The syllable is a double-faceted category — страница 2

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this narrower sense, stress refers to the muscular energy which goes into the production of a syllable. In producing the continuous sound stream of speech,. sneakers do not keep up a steady degree of articulatory energy: over some stretches the energy level in the articulatory and respiratory muscles is higher than in others. It is important to keep in mind that stress does not just affect sounds but whole syllables. (CJIAЙД 8) Word stress (accentual pattern). (СЛАЙД 9) The term "stress" is often replaced by the term "accent". While these terms are often used interchangeably, there is also an opposite approach, i.e. to discriminate between the two notions. There is yet another term - "prominence", which is usually attributed to the perceptible

effect of stress. The term "accent" comprises both the production and perception levels. An accented syllable means both stressed by the speaker and prominent for the listener. The term "accentual pattern" has become widely used in phonetic literature. The common definition of the phenomenon of "word stress" is "the greater prominence of one syllable in relation to the other syllables of the word" (perceptible). What does the speaker do to make a syllable prominent? (What is the nature of prominence?) 2010 Lecture 6. The Syllable as a Prosodic Category. Word-Stress Physically, stress means more energy applied to a syllable. But is it longer? Higher? Louder? The phonetic nature of stress in different languages has much in common, yet there

are still specific peculiarities. The acoustic nature of stress is complex and includes all the prosodic parameters (fundamental frequency, intensity and duration). At the same time their role is not equal. Some parameters may predominate. Word stress in different languages is defined differently depending on the predominate parameter in the creation of prominence. (CJIAЙД 10) It can be quantitative (when the predominant parameter is length) musical (when it is pitch) dynamic (intensity, force of articulation) qualitative (sound quality, spectral characteristics of a sound). It has always been taken for granted that vowels in a stressed syllable are not reduced. This is why the qualitative parameter has not always been taken into consideration. Obviously, for French or Spanish,

where there is reduction of vowels, practically, this parameter does not play a significant role. But for the treatment of English or Russian and Byelorussian word-stress it is important to emphasise the role of vowel quality for the creation of the effect of prominence. The English word stress therefore is defined as dynamic and qualitative. Some authors argue that it is also quantitative, because stressed syllables tend to be longer as well, but this is not a consistent feature, e.g. in ['pitid] the unstressed [i] is longer than the stressed [i]. Even if this or that 'label' is used to specify word stress in a particular language, it does not deny the fact that in reality all acoustic parameters interact, they are all involved. A -disputable point in the analysis of the

phonetic nature of word-stress is the role of fundamental frequency of the voice. Some phoneticians regard it as one of the key features of word stress. At the same time, there exists another point of view: FF is not relevant for word stress recognition. This viewpoint seems to be more consistent if we claim that word-stress and utterance stress should be analyzed and treated as two different phenomena, although they certainly have a common core. (CJIAЙД 11) The only really constant feature of word stress, a feature that is always there, is vowel quality. David Brasil uses the term "protected" for the stressed syllables. The quality of a vowel in a stressed syllable is said to be "protected". In unstressed syllables vowels are unprotected. The full quality

of a vowel in a stressed syllable is an obligatory feature. It is connected to greater muscular effort, but we do not necessarily need to raise the pitch of the voice although in reality we do this. In actual speech word stress is realised through utterance stress. Word stress, strictly speaking, is a potential, an abstraction which is manifested in speech by various forms, yet if we want to talk about word stress as a 2010 Lecture 6. The Syllable as a Prosodic Category. Word-Stress 3 phenomenon in its own right, it must be eliminated from utterance stress features analysis. Distribution of prominence. Location of stress within a word. (CJIAЙД 12) (CJIAЙД 13) Languages differ in this respect. There is fixed and free (variable) word stress. Languages of the fixed stress type