Stress Patterns
- A syllable stress is a word that is pronounced with a simple breath pulse.
- If the rushing of air from our mouth occurs once as you pronounce a word, you have produced a syllable.
Kinds of Syllabic Stress
- Monosyllabic Stress Word: These are words that have only one syllable. For example:
- brush
- push
- laugh
- cream
- room
- cheat
- town
- sharp
- phone, etc.
- Bi-syllabic Stress Word: These are words that contain two syllables. In bi-syllabic words, only one word is stressed while the other is unstressed. For example:
- painter
- doctor
- local
- river
- listen
- admire
- mature
- subdue
- compare, etc.
- NOTE: Most two-syllable nouns and adjectives have stress on the first syllable while most two-syllable verbs have stress on the second syllable.
- Poly-syllabic Word: These are words that have more than two syllables. For example:
- promotion
- certification
- confusion
- decision
- democratic
- government
- transporter, etc.
SENTENCE STRESS
- Words in a sentence are not all given the same salience in oral English.
- Some words are picked out and are stressed in contrast to others.
- The one that is the most stressed is said to receive the sentence stress.
- This usually implies difference in meaning.
- In the following sentences, the sentence stress is indicated in bold case.
- Consider the difference in meaning for each of these scenarios.