Question

What is the primary function of stress in English?

• A. To distinguish vowel quality
• B. To give rhythm and meaning to speech
• C. To mark grammatical structures
• D. To indicate tense

Answer 1

Answer:

B. To give rhythm and meaning to speech

Understanding Stress in English Phonetics

• Stress, also known as lexical stress or word accent, refers to the emphasis or prominence given to a particular syllable within a word, or to a particular word within a sentence.
• This prominence is typically achieved by a combination of increased loudness, a higher pitch, and a slightly longer duration of the stressed syllable or word.

Primary Functions of Stress

• To Give Rhythm:

  • English is fundamentally a stress-timed language. This means that the intervals between stressed syllables tend to be approximately equal, regardless of the number of unstressed syllables in between them.
  • This creates a characteristic rhythmic pattern or 'beat' that is crucial for natural-sounding English speech.
  • Competitive Exam Fact: This contrasts with syllable-timed languages (e.g., Spanish, French, Hindi), where each syllable takes roughly the same amount of time, resulting in a more 'machine-gun' like rhythm.

• To Give Meaning:

  • Stress plays a critical role in distinguishing the meaning of words, particularly in the case of homographs (words spelled the same but with different meanings and sometimes different pronunciations).
  • Example 1: Stress on the first syllable often indicates a noun, while stress on the second syllable indicates a verb.
    • CONtract (noun: an agreement) vs. conTRACT (verb: to shrink).
    • PROduce (noun: agricultural goods) vs. proDUCE (verb: to create).
  • Example 2: In sentences, sentence stress (or emphatic stress) highlights the most important word, altering the entire meaning or intention.
    • "I didn't say he stole the money." (Someone else did).
    • "I didn't say he stole the money." (He might have just borrowed it).

Key Concepts and Competitive Exam Relevance

• Word Stress: The inherent stress pattern of a multi-syllabic word (e.g., `com-mu-ni-CATE`). This is largely fixed.
• Sentence Stress: The emphasis placed on specific words in a sentence to convey meaning or intent. Content words (nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs) are typically stressed, while function words (articles, prepositions, conjunctions) are usually unstressed.
• Tonic Syllable (Nucleus): In intonation, this is the main stressed syllable in a tone unit where the primary pitch movement occurs. It's often the most semantically important word.
• Stress Shift: The phenomenon where the stress pattern of a word changes when it appears in a compound or a phrase (e.g., `JapanESE` vs. `JAPanese tea`).
• Understanding stress patterns is essential for accurate pronunciation, comprehension of spoken English, and for effective communication, making it a frequently tested area in competitive English language and phonetics exams.