UNIT 5
SYLLABLES AND STRESS IN ENGLISH
Unit outline
Unit objectives
56
5.1
The nature of the syllable
56
5.2
The structure of the English syllable
57
5.3
Types of syllable
58
5.4
The nature of stress
59
5.5
Primary and secondary stress
61
5.6
Stress and vowels
62
5.7
Predicting stress in derivatives
63
5.7.1
Strong suffixes
64
5.7.2
Weak suffixes
65
5.7.3
Prefixes
66
5.8
Stress in compounds
66
5.9
Rhythm and its influence on word stress
67
5.10
Stress shift and semantic implications
68
Summary
70
Key concepts
70
Further reading
71
SAA No. 4
71
Answers to SAQs
72
After you have completed the study of this unit you should be able to:
use stress correctly in English noun-verb pairs
explain the correlation between stress and the phonetic duration of vowels
show how the pronunciation of words changes when certain affixes are added
discriminate stress placement in compound words from stress placement in corresponding noun phrases
distinguish the rhythm of English, a stressed-time language, from the rhythm of Romanian, a syllable-timed language.
As pointed out in a previous chapter, in spoken language it is unusual to find isolated sounds, because sounds string together to form larger units. Thus, sounds group themselves to form syllables, syllables will form words, words will form phrases and phrases will form sentences.
5.1 The nature of the syllable
What is a syllable?
Physiologically, the syllable corresponds to one chest pulse resulting from the movement of the intercostal muscles. Phonologically, the syllable is the lowest phonological unit into which phonemes are combined. A syllable may be defined as a unit of pronunciation which consists of a vocalic sound either alone or surrounded by consonants (one or more) arranged in a certain sequence.
Think first!
Think of examples of English monosyllabic words made up of a vowel only.
Write your answers in the space provided below.
If you read through section 5.3 carefully you will find such examples.
5.2 The structure of the English syllable
In structural terms, syllables must contain a vowel or vowel-like sound. Syllables are constructed according to the principle of sonority. The sonority theory holds that there are as many syllables in a word as there are peaks of prominence or sonority.
The sonority peak is preceded or followed by a sequence of segments with progressively decreasing sonority values. The most sonorant* sounds are vowels, then semi-vowels*, liquids* /l, r/, nasals /m, n, /, voiced consonants /b, d, g, v, ð, z, d/ Consonants which act like vowels are called syllabic consonants*.
The syllabic nucleus
The centre of a syllable (the syllabic nucleus) is defined as the place where sonority is greatest. This central segment of a syllable, also called its peak, is compulsory. Some monosyllabic words consist of the central segments only: err, are, awe, ear, oh, I, eye. In English, the vowels /e/, /æ /, //, // do not occur in final position and /u/ does not occur in initial position.
The sounds which can serve as peaks in English are all the vowels and /m, n, I, r/ when situated in final position, e.g.: rhythm, button, bottle.
The basic (C) V (C) structure of the syllable can be expanded by additions of initial and final segments.
The onset
In addition to the nucleus, syllables may have one, two or three consonants preceding them. This initial segment of a syllable is called the onset and is optional. It may have the structure C- (tea), CC- (three), CCC- (straw).
The coda
The final segment is called coda and may consist of:
a single consonant (-c) as in egg, it, of, art
two consonants (-cc) as in east, beans, cast
three consonants (-ccc) as in asked, ants, aunts
four consonants (-cccc) as in attempts, instincts.
The English consonants, /r/ (in British English) //, /h/, can never end a syllable. The generalized formula that can be ultimately reached is CCC V CCCC (strengths). The group of consonants in final and initial positions are called clusters. Final clusters in English are much more complex than initial ones. While Romanian employs more consonant clusters than English in initial position, English is far richer in such clusters in final position.
English consonant clusters in final position express different grammatical categories such as NUMBER (texts), TENSE (mixed, breathes) or indicate PART OF SPEECH such as nouns (depth, width), verbs (deepen, harden), etc.
SAQ 1
The following words display characteristic syllabic structures in English. Can you mention the pattern for each of them?
1.owned ………....….
2.ropes ………....….
3.ground ………....….
4.snake ………....….
5.strives ………....….
6.against ………....….
7.even ………....….
8.civil ………....….
9.relaxed ………....….
10.hasn’t ………....….
Write your answers in the space provided and check them against those in the key section.
5.3 Types of syllable
A study of the syllable in English and Romanian involves a distinction between open and closed syllables.
The open syllable
A syllable is open / free / unchecked when it ends in a vowel, i.e. it is of the type V, CV, e.g.: oh, no, tea, do, raw. While Romanian is a language in which free syllables predominate (nu, sta, spre, pui), English is a language of the checked-syllable type (shirt, failed, smoke, drive)
The closed syllable
A syllable is closed / checked when it ends in a consonant, i.e. it is of the type VC, CVC: art, ought, I'd, it, keep, sheep, cheap.
5.4 The nature of stress
Definition of stress
Stress is defined as the perceived prominence of one or more syllabic elements over others in a word. It is an aspect of the suprasegmental phonology of English and it can be a property of syllables (word stress*) or of larger utterances (sentence or syntactic stress*).
Stress can be considered from both the point of view of the speaker and of the hearer. To the latter, stressed syllables appear to be louder than unstressed syllables, whereas for the speaker, stressed syllables give the impression of being produced with greater effort. Stress is thus both a phenomenon of perception and a phenomenon of production.
Following Roach (1994:86) we can maintain that stress is a combination of loudness* (i.e. the degree of force with which a sound or a syllable is uttered), pitch* i.e. the relative height of the tone* with which it is pronounced), quality (i.e. vowels are more prominent than consonants; among the vowels the more open ones are the more prominent) and quantity (i.e. long vowels and diphthongs will always render the syllable prominent).
In English, all these factors, i.e. loudness (intensity)*, pitch, quality and quantity (duration), are associated with prominence. Accordingly, the English stressed syllable – especially its nucleus, tends to have a greater degree of length, loudness and pitch associated with it. It therefore tends to be much longer, much louder and either much higher or much lower in pitch – i.e. to be the locus of a dramatic pitch change in comparison to the surrounding context than the unstressed syllable.
Stress shift* in noun-verb pairs
Like the segmental* phonemes, stress has a distinctive function since it can signal differences in meaning. For instance, comparing the verb record as in “I’m going to record the tune” and the noun record as in “I’ve got a record” the contrast in word accent between the verb and the noun is made by the syllables differing in loudness, pitch, quality and quantity.
Generally, these four variables work together in combination, though syllables may sometimes be made prominent by means of only one or two of them. Experimental work has shown that the strongest effect is produced by pitch and length: loudness and quality have much less effect. The four variables will also be found in the notion of sentence or syntactic stress.
SAQ 2
What syllable is stressed in the italicized words? Note that in some noun - verb pairs, the vowel in the first syllable is different in the noun and the verb. In other pairs, the vowel is the same. Read these sentences and transcribe the words in italics: e.g.
The rebels in the hills will never surrender. /’rebəlz/
Every child rebels against authority at some stage. /ri’belz/
a. The perfume smelled nicely. …………………
b. I never perfume my clothes. …………………
c. They won’t let you in without a permit. …………………
d. The coming floods do not permit any delay. ………………
e. They could see every detail in the picture. ……………..…..
f. They couldn’t detail all the facts. ………………….
g. He gave way without protest. ………………….
h. I protest being called a fool. ………………….
i. There has been a decrease in the birth rate. ……………….
j. The number of members is expected to decrease.
………………….
Write your answers in the space provided and then compare them with the ones given at the end of unit 5.
Place of accent and types of languages
According to the place within a word where stress falls, languages have been grouped into:
free-accent languages in which stress may fall on any syllable (e.g. English, Romanian, Russian).
fixed-accent languages in which stress is tied to a particular place in all the words. For example, in Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Estonian and Finnish, stress regularly falls on the first syllable, in French, Armenian and Turkish it is commonly on the last syllable and in Italian, Welsh and Polish, it is on the last but one syllable.
5.5 Primary and secondary stress
Monosyllabic and polysyllabic words
When they are pronounced singly, all monosyllabic words carry what is called primary stress*, the strongest type of stress. In dictionaries, it is represented in transcription with a high mark or superscript (‘).
Polysyllabic words, those which consist of more than one syllable, all have one primary stressed syllable - just like monosyllabic words. But in addition, they also have a secondary*-stressed syllable and/or syllables with no stress. In the examples below primary stressed syllables are marked with a superscript while secondary stressed syllables are marked with a subscript:
two syllable: ,an ’ti que, ‘cot ton
three syllables: ,mag a ’zine, ‘inn o ,cence
four syllables: re ’mar ka ble, ,cir cu ’la tion
The English secondary stress
English differs from Romanian as regards the use of secondary accent in polysyllabic words. A word like university /uni’və:siti/ has a secondary* accent in English which is absent in the Romanian universitate /universi’tate/. The secondary stress precedes the primary stress, but it may also follow it: granddaughter /’græn,d:tə/.
Is English primary stress predictable?
In English, which is free-accent language, stress is more unpredictable than in Romanian; while in Romanian stress generally falls on one of the last three syllables of a word (e.g. dezi’rabil, accep’tabil, admi’rabil, prefe’rabil) in English words (e.g. de’sirable, ac’ceptable, ‘admirable, ‘preferable) there is no such regularity.
Words with the same number of syllables may have different accentual* patterns as in amateur /’æmətə/, illicit /i’lisit/, cigarette /,sigə’ret/. This is why the unpredictability of primary stress is one of the significant difficulties foreign learners of English have to cope with.
English and American patterns
In American English the secondary stress is used more frequently than in British English. Verbs ending in -ate have a secondary stress on the suffix in order to render the contrast with the corresponding adjectives more evident.
BE AmE
alternate /':ltəneit/ alternate /':ltə,neit/
moderate /’m:dəreit/ moderate /’m:də,reit/
Verbs ending in -ment have a secondary stress on the suffix in order to differenciate them from the nouns having the same suffix.
BE AmE
ornament /’:nəment/ ornament /’:rnə,ment/
supplement /’spliment/ supplement /’splə,ment/
Some disyllabic words have a secondary stress while the same words in British English have not: contract /’k:nt,rækt/, syntax /‘sin,tæks/.
This secondary stress may be explained by an association with the corresponding verbs which have their second syllable stressed.
In longer words ending in -ary, -ery, -ory, Americans use a secondary stress on these suffixes.
BE AmE
dictionary /’dikənəri/ dictionary /’dikən,eri/
SAQ 3
Give the phonetic transcription of the following words to illustrate the accentual pattern used in British English and in American English:
e.g. adversary BE /’ædvəsəri/ - AmE /’ædvə,seri/
BE AmE
1.stationery ………….. ……………
2.ceremony ………….. ……………
3.January ………….. ……………
4.territory ………….. ……………
5.milkman …………... ……………
6.secretary ………….. ……………
Compare your transcription with those given in the key section.
5.6 Stress and vowels
The unstressed (reduced) schwa vowel
In English, there is an important relationship between vowels and stress. Some vowels occur mainly in stressed syllables, others may occur in both stressed and unstressed syllables. One unstressed vowel, // or schwa appears only in unstressed syllables: better, about, confusion. It can be observed in pairs of related words that show different stress placement such as considerate /kən’siderət/ versus consideration /kənsidə’rein/. Note that the fourth vowel, which is unstressed in the word considerate, is pronounced /ə/. But when the same vowel is stressed, as in consideration, it is pronounced as /ei/.
The reduction or weakening of vowels in unstressed syllables is a fundamental and very important phenomenon in English. A change of stress in a word, perhaps as a result of adding a certain ending (called ‘strong suffix’) may have a significant effect on pronunciation. Similarly, if we add -y to photograph /’fəutəgr:f/, stress changes and with it the quality of all the vowels: e.g. photography /fə’tgrəfi/, i.e the first vowel is pronounced /əu/ when stressed and /ə/ when unstressed.
Stressed, full vowels are longer
In conclusion, we can say that vowels in stressed or stressable syllables (i.e. the full vowels) are significantly longer than those in unstressed syllables (the reduced vowels). Failure to use correct reduced vowels in unstressable syllables may result in severe problems of rhythm* which make the whole stream of speech difficult to understand.
SAQ 4
Transcribe the following words, noting the place of the primary stress and the changes in the vowel quality* induced by the shift of stress:
Write your answers in the space provided below each word.
1.decorate decorative decoration
2.explain explanatory explanation
3.locate locative location
Check your transcriptions against those given in the answer section.
5.7 Predicting stress in derivatives
Despite the fact that English words have a variety of different stress patterns, a number of regular principles can help us to determine where the stressed syllables are likely to occur (Taylor, 1996: 49). Therefore stress in English may not be fixed, but it is to a certain extent predictable.
The first principle states that two stressed syllables do not normally occur next to each other in a single word (this does not apply in words containing prefixes such as re-, un- as in unknown, for instance).
The second principle is that certain endings partly determine the place of stressed syllables in words. From the point of view of their influence on the position of the accent in the word, suffixes can be grouped into strong and weak.
5.7.1 Strong suffixes
The suffixes –ion and -ic
Strong endings affect the stress pattern of a word; this class of endings include -ion, -ic, -ity, -ial, etc. If we compare fascinate or fascinating with fascination we can see that the -ion suffix has attracted the stress to the syllable preceding it. Similarly, the -ic suffix almost always attracts a stress to the preceding syllable as we can see if we compare linguist with linguistic, telephone with telephonic. The ending –ical behaves like -ic: mechanical, methodical.
SAQ 5
How does the use of the strong suffixes -ion and -ic determine stress placement? Transcribe the following pairs:
a.continue – continuation
…………………………………
b.inaugurate – inauguration
…………………………………
c.interpret – interpretation
………………………………….
d.irony – ironic
………………………………….
e.optimism – optimistic
…………………………………
f.diplomacy – diplomatic
…………………………………
Check your transcriptions against those given in the answer section.
Other strong endings which attract stress to the syllable immediately preceding the ending are:
-ity: stupidity, university, nationality
-ety: variety, anxiety, society
-ial: remedial, official, industrial
-ify: exemplify, identify, personify
-efy: stupefy, liquefy
-ian: phonetician, comedian, librarian
-ious: superstitious, ostentatious, suspicious
-eous: adventageous, simultaneous, erroneous
In Romanian, suffixes also tend to attract stress onto themselves and accordingly towards the final syllables of the derived words, e.g. băietan, aluniş, atrăgator, muncitor, românesc.
Strong suffixes in loan words
Some derivational morphemes (suffixes) attract the primary stress onto themselves in loan words that preserve their original accentual* structure:
-ee: employee, addressee, trainee, trustee, invitee
-eer: engineer, profiteer, mountaineer, volunteer
-ette: silhouette, casette, kitchinette, suffragette
-et: castanet, quartet, clarinet, minaret
-oo: shampoo, tattoo, kangaroo, taboo, bamboo,
-oon: ballon, cartoon, lagoon, saloon, typhoon
-ique: technique, antique, physique, unique
-esque: picturesque, burlesque, grotesque, arabesque
5.7.2 Weak suffixes
Suffixes that do not influence the position of word accent are called weak suffixes. Examples of weak endings are -ing (‘fascinate – ‘fascinating), -ed (‘expect – ‘expected), -ness (‘kind – ‘kindness), -ship (‘friend – ‘friendship), -able (‘honour – ‘honourable), –ful (‘beauty-‘beautiful), -al (‘propose - ‘proposal), -hood (‘mother - ‘motherhood), -ment (‘develop - ‘development), -er/or (‘teach - ‘teacher), -ly (‘beautiful - ‘beautifully), -ist (‘organ - ‘organist), -ous (‘scandal - ‘scandalous), -dom (‘wise - ‘wisdom),- less (‘child - ‘childless).
SAQ 6
Use the suffixes -ly, -or, -er, -est, -ing and -able to derive words from these bases: cool, expect, clean, translate, will, publish. Is there a primary stress shift entailed by this derivation?
Write your answers in the space provided below.
e.g. cool/-ing/-er/-est
expect/-ing
Check your transcriptions against those given in the answer section.
5.7.3 Prefixes
In English, prefixes which are very productive and have quite an obvious meaning of their own (e.g. mis-, over-, under-, un-) almost always carry a secondary accent: e.g. misrepresent /,misrepri’zent/, overestimate /,əuvər’estəmeit/.
The main difference between English and Romanian is that while English prefixes are stressable, Romanian prefixes, in most cases, are not stressable unless this is required by necessities of emphasis or contrast, e.g. a îmbrăca, a dezbrăca.
5.8 Stress in compounds
Primary stress on the first element
In most instances it is the first syllable in a compound which carries the primary accent, a fact which corresponds to the general tendency in English of placing the main accent towards the beginning of words, rather than towards their end: typewriter, car- fery, sunrise, suitcase, tea-cup.
A rather large class of compound words whose first element is stressed is represented by nouns made up of a gerund and a noun: booking-office, mowing machine, reading-lamp, sleeping-pill, gaming-house, swimming-pool, walking stick, dining-room, eating house, fishing-rod.
There are compound words that have a primary stress on the first element and a secondary stress on the second element: gun-fire /’gΛn,faiə/, granddaughter /’græn,d:tə/. In this group are included the compounds made up of two nouns, the second being derived with the suffix -er, denoting occupations: grave-digger, /’greiv,digəpeace-maker /’pi:s,meikə/, Wall Streeter (person professionally employed on Wall Street) /w:l stri:tə:/.
Primary stress on the second element
There are many compounds whose first element has a secondary accent while the primary accent falls on the second element: handmade /,hænd’meid/, headmaster /,hed’m:stə/, clearcut /,kliə’kΛt/.
Unlike compounds made up of two nouns which have the stress on the first element, compounds with an adjectival first element and the -ed morpheme at the end receive primary stress on the second element: bad-‘tempered, half-‘timbered, heavy-‘handed.
Compounds made of a numeral and a noun also tend to have final stress: three-‘wheeler, second-‘class, five-‘finger. Compounds functioning as adverbs are usually final-stressed: head-‘first, North-‘East, down ‘stream.
Compounds functioning as verbs and having an adverbial first element take final stress: down-‘grade, back-‘pedal, ill-‘treat.
Primary stress on each element
Some compound words made up of words considered equally important or having five or more than five syllables, may take two primary accents: self-determination /’selfdi,təmi’nein/, queen mother /’kwi:n’mΛðə/.
SAQ 7
Transcribe and mark the stressed syllables in the following compounds as they are said when used on their own:
a.cupboard ……………………
b.saucepan ……………………
c.topmost ……………………
d.two pence ……………………
e.nonsense ……………………
f.vineyard ……………………
Check your transcriptions against those given in the answer section.
5.9 Rhythm and its influence on word stress
The English language has quite a regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables – in other words, the rhythm is regular (Roach, 1994: 69). This is why English compound words with two equally strong stresses when used in isolation (e.g. ‘good-’looking) tend to lose one of the stresses in connected speech when either preceded or followed by a stressed word (e.g. The ‘girl is good-‘looking).
English has a stressed-time rhythm
In English, the stressed syllables in connected speech tend to occur at roughly regular intervals. The more unstressed syllables there are after a stress, the quicker they must be pronounced. The time taken by the pronunciation of an utterance depends primarily on the number of stressed syllables. This is known as stressed-timed rhythm. For example, each of the following phrases has an extra syllable, but in each phrase there is only one stressed syllable; all phrases are said in the same amount of time:
read
reading
reading it
he was reading
he was reading it
Romanian has a syllable-timed rhythm
In Romanian, the length of an utterance depends on the total number of syllables; the syllables of an utterance are spoken with the same amount of time allotted to each of them, irrespective of whether they are stressed or not.
Therefore, the Romanian learner of English has to be careful not to pronounce the unstressed syllables with the same force and in the same time which is allotted to the stressed ones.
Another issue foreign learners of English should be aware of is that stress position may vary because not all speakers of RP agree on the placement of stress in some words. A well-known example is controversy which is pronounced by some speakers as /’kntrəvə:si/ and by others as /kən’trvəsi/. Other different possibilities he mentions are ice-cream /’aiskri:m/ or /ais’kri:m/, kilometre /‘kiləmi:tə/’ki’lmitə/ and formidable /’f:midəbl/ or /fə’midəbl/.
Think first!
Notice the primary stress of these words and phrases and then translate them into Romanian:
1.a ‘mad-doctor …………………….
2.a mad ‘doctor ……………………
3.a ‘French teacher …………………..
4.a French ‘ teacher …………………..
5.a ‘bluebottle ………………………
6.a blue ‘bottle ……………………...
Compare your answers with the information contained in section 5.10.
5.10 Stress shift and semantic implications
Compounds and noun phrases
The distinctive function of stress and the far-reaching effects of changing the accent pattern in English are obvious if we consider some compounds and their corresponding noun phrases:
Compounds Noun phrases
‘bookworm (person who book ‘worm (insect)
reads a lot )
‘crosswords (puzzle) cross ‘words (words showing anger)
‘pighead (stubborn) pig ‘head (head of a pig)
‘blackshirt (fascist thug) black ‘shirt (a shirt that is black).
In the compounds, the accent falls on the first element while in the noun phrases the primary stress is on the second element. In general, the accentuation of the compound words made up of an adjective as the first element differs from that of corresponding noun phrases made up of an adjective and a noun: the former have the primary stress on the first element and possibly a secondary stress on the second element, while the latter have their primary stress on the second element and a secondary stress on the first element: hotbed /’htbed/ vs hot bed / ht ‘bed/.
The distribution of stresses in units higher than the word also may have far-reaching semantic implications:
An 'English, teacher (one who teaches English)
An ,English' teacher (one who is English)
A 'toy, factory (produces toys)
A ,toy' factory (a model of a factory used as a toy)
Utterances
The accentual pattern of whole utterances is, to a certain extent, comparable to that of polysyllabic words. The basic difference between the accentuation of isolated words and that of longer utterances is the following: while isolated words have a single accentual pattern there are more possible patterns for the latter.
Therefore, larger utterances allow for more changes of pattern than isolated words. The choice of the word to be stressed depends on the speaker's will and the meaning (s)he wishes to convey:
I've got a red coat. (not a green one)
I've got a red coat. (not a red hat)
A venit înaintea voastră. (he came to meet you)
A venit înaintea voastră. (he arrived before you)
As a rule, full-meaning words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) always carry an accent while grammatical words (auxiliaries, modals, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions) do not, unless the sentence requires it.
SAQ 8
Mark the stress patterns of these words and phrases:
1.a briefcase …………………
2.a blacksmith …………………
3.a sleeping-car …………………
4.growing children …………………
5.a get-together …………………
6.drinking water …………………
Write your answers in the spaces provided and compare them to the suggestions made at the end of the unit
Summary
English derivational suffixes can be grouped into strong and weak. The former group includes endings that (1) cause stress to fall upon a preceding syllable (e.g. -ion, -ic, -ity, -ial) (2) attract stress upon themselves (e. g. -ee, -eer, -oo, -oon, -ette, -esque).
English prefixes that may have a meaning of their own are completely fused with the root to which they are attached so the word is no longer felt as a derivative and is treated as a single word. Prefixes of this kind (e.g. mis-, over-, under-, un-) normally carry a secondary stress.
Some word pairs, involving two different parts of speech, are distinguished by stress: ‘Export rose in the second quarter vs. We still need to ex’port more and They have a ‘green ‘house, but not a ‘greenhouse.
In connected speech, stress is more variable than in isolated words; the choice of the word to be stressed depends on the speaker's will and the meaning (s)he wishes to convey.
English is a language that distinguishes very clearly between stressed and unstressed syllables; what is very important to note is that in English, the recurrence of stressed syllables at regular intervals gives speech its rhythmical qualities which are quite different from those with which other languages, Romanian included, are spoken.
Key concepts
closed/checked syllable
coda
fixed accent-language
free accent-language
loudness
nucleus
onset
open/free/unchecked syllable
pitch
primary stress
quality
quantity
rhythm
secondary stress
stress
strong suffix
syllabic consonant
syllable
vowel reduction
weak suffix
Further reading
1.Chiţoran, Dumitru and Petri, Lucreţia. 1977. Workbook in English Phonetics and Phonology. Bucureşti: Editura didactică şi pedagogică, pp.130-138, pp. 161-166.
2.Gogălniceanu, Călina. 1993. The English Phonetics and Phonology. Iaşi: Editura Fundaţiei "Chemarea", pp. 105-114.
SAA No. 4
Transcribe the following words phonemically and try to state a rule for the pronunciation of the suffix -s and the prefix in- :
1.wants
2.sees
3.wishes
4.grins
5.buzzes
6.scrambles
7.laughs
8.omits
9.adds
10.clips
11.kisses
12.budges
13.sobs
14.goes
15.impossible
16.incongruent
17.infinite
18.indivisible
19.insipid.
Send this assignment to your tutor.
The maximum score for this assignment is 20 points :
10 points for correct phonemic transcription
5 points for stating the rule for the pronunciation of the suffix -s
- 5 points for stating the rule for the pronunciation of the prefix in-
Answers to SAQs
If you find mistakes in your answer, you need to reread section 5.2.
SAQ 1
a. VVCC b. CVVCC c. CCVVCC d. CCVVC e. CCCVVCC
f. V-CVCCC g. V-CC h. CV-CC i. CV-CVCCC
j. CV-CCC.
If you notice mistakes in your answer to SAQ 2, please revise section 5.4.
SAQ 2
(a) /’pə:fjum/ (b) /pə’fju:m/
(c) /’pə:mit/ (d) /pə’mit/
(e) /’diteil/ (f) /di’teil/
(g) /’prəutəst/ (h) /prə’test/
(i) /’di:kri:s/ (j) /di’kri:s/
If you notice mistakes in your answer to SAQ 3, please revise section 5.5
SAQ 3
a) /’steiənəri/ - /’steiə,neri/
b) /’serəməni/ - /’serə,məuni/
c) /’dænjuəri/ - /’dæ,njueri/
d) /’teritəri/ - /’teri,t:ri/
e) /’milkmən/ - /’milk,mæn/
f) /’sekretəri/ - /’sekrə,teri
If you notice mistakes in your answer to SAQ 4, please revise sections 5.6 and 5.7. 1.
SAQ 4
/’dekəreit/ /’dekərətiv/ /dekə’rein/
/ik’splein/ /ik’splænətəri/ /,eksplə’neiən/
/,ləukeit/ /lkətiv/ /ləu’kei
If you notice mistakes in your answer to SAQ 5, please revise section 5.7.1
SAQ 5
a. /kən’tinju:/ - /kən’tinju:eiən/
b. /i’n:gjureit/ - /in:gju’reiən/
c. /in’tə:prət/ - /intə:prə’teiən/
d. /‘aiərəni/ - /ai’rnik/
e. /’ptimism/ - /pti’mistik/
f. /di’pləməsi/ - /diplə’mætik/
If you notice mistakes in your answer to SAQ 6, please revise section 5.7.1. and 5.7.2.
SAQ 6
cool/-ing/-er/-est
expect-ing
clean-er/-est/-ing
translat-or/-ing/-able
will-ing/-y
publish-ing/-able
All the attached suffixes, i.e. -ing, -er, -est, -or, -able, -ly are weak, so there is no primary stress shift in the derived words.
If you notice mistakes in your answers to SAQ 7 and SAQ8, please revise section 5.8.
SAQ 7
/’kΛbəd/
/’s:spən/
/’tpməust/
/’tΛpəns/
/’nnsəns/
/’vinj:d/
SAQ 8
1. ‘brief,case
2. a ‘black,smith
3. a ‘sleeping-,car
4. ,growing ‘children
5. a ‘get-,together
6. ‘drinking ,water