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PECULIARITIES OF WORD STRESS PLACEMENT IN COMPOUND NOUNS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Anosova Anastasiya Alecsandrovna, South Ural State University, Chelyabinsk
E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract. The article presents the analysis of stress patterns of English compound nouns. The author considers the semantic and orthographic aspects of compound nouns, the number of syllables in these words and their morphemic structure and tries to find out what aspects influence the number and distribution of stresses in compound nouns in the English language.
Key words: stress, compound noun, stress tendencies, semantic factor.
The placement of word stress presents certain difficulties to English learners. These difficulties can be accounted for by the fact that word stress in the English language is not fixed, i. e. it is not tied to a particular syllable of a multisyllable word (like in French or Czech for example). In English as well as in Russian stress may fall on any syllable in a word. Such kind of stress is called free [1].
However stress placement in the English language is regulated by certain tendencies such as recessive, rhythmic and retentive. Significant role is also played by the semantic factor. Thus, recessive tendency results in placing the word stress on the initial syllable in a word ('daughter, 'brother 'swallow). In word of three or more syllables the shift of the stress could be caused by the recessive tendency and also by the rhythmic tendency, which requires a regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. Under the rhythmic tendency, a secondary stress would arise at a distance of one syllable from the original stress (revolution, organization) [1]. In many polysyllabic words both tendencies, the recessive and the rhythmic, operate together and bring about several changes.
A Soviet-Lithuanian linguist I. I. Wolfson, who had carried out a special investigation of word stress, has called the third tendency retentive. This is the tendency to retain the accent in the derivative on the same syllable on which it falls on the parent word. Much more commonly its manifestation consists in retaining the accent of parent word in the form of secondary stress ('similar - ,simi'larity) [2].
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A peculiar feature of English is the existence in it of certain categories of words in whose accentuation the crucial determining factor is the semantic one. The semantic criteria were propounded by P.Roach, D.Jones. They are especially operative in words with separable prefixes with a distinct meaning, and compound words [5]. For example, in case when in compound words both stressed parts are of equal semantic value, and this factor even cancels the rhythmic tendency in word accentuation ('gas-'stove). And when the first element is most important, as it determines the meaning of the compound, there is only one stress on the first element ('darning needle - a specific needle, which is used for darning).
The accentual system of Modern English is a product of a long historical development and the result of the combined action. It indicates interaction of the four tendencies described above: the recessive, rhythmic, retentive tendencies, as well as the semantic factor. The resultant accentual system or typology of present-day English consists of a much greater number and variety of word accentual patterns than those, which were shown above.
The distribution of stressed syllables within a word accentual type and accentual structures are closely connected with a number of factors, among which are the morphological types of words, the number of syllables, the semantic value of morphemes. We intend to find out what factors have more influence on stress assignment in the English compound nouns.
As for our analysis we need to use compound nouns, so we have to establish the general characteristics of the term. We have accepted the notion of compound noun as a noun distinguished by certain criteria: semantic (denoting one concept), morphological (constituents of the compound word are not subject to grammatical changes), syntactic (no words can be inserted between the constituents of a compound word). Besides, compound nouns can be spelled as one word, through a hyphen and as separate words.
For our analysis we have picked out one thousand compound nouns, which occur in the 16 edition of English Pronouncing dictionary by D. Jones. The whole bulk of compound nouns falls into 3 groups.
The first group comprises nouns which have the stress pattern, represented as '_
_, i. e. of the two components of a compound noun, it is the first one that bears primary
stress. Hence, the other syllables in the word are unstressed. The total sum is 698 (69,8%). There are some of them:
Word Translation
battlefield поле боя
candlewick фитиль
horseshoe подкова
The second group comprises nouns with the primary and the secondary
stresses, thus having the pattern '_oy_. The total sum is 261 nouns (26,1%). There
are some of them:
Word Translation
bandmaster дирижёр
goalkeeper вратарь
pickpocket вор-карманник
The third group embraces only 41 nouns (4,1%) with the stress pattern ,_'_
where the first element bears the secondary stress and the second one has the primary one. There are some of them:
Word Translation
desert island необитаемый остров
family tree родовое дерево
mother tongue родной язык
Among one thousand compound nouns under analysis none of the words
possessed the stressed pattern_'_.
The results can be seen in table 1.
Table 1
Accentual patterns of English compound nouns
Accentual pattern The percentage of the total number of compound nouns
1 ! 69,8%
2 ! _ i_ 26,1%
3 ! i__ 4,1%
4 ! 0%
Thus, the question arises, what factors influence the stress assignment in compound nouns in the modern English language. To find this out we shall consider different aspects of compound nouns such as semantic and orthographic ones, the number of syllables in the words and their morphemic structure.
Concerning the number of stresses it is possible to divide all the nouns under analysis into 2 groups: those nouns, which have 1 stress (there are 698 of them) and those which have 2 stresses (302 nouns), where one of the stresses is primary and
another - secondary. It is clearly seen that these groups are not equal in number.
If we take the view on these groups from the point of view of orthography, we can note that in the group of nouns with single stress almost all the nouns are closed (written as one word), only 10 nouns are hyphenated and none of the nouns is open (written separately). Among the group of nouns with 2 stresses the amount of hyphenated and open compound nouns is higher.
Table 2
Orthographic aspect of compound nouns
spelling Compounds with single stress Compounds with 2 stresses
closed 688 (98,57%) 142 (47,02%)
hyphenated 10 (1,43%) 35 (11,59%)
open 0 (0%) 125 (41,39%)
After analyzing the achieved data, we may suppose that the way compound nouns are written has some influence on the number of stresses in them as writing the word as 2 separate words presupposes its treating like a phrase, where each notional word has word stress as the word in citation form.
The two groups are also distinguished according to the number of syllables.
Table 3
The number of syllables in the English compound nouns
The number of syllables in the 1st and the 2nd component Compounds with single stress Compounds with 2 stresses
1-1 646 (92,55%) 48 (15,89%)
1-1 with a linking vowel 3 (0,43%)
1-2 4 (0,57%) 202 (66,89%)
2-2 41 (5,87%) 27 (8,94%)
2-1 4 (0,57%) 5 (1,66%)
1-3 11 (3,65%)
2-3 3 (0,99%)
1-4 1 (0,33%)
2-4 1 (0,33%)
3-1 3 (0,99%)
3-2 1 (0,33%)
The majority of the nouns of the first group consists of only two syllables, each component being monosyllabic (table 3). The number of syllables is closely connected with the morphemic structure of the word. Taking into account morphemes which constitute nouns of this group, we can see that 691 words out of 698 (99 %) consist of only 2 root morphemes. Together with them go nouns consisting of 2 root morphemes and the linking element, vowel or consonant.
Table 4
The morphemic structure of the English compound nouns
The morphemic structure of the 1st and the 2nd component Compounds with single stress Compounds with 2 stresses
Root + root 691 (99%) 23 (7,62%)
Root + root with linking consonant 4 (0,57%)
Root + root with linking vowel 3 (0,43%)
Root + root + suffix 265 (87,75%)
Root + suffix + root + suffix 14 (4,64%)
Among the nouns of the second group the most prevalent pattern is root morpheme + root morpheme + suffix (table 4). Concerning the number of syllables, the most prevalent pattern is that where the first component is monosyllabic and the second consists of 2 or more syllables (table 3). Thus, we see that the structure of the word (the morphemes that constitute it and the number of syllables) influences the number and occurrence of word stresses in compound nouns.
Thus, the number of stresses in compound nouns can be said to depend on the number of syllables (as 2-syllable words are more likely to have single stress) and on the spelling of the word (as words written through a hyphen or separately are more likely to have 2 stresses).
Now we are going to regard each of these 2 groups in detail.
If we take the group with 1 stress, it consists of 698 nouns, all of which have the stress on the first element and none has the stress on the second element. We suppose that the reason for this can be in the recessive tendency, which was quite influential in the English language in Old English and Middle English periods. The prevalence in the Anglo-Saxon language of short monosyllabic and disyllabic words was responsible for the fact that the recessive tendency has been very strong. As the majority of the
nouns of this group consists of only two syllables, each component being monosyllabic (see table 3), the recessive tendency is still very strong and it pulls the stress to the initial syllable of short mono- and disyllabic words. In this case the rhythmic tendency is also active as according to this tendency 2 stressed syllables cannot occur in succession. That is the reason for the second element of the compound noun to lose its stress that it had if used in a citation form.
Thus, we can see that in the group of compound nouns with one word stress, consisting of 698 nouns these are primarily the recessive and the rhythmical tendencies that influence the placement of word stress.
The second group embraces compound nouns with two stresses. This group of nouns consists of 302 words. In this group both components retain stress, the one having the primary stress and the other - secondary stress. According to the orthography, much more words than in the first group are written through a hyphen or separately (table 2). We suppose that this fact has a slight influence on the number of stresses because writing the word as 2 separate words presupposes its treating like a phrase, where each notional word has word stress as the word in the citation form.
As far as the number of syllables is concerned, only 44 nouns of this group are 2 -syllable words (table 3). According to the rhythmic tendency these words must have only 1 word stress, but the point is that 39 of them are written separately 3 words are spelled through a hyphen and only 2 are spelled as 1 word. The nouns spelled separately are perceived as noun phrases where each notional word has word stress. It can be so that after some time when these words will be used in the language frequently, they will merge into 1 word, hence one of the stresses will be lost.
As far as the morphemic structure is concerned, much more nouns of this group have suffixes in their structure (table 4.4).
Still, the question remains, what the reasons for the distribution of stresses in the words of this group are. In other words, why some of the words have the primary stress on the first element and the secondary on the second, and others have the primary stress on the second element and the secondary stress on the first.
According to the stress distribution 302 nouns are divided in the following way:
261 nouns have the stress pattern '___and 41 nouns have the stress pattern__'_.
Having analyzed the semantic relations of the two components of these nouns we have concluded that in respect of the distribution of word stress this factor is most influential as the component that is more important semantically bears the primary stress. When the element which determines the meaning of the whole compound word is in the first position it bears the primary stress. The second element may be contrasted with another word with the same first element. ('wood-, carver vs 'wood, cutter; 'moneyt changer vs 'moneyt lender. When the element which determines the meaning of the whole compound word is in the final position, it has the primary stress. The first element may be contrasted with another word with the same second element. ( apple-pie vs i cherry 'pie).
Thus, we may conclude that the number of stresses in two-element compound nouns
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depends primarily on the number of syllables in a word and its morphemic structure. It is also influenced by the recessive and rhythmic tendencies of the English word stress. In the distribution of primary and secondary stresses the semantic factor plays an important role.
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