the type of sound in the centre of
the syllable.
University of Basra / College of Arts / Department of English

 There is another important feature in

pronouncing any word (weather English of
otherwise) called stress.
 According to this feature, in any English
lexical word, there must be one
stressed syllable.
 The stressed syllable is a syllable which
stands more prominent (more noticeable)
than all other syllables in the word.
University of Basra / College of Arts / Department of English

There are four factors that make the syllable

more prominent than the other syllables in the
word:
1. Length, the stressed syllable is pronounced
longer than the unstressed syllable .
2. Loudness, the stressed syllable is pronounced
louder than the unstressed syllable.
3. Vowel quality. The type of the vowel in the
centre of the stressed syllable is different from the
vowels in the centre of the unstressed syllables.
4. The stressed syllable carries the pitch
movement (change).
University of Basra / College of Arts / Department of English

 Before continue speaking about the stressed syllable,

you may noticed that the qualities of the stressed
syllable are similar to those of the strong syllables.
That is because the stressed syllable must be a strong
syllable.

 All the stressed syllables are strong syllables, but not

all of the strong syllables are stressed.

 In a word, we may find three strong syllables, but,

only one of them is stressed.

 The stressed syllable is normally louder and longer

(and more prominent) than the other strong syllables
in the word.
University of Basra / College of Arts / Department of English

 Stress has an extra-importance in the

pronunciation of English (and many other
languages).

 Fluency in speaking English requires that the

speaker must master the placement of the
stressed syllable in the word.

 Correct Stress placement is more important to

the clarity of speech than the correct
pronunciation of sounds.
University of Basra / College of Arts / Department of English

Placement of the stressed syllable

 It has been stated that “ there is one

stressed syllable in any English lexical
word”, and this stressed syllable must be
pronounced more prominent than the rest
of the word.

 The question then “Which syllable is

stressed in the English word?”
University of Basra / College of Arts / Department of English

 Despite the extra importance of stress,

languages differ from one another concerning the
place of the stressed syllable in the word.
 In some languages, the place of the stressed
syllable is fixed,
Examples:
1. In French, the last syllable in the word is always
stressed.
2. In Czech language, the first syllable in the word
is always stressed.
3. In Polish, the penultimate syllable ( the syllable
before than last one) is always stressed.
University of Basra / College of Arts / Department of English

 In English, unfortunately, there is no fixed place

for the stressed syllable.

 Every word has a specific rule for placing the

stressed syllable.
 The rules for placing the stressed syllable in the
English words are so complicated and containing a
large number of irregular cases, that phonologists
see that it is better for the learner of English to
acquire the stress placement by listening to the
English words spoken by the native speakers of
English rather than following the rules.
 University of Basra / College of Arts / Department of English

 The rules for the placement of the stressed syllable in

the English words differ from one words to another
depending upon several factors. So, when we try to
apply the stress rules upon any word, we must know the
following information:
 1. The Origin of the word. Is it originally English or
not.
 2. The Grammatical category of the word (part of
speech it belongs to), ex. Verb, noun, adjective or
adverb.
 3. The Morphological structure of the word. (simple,
compound or complex).
 4. The Phonological structure of the word, (how
many syllable are there in the word; which syllable is
strong and which syllable is weak)
University of Basra / College of Arts / Department of English

 Knowing the above information is very

important because:
 1. The Origin of the word is important
because there are so many words in
English taken from other languages, and
because different languages have different
rules for stress placemant, the English
rules are only applied on words with
English origin. A word came from other
language is stressed according to the rules
of its original language.
University of Basra / College of Arts / Department of English

 2. The Grammatical category of the word is

important in English stress, because the rules
for nouns differ from the rules used with
verbs, adverbs and adjectives. So, we need to
know the grammatical category the word
belongs to in order to decide which rule is
used with that word.

 3. The Morphological structure of the word.

It is also important because every class of
words (simple, compound and complex) has a
special treatment in stress placement.
University of Basra / College of Arts / Department of English

 4. The Phonological structure of the

word, it has already been mentioned that
only strong syllables are stressed,
therefore, it is important to know the
phonological structure of the word.
University of Basra / College of Arts / Department of English

Rules of stress placement in simple

words
 After determining the above information, we can apply the
rules. The rules can be summarized by the following two
points:

 1. In English nouns, the first strong

syllable is stressed.

 2. In English verbs, adverbs and

adjectives, the last strong syllable is
stressed.
University of Basra / College of Arts / Department of English

 Example:

 The word (import)

 1. It is an English word in origin, so we can apply
the rules.
 2. it is a simple word. So, we follow the above two
rules.
 3. phonologically, it consists of two syllables:
/ /
 4. Grammatically, it can be a noun and a verb:
When it is used as a noun, it is pronunced as / /
When it is used as a verb it is pronunced as / /