stress (n.)

A term used in PHONETICS to refer to the degree of force used in producing a SYLLABLE. The usual distinction is between stressed and unstressed syllables, the former being more PROMINENT than the latter (and marked in TRANSCRIPTION with a raised vertical line, [‘]. The prominence is usually due to an increase in LOUDNESS of the stressed syllable, but increases in LENGTH and often PITCH may contribute to the overall impression of prominence. In popular usage, ‘stress’ is usually equated with an undifferentiated notion of ‘emphasis’ or ‘strength’.

From the viewpoint of PHONOLOGY, the main function of stress is to provide a means of distinguishing degrees of emphasis or contrast in SENTENCES (sentence stress), as in The big man looks angry; the term contrastive stress is often used for this function. Many pairs of WORDS and word sequences can also be distinguished using stress variation (lexical stress or word stress), as in the contrast between An increase in pay is needed and I’m going to increase his pay –  – or the distinction between ‘black ‘bird and ‘black-bird. The analytical question here, which attracted a great deal of attention in the middle decades of the twentieth century, is how many degrees of stress need to be recognized in order to account for all such contrasts, and to show the interrelationships between words derived from a common root, such as ‘telegraph, tele’graphic and te’legraphy. In the American STRUCTURALIST tradition, four such degrees are usually distinguished, and analyzed as stress PHONEMES, namely (from strongest to weakest) (1) ‘primary’, (2) ‘secondary’, (3) ‘tertiary’ and (4) ‘weak’. These contrasts are, however, demonstrable only on words in isolation, as in the compound elevator operator – one of several such phrases originally cited to justify analyses of this kind.

Alternative views recognized different kinds and degrees of stress, the simplest postulating a straight stressed v. unstressed contrast, referring to other factors (such as INTONATION and VOWEL QUALITY) to explain such sequences as elevator operator. In DISTINCTIVE FEATURE theories of phonology, the various degrees of stress are assigned to the syllables of words by means of the repeated application of RULES (such as ‘lexical’, ‘compound’ and ‘NUCLEAR’ stress rules). Some analysts maintain there is a distinction to be made between linguistic contrasts involving loudness (which they refer to as ‘stress’) and those additionally involving pitch (which they refer to as ACCENT). All the examples given above, they would argue, are matters of accent, not stress, because contrasts in pitch variation are normally involved. Similar problems arise in the analysis of TONE languages.

In cross-language comparison, it is useful to note variations in the typical place within the word where the stressed syllable falls. Some languages have a fixed stress (or accent), e.g. Welsh, where the stressed syllable is almost always the penultimate, in polysyllabic words. Others, such as English, have a free or movable stress (accent).

In the context of RHYTHM studies, the notion of a STRESS-TIMED language is often cited, i.e. one where the stresses fall at roughly regular intervals within an UTTERANCE. In analyzing such a language in this way, the notion of silent stress is sometimes invoked, to handle cases where the omission of a stressed syllable in colloquial speech can none the less be ‘felt’; a regularly cited case in the abbreviated version of thank you , which is said to be the unstressed residue of an unspoken stressed+ unstressed combination. A sequence of syllables constituting a rhythmical unit, containing one primary stress, is known as a stress group. In METRICAL PHONOLOGY a stress-foot is a STRING containing as its first ELEMENT a stressed syllable, followed by zero or more unstressed syllables symbolized by Σ. The most prominent element in the stress foot is called the HEAD. It should be noted that ‘foot’, in this context, refers to an UNDERLYING unit, whose phonetic interpretation varies according to the theoretical approach. Destressing, in this approach, is a RULE which eliminates stresses produced by foot construction. When two stressed syllables are immediately adjacent, the situation is described as stress clash. Speakers have a tendency to avoid stress clash; for example, the word thirteen is normally stressed on the second syllable, but in the phrase thirteen men, the stress shifts to the first syllable.