Having this backdrop of the degree of
stress, it behooves us to move further to the operational level of stress. At
the operational level, we have WORD and SENTENCE stress.
WORD
STRESS
By word stress we mean the degree of
force exerted in the articulation of successive syllables in a word. Every word
has a fixed distribution; if stress changes, meaning might change. Certain
rules apply to placement of stress:
1. A one syllabic word is stressed:
Since we cannot break a one word syllable into bits, we stress all the sounds,
e.g. back, cannot be broken into 'ba' & 'ck', so we stress the whole word
'back.'
2. A bisyllabic (two syllable) word
is usually stressed on the first syllable except the first syllable is a
prefix,
e.g. Doctor (DOCtor) is stressed on
the first syllable but 'disprove' is stressed on the second syllable because
the first is a prefix, so it becomes (disPROVE).
STRESS
PATTERN OF COMPOUND WORDS
Compound words can be either be
compound noun or compound verb. The stress pattern of words differs based on
the category they fall into:
Compound words: These are words
made up of two or more Individual words fused together to form one.
Compound nouns.....compound words
usually have their stress on the first element while compound verbs have their
stress on the second element.
Examples
Playground .......PLAYground......CN
Blackbird
..........BLACKbird.........CN
Outride .............outRIDE..............
CV
Outshine...........outSHINE.............CV
STRESS
ON NUMBERS
Numbers ending with 'teen' are
stressed on the last syllable while those ending with 'ty' are stressed on the
first syllable.
Examples: Fifteen .......fifTEEN
Fifty....... FIFty
SHIFTING
STRESS
I bet a number of Nigerian speakers
of English do not know we have shifting stress, often times we see a particular
word as a noun and also a verb, most people find it difficult to differentiate
the difference except in usage. In fact, some pronounce such words as a verb
whereas it ought to be a noun. The distinguishing factor is just the placement
of stress. When the word is a noun the stress is placed on the first syllable
whereas on the second syllable when it is a verb.
Examples:
Conduct.........CONduct (N) conDUCT
(V)
Refuse ..........REfuse (N).
ReFUSE (V)
Convert..........CONvert (N)
conVERT(V)
For those conversant with
transcription, u will notice as the stress changes, the transcription also
changes as syllables that formerly had strong forms of a sound will be reduced
to a weakly stressed syllable represented by a schwa sound.