Minor ways of word formation: distinctive stress
distinctive stress is the formation of a new word by means of the shift of the stress in the source word, cf.: ´export (n) — to ex´port; ´import (n) — to im´port; ‘conduct (n) — to con’duct; ‘present (n) — to pre’sent, etc.
^ Distinctive stress is found in groups like `present – pres`ent, `conduct – con`duct, `abstract – abstr’act, etc. These words were French borrowings with the original stress on the last syllable. Verbs retained it, while in nouns and adjectives it was shifted. The place of stress helps to distinguish verbs and nouns or pronouns in speech.
The ways in which new words are formed, and the factors which govern their acceptance into the language, are generally taken very much for granted by the average speaker. To understand a word, it is not necessary to know how it is constructed, whether it is simple or complex, that is, whether or not it can be broken down into two or more constituents. We are able to use a word which is new to us when we find out what object or notion it denotes. Some words, of course, are more ‘transparent’ than others. For example, in the words unfathomable and indescribable we recognize the familiar pattern of negative prefix + transitive word + adjective-forming suffix on which many words of similar form are constructed. Knowing the pattern, we can easily guess their meanings – ‘cannot be fathomed’ and ‘cannot be described’ – although we are not surprised to find other similar-looking words, for instance unfashionable and unfavourable for which this analysis will not work. We recognize as ‘transparent’ the adjectives unassuming and unheard-of, which taking for granted the fact that we cannot use assuming and heard-of. We accept as quite natural the fact that although we can use the verbs to pipe, to drum and to trumpet, we cannot use the verbs to piano and to violin.
The Essay on What factors determine the place and different degree of word stress?
Phoneticians divide syllables into strong (heavy) and weak (light). A strong syllable contains a long vowel or a diphthong or a short vowel plus two consonants; syllables with a short vowel and no coda are weak ones. Only strong syllables can be stressed (although not all of them), but weak syllables are never stressed. Factors that may determine the placement of stress are: the morphological ...
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE, YOUTH AND SPORT
OF UKRAINE
Kyiv National Linguistic University
Project Work in English Lexicology
MINOR WAYS OF WORD FORMATION:
DISTINCTIVE STRESS
Bilodid Olga
Group 316
Translators’/Interpreters’ Department
Research supervisor:
V.G. Nikonova
Professor, Doctor of Philology
Kyiv 2012
THEORETICAL FOUNDATION OF THE PROBLEM
In English language as in many other languages there are a lot of different types of word building or word formation, also called word manufacturing. These types appear because of different interesting historic cases and are part of the whole English grammar.
Word-formation – the process of forming words by combining root and affixal morphemes according to certain patterns specific for the language (affixation, composition), or without any outward means of word formation (conversion, semantic derivation).
The role of word accentuation in Old English word-building was not great. Like sound interchanges, the shifting of word stress helped to differentiate between some parts of speech being used together with other means. The verb had unaccented prefixes while the corresponding nouns had stressed prefixes, so that the position of stress served as an additional distinctive feature between them.
Distinctive stress can be mostly met in verbs and nouns of Romanic origin: nouns have the stress on the first syllable and verbs on the last syllable, e.g. `accent – to ac`cent. This phenomenon is explained in the following way: French verbs and nouns had different structure when they were borrowed into English; verbs had one syllable more than the corresponding nouns. When these borrowings were assimilated in English the stress in them was shifted to the previous syllable (the second from the end).
The Term Paper on “Theoretical and practical aspects of prepositions in modern english”
... prepositions in English. Yet this is a very small number when you think of the thousands of other words (nouns, verbs etc). Prepositions ... becomes negligible [29]. In short, function words have little lexical meaning and no stress. In traditional grammars, they do not ... Prepositions are just little words that never change in form. They are pronounces softly, in unstressed syllables. They aren’t even ...
Later on the last unstressed syllable in verbs borrowed from French was dropped (the same as in native verbs) and after that the stress in verbs was on the last syllable while in nouns it was on the first syllable. As a result of it we have such pairs in English as: to af`fix -`affix, to con`flict- `conflict, to ex`port -`export, to ex`tract – `extract etc. As a result of stress interchange we have also vowel interchange in such words because vowels are pronounced differently in stressed and unstressed positions.
Word stress alone is capable of differentiating the meanings of words or their forms. It should be mentioned though that most words in most languages that use word stress linguistically do not possess minimal pairs based on stress. But still there are about 135 pairs of words of identical orthography in English which could occur either as nouns (with stress on the penultimate syllable) or as verbs (with stress on the final syllable), with a very small number of cases the location of lexical stress alone being the differentiating factor: import (noun) — import (verb), ‘insult (noun) — in’sult (verb).
Key words and expressions from the text:
1. Accentuation – наголос
2. Phenomenon – явище, феномен
3. Сorresponding – віповідний, віповідати
4.
