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Reflection On Complex Word Stress

Satisfactory Essays

Reflection after Phonetics and Phonology course
After the course, I am interested in Complex Word Stress from English Phonetics and Phonology by P.Roach (1991). English word stress is not free, especially with compound words, it is difficult for us to give exactly stress. This chapter can give me some tips to put the stress in compound words that we don’t need to use dictionary. The chapter about complex word stress discusses some main points such as complex words, suffixes, prefixes, compound words, variable stress and word-class pairs.
First of all is the information about complex words. The majority of English words of more than one syllable (Polysyllabic words) have come from other languages whose way of constructing words is easily recognizable. Complex words are of two major types. First, words made from a basic word form (which we will call the stem), with the addition of an affix. Second, compound words, which are made of two (or occasionally more) independent English words. We will look first at the words made with affixes. Affixes are of two sorts in English: prefixes, which come before the stem and suffixes, which come after the stem. Affixes have one of three possible effects on word stress. Firstly, the affix itself receives the primary stress. Secondly, the word is stress as if the affix were not there. Finally, the stress remains on the stem, not the affix, but is shifted to a different syllable.
After that we continue with suffixes. A suffix is added to the end of word to change its meaning and a root is the smallest piece of lexical material that a stem can be reduced. We need to remember these tips to give the stress. Firstly, suffixes carrying primary stress themselves: ‘-ee’, ‘-eer’, ‘-ess’, ‘-ette’, ‘-esque’. Secondly, suffixes that do not affect stress placement: ‘-able’, ‘-age’, ‘-al’, ‘-en’, ‘-ful’, ‘-ing’, ‘-like’, ‘-less’, ‘-ly’, ‘-ment’, ‘-ness’, ‘-ous’, ‘-fy’, ‘-wise’, ‘-y’. ‘-ish’ in the case of adjective does not affect stress placement; however, verbs with stems of more than syllable always have the stress on the syllable immediately preceding ‘ish’. Thirdly, suffixes that influence stress in the stem: ‘-eous’, ‘-graphy’, ‘-ial’, ‘-ic’, ‘-ion’, ‘-ious’, ‘-ty’, ‘-ive’.

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