Rhythms of English II

 

Intonation Exercise I Stress in Sentences
Stress in Words Exercise II

Stress in Phrases
to Learning English

 

Stress in Words

Every word is made from syllables.  Every word has one, two, three or more syllables.  Here are a few words and the number of syllables in them.  (See also Syllabication and Spelling).  In these lessons, when you see a syllable or a word that is written in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, this means that syllable or word is stressed.

Word

 Syllable break

Number of syllables

fish

fish

1

peach

peach

1

worse

worse

1

meatloaf

meat-loaf

2

sofa

so-fa

2

Japan

Ja-pan

2

semester

se-mes-ter

3
radio ra-di-o 3

surprising

sur-pris-ing

3

terrifying

ter-ri-fy-ing

4

misunderstanding

mis-un-der-stand-ing

5
revolutionary rev-o-lu-tion-ar-y 6

See that every syllable has a vowel or a vowel sound in it?

Some languages stress the same syllable in the same place in every word.  English doesn't. We stress one syllable (sometimes more than one) in a word by saying it louder and stronger than the other syllables.  The stressed syllable may be the first one, the second one, or any one.  The syllable that is stressed in a word helps the listener understand which word or which meaning of a word is being used.  As you learn how to properly stress words and syllables in English, your pronunciation and your understanding of the language will increase!

An example of how stress affects pronunciation and meaning: 

telegraph, telegrapher, telegraphic  

These three words are spelled the same, except for the suffixes on two of them, but they are pronounced very differently and they mean different things.  The difference in pronunciation is because a different syllable is stressed in each word.

TE-le-graph

te-LEG-ra-ph-er

te-le-GRAPH-ic

Every word with more than one syllable has one strongly stressed syllable in it.  Some very long words may have more than one stressed (emphasized) syllable, but it won’t be stressed as strongly as the primary stress.

Here are some very general rules to help you correctly choose which syllable to stress in a word (but there are many exceptions, too).  Say them aloud, ask a native English-speaker to pronounce them for you, or listen to American English pronunciation of these words at www.merriamwebster.com. Listen for the differences between the stressed and unstressed syllables.  (Here's a TIP: Every time you learn a new word, learn its stress pattern.  Make a note of it.  A native speaker or a dictionary can help you.  Dictionaries will show the phonetic spelling and indicate which syllable is to be stressed.)

Stress the first syllable when it’s

 

a 2-syllable noun:

RIB-bon, CAN-dy, PUD-ding, HUN-ger

a 2-syllable adjective:

PRET-ty, UG-ly, FRIEND-ly, BRILL-iant

Stress the last syllable when it’s

 

a 2-syllable verb:

de-PORT, pre-PARE, de-CIDE

Stress the next-to-the last syllable when it’s

 

a word that ends in 'ic':

pa-ra-MED-ic, al-tru-IS-tic, e-LEC-tric

a word that ends in 'sion', 'cian', and 'tion':

gra-du-A-tion, phy-SI-cian, sen-SA-tion

Stress the second from last syllable when it’s

 

words that end in 'gy', ‘fy’, 'phy', 'cy',  'ty', and 'al:

the-OL-o-gy, il-LOG-i-cal, his-TOR-i-cal, bi-OL-o-gy, phi-LO-so-phy, e-lec-TRI-ci-ty

words that end in 'meter':

speed-OM-e-ter , per-IM-e-ter, ba-ROM-e-ter ('meter' endings)

Stress compound words like this:

 

When you have a compound noun (two nouns or an adjective and a noun), stress the first syllable:

RED-head, BLUE-bird, RAIN-bow, PORK-chop

When you have a compound adjective (an adjective and a past participle), the stress is in verb part:

old-FASH-ioned, high-SPIR-it-ed, full-FIG-ured

When you have a compound verb (A preposition and a verb), stress the verb part: 

out-DO, over-in-DULGE

Stress phrasal verbs like this:

 

The stress is on the particle (the particle is a preposition that indicates movement or position in space or time such as:  across, along, behind, below, by, down, in, off, on, out, outside, inside, over, past, since, through, under (underneath), up).

turn UP, fall OFF, jump OVER, lie DOWN, move aLONG.

 

  

 

The Rules for Stress in Words

  Usually, each word has one syllable that is stressed.  Long words may have two syllables that are stressed---one stronger than the other.  That’s called primary (stronger) and secondary (weaker) stress.

  Only vowels are stressed; never consonants.

 

Where do you think the stress is in these words?

1.  saddle                    sad-dle   
2.  riverbank     riv-er-bank   
3.  welcoming    wel-com-ing   
4.  tropical  tro-pi-cal   
5.  measles                            mea-sles   
6.  minimize                            min-i-mize   
7.  parliament  par-lia-ment   
8.  bathtub    bath-tub   
9.  recovery re-cov-er-y   
10.  The Netherlands the neth-er-lands

 

Stress in Phrases

This is a term that means that in each group of thought* in a sentence, there is one word that is stressed more strongly than the others.  If a sentence has more than one of these groups of thought, the word with the strongest stress is in the last group or phrase.  This not only shows that the word is important, but that the sentence is ended.  (regular stress is underlined, extra stress is in italics)

"I went to town, but forgot my money, so I couldn't buy anything."

In that sentence, if one is speaking normally, the commas signal the groups of thought in the sentence.  Notice how the last 'content' word in each phrase is stressed, but the last content word of the last phrase is stressed the most.  If we emphasize a different word to show some other meaning or a particular emotion, however, the stress pattern of the sentence changes.  (See Intonation)

*  Punctuation shows us where the pauses are in a written sentence.  In the sentence above, COMMAS show where the pauses are--setting off a 'group of thought'.  Sometimes there will be SEMICOLONS, COLONS, and PERIODS that show longer pauses.  These longer pauses will be there no matter how swiftly a person is speaking, although the shorter pauses might not be there with fast speech.

In speaking, however, we can't see the punctuation.  The pauses we make are what signal those groups of thought, or phrases.  We tend to pause longer after the most important thing we say in a sentence.  If you talk slowly, there are more pauses.  Learning where these pauses are will make it easier for you to be understood.

There is a difference in phrase stress if a sentence is spoken faster.

Spoken at regular speed:  The neighbor's dog / howls at the moon / whenever he is tied / in their yard / all night.

Spoken more rapidly:  The neighbor's dog howls at the moon whenever he is tied in their yard all night.

The faster you speak, the fewer pauses you take, and the less stress is given to the content words.  The slower you speak, and the more pauses you take, the more clearly the stress is heard on the content words.  This makes it easier for the listener to understand the important parts of your sentences. 

See how grammar automatically makes these groups of thought:

Relative Clauses:

 (the man) who robbed the bank

 (the movie) that I saw

Prepositional phrases:

over the rainbow

 in the car

Verb phrases:

screamed loudly  

 appeared depressed

Noun phrases: 

 the tall oak tree 

soup and sandwich

Parenthetical remarks:

 for instance, in my opinion, that is