13. Типи словесного наголосу в англійській мові (Types of English word stress)

І. Types of English word stress according to its degree. One of the ways of differentiating the prominence of syllables is manipulating the degree of stress. There is some controversy about degrees of WS in English and their terminology. Strictly speaking, a polysyllabic word has as many degrees of stress as there are syllables in it. Designating the strongest syllable by 1, the second strongest by 2, etc., we may represent the distribution of stresses in the following examples:

examination indivisibility

IgzæmIneI∫(ə)n IndIvIzIbIlətI

3 2 4 1 5 2 5 3 6 1 7 4

The majority of British phoneticians (D. Jones, R. Kingdon, A. C. Gimson among them) and Russian phoneticians (V. A. Vassilyev, J. Shakhbagova ) consider that there are three degrees of word-stress in Eng1ish: primary – the strongest word stress; secondary – the second strongest, partial word stress; weak – all the other degrees of word stress.

The syllables bearing either primary or secondary stress are termed stressed, while syllables with wear stress are called, somewhat inaccurately, unstressed. American linguists distinguish four degrees of word stress, adding the so-called tertiary stress. Secondary stress differs from tertiary that it usually occurs on the third or fourth pre-tonic syllable, and tertiary is always post-topic, e.g. administrative, dictionary; category.

There are several systems of notation for marking stress in a written word that can make the concept visual for the language users: CAPitals, boldface, grave and aigu áccents, underlining. Most dictionaries mark primary stress with a vertical superscript stress mark – ' before the main stress syllable, and secondary stress with a subscript stress mark –ֽbefore the syllable bearing secondary stress; tertiary stress is marked with ˚before the appropriate syllable: interchangeability Intə _o t∫eIndʒə 'bIlətI.

The stress in a word may be on the last syllable, the ult; on the next-to-last (the second from the end), the penult; on the third syllable from the end, the antepenult; and a few words are stressed on the fourth syllable from the end, the pre-antepenult.

II. Types of English word stress according to its position. Languages of the world which make a linguistic use of stress fail into one of the two broad types:

1) locating the word-stress predominantly on a given syllabic location in the word (fixed lexical stress);

2) allowing much more freedom for placement the stress (variable/free lexical stress.

The languages with fixed lexical stress are exemplified in the following table:

A relatively small proportion of the languages of the world allow a range of different locations of lexical stress, i.e. variable/(free) lexical stress: Dutch, English, Greek, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish, Swedish, etc. In languages with variable/(free) lexical stress, e.g. English. Ukrainian, etc., it may fall on the first syllable in some words, in others – on the second or third (etc.), i.e. it is free in the sense that the main stress is not tied to any particular location in the chain of syllables constituting a word as in languages with fixed lexical stress, e.g.: on the first – ׳mother, 'озеро; on the second - o'ccasion, noгóда; on the third - employ 'ее, мoлoкó; on the fourth - exami ׳nation, кoмyнiка́цiя.

However, the stress pattern of English words is fixed, in the sense that the main strеss always falls on a particular syllable of a given word (with certain exceptions of words unstable stress structures), e.g. the Ukrainian word cmyде́нm is always stressed on the second syllable.