Stress in English and Arabic

Stress in English and Arabic Introduction Supra-segmental features (stress, along with pitch, intonation, and length) are very important for they give the language its appearance, therefore, are central to the communication of meaning. The Arabic and English phonological system vary extensively, not only in the range of the sounds each language has, but also in the relative importance of vowels, consonant, syllables, and these supra-segmental phonemes. Therefore, learners of English face problems when they use stress. Her, I am going to discuss Stress, Stress degrees, types and location.

Stress • The term stress is defined as syllable prominence. Prominence may derive from several phonetic factors such as increased length, loudness, pitch movement or a combination of these aspects. The following lines indicate stress both within utterances and within words.

Stress within utterances and within words • The location of the major stressed syllable within utterances can be responsible for changing the intended meaning. In examples (1.a and 1.b), the syllables that carry the major stress are capitalized. • 1a: I THOUGHT you would eat it ( intended meaning : you have eaten it) • 1b: I thought you would EAT it ( intended meaning : you have not eaten it).

Rhythm and Stress in English and Arabic • Rhythm and stress are connected terms; they imply the same meaning in many cases. So the rhythmic pattern of the sentence is dependent on the number of stressed syllables. Therefore, English rhythm is stress-timed while Arabic rhythm is syllable-timed. English rhythm has been called stress-timed rhythm. Spanish, German, French, Japanese, in addition to Arabic all have syllable-timed rhythm.

Types of English stress English stress is dependent on the origin of words and the rhythmic factors (heavy-light syllables). Words borrowed from Latin and other languages are stressed differently. In the case of Anglo Saxon words, the first syllable of the root is stressed e.g., in the following words the stress is in the first syllable "blossom, holy, body, never ".

Word Stress: • English word stress is not always on the first syllable. Here are some examples of stress in different syllables of the word: • comPUter LANguages pronunCIAtion. • Sometimes you can predict the stress placement because of the type of word or the ending you put on it.

Phrase Stress Phrase stress is an important part of the rhythm in English. It is a term that refers to the most stressed word in each phrase • (thought group) in a sentence. What are the patterns? When we read a sentence normally (without giving any extra emphasis), each thought group (phrase) in a sentence has one word that is the most stressed.

Placement of stress in English • “In order to decide on stress placement, it is necessary to mark some or all of the following information • Whether the word is morphologically simple or complex. • The grammatical category to which the word belongs (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc). • The number of syllables in the word and the phonological structure.

Stress in simple words: • a- Stress in two syllable words: • Verbs • -If the secondary syllable of the verb has a long vowel or if it ends with more than one consonant, the second syllable is stressed. • e.g. a’pply , a’ssist. • -If the final syllable contains a short vowel and one final consonant, the first syllable is stressed. • e.g ‘open ‘equal.

Nouns • -If the second syllable contains a short vowel the stress comes on the first syllable. e.g. ‘money ‘product. • -Most adjectives , adverbs and prepositions seems to behave like verbs and have stress in the first syllable. e. g ‘lovely ‘even , ‘willing, 'honest , ‘perfect

Stress in three syllable words: • Verbs • -If the last syllable contains a short vowel and ends with not more than one consonant, the syllable will be unstressed and stress will be placed on the preceding syllable, e.g. en’counter , de’termine • -If the final syllable contains along vowel or diphthong, or ends with more than one consonant, the final syllable will be stressed. • e.g. enter’tain

Nouns • -if the syllable preceding the final syllable contains a long vowel or diphthong, or it ends with more one consonant, the middle syllable will be stressed, e.g. • mi’mosa di’saster • - if the final syllable contains a short vowel and the middle syllable contains a short vowel and ends with not more than one consonant, both final and middle syllables are unstressed and the first syllable is stressed. e.g. ‘quantity , ‘cinema

Adjectives • - Adjectives seem to need the same rule, e.g. ‘opportune , ‘insolent • -if the word ends in-ic-sion-tion, it has stress on the second syllable from the end, e.g., so’lution ter’rific

Phrase Stress • Below you hear two sentences read slowly and deliberately as if they were said in a presentation: • The noisy car /has been parked/ in the garage. • Many people/ often read/ the business section / of the newspaper. • When they are said more rapidly there will be fewer pause and less stress, e.g., • The noisy car has been parked in the garAGE. • Many people/often read/ the business section/ of the NEWspaper

Adjectives • - Adjectives seem to need the same rule, e.g. ‘opportune , ‘insolent • -if the word ends in-ic-sion-tion, it has stress on the second syllable from the end, e.g., so’lution ter’rific

Stress in complex words • A complex word consists of two or more grammatical units, e.g. carefully and careless. • “Complex words are of two major types: word made from a basic stem word with the addition of an affix, and compound words, which are made of two independent English words, e.g. ice-cream, armchair

Affixes effects on word stress • Affixes have three possible effects on word stress. • the affix itself receives the primary stress. • e.g. ‘ semicircle , person ’ality • the word is stressed just if the affix was not there . • e.g. un ‘ pleasant , ‘ marketing • the stress remains on the stem, not the affix, but is shifted to a different syllable. • e.g. magn ‘ netic.

Stress in compound words • Compound words are characterized by the probability to divide them into two words , both of which can exist independently as English words. • The stress in compound words mainly fall on the first syllable. • e.g. ‘type writer , ‘tea cup

Arabic Stress Arabic lexical stress is more predictable than English stress. Arabic has stress placement rules that operate at the word level. The placement of stress is determined by the number and length of the syllables in the word. In brief the system, degree, placement types, and location of stress in Arabic differ completely from English stress.

Arabic syllable Structure • Arabic has two kinds of syllables: open syllables (cv) and (cvv) and closed syllables (cvc), ( cvvc) and (cvcc). Every syllable begins with a consonant or else a consonant is borrowed from a previous word through elision – especially in the case of the definite article ?al (the) ( used when starting an utterance) or – L (when following a word), e.g., baytu-l mudiir بيت المدير“ house ( of) the director” , which because bay-tul – mu –diir when divided syllabically. By itself the definite noun mudiir would be pronounced / ?al mudi:/

Placement of stress in Arabic • According to Kharama and Hajjaj (1989:27), the placement of Arabic stress can be classified as follows: • (1-) Word Stress • a-1) Words of one syllable have primary stress whether it is long or short. • e.g. /‘bard/ ( cold ) برد • /’tar/ ( the flew ) طار • /’fi/ ( in ) في • b-1) Words of two or three syllables take a primary stress on the first syllable. • e.g. /’?na / (I) أنا • /’?abadan/ (never) أبداً • /’kataba/ (he wrote ) كتب

Arabic syllable Structure • c-1) A multi syllable word takes the primary stress on the last syllable. • e.g. /yakt’ubun/ ( they wrote ) يكتبون • /ta’wus/ ( peacock) طاووس • d-) if the syllable is CVCC or CVVC, the stress is in the final syllable • e.g/ kTABT كتبت / / naiiS / نعيش

Sentence stress in Arabic • a-2)-Some articles in Arabic are not stressed if they are followed by words with two consonants, and if they do not take secondary stress. • e.g /’fi/ (in) في / fi-l-‘bayt/ في البيت ( at home) but • /,fi bay’tina / في بيتنا (in our home ) with secondary stress.

Sentence stress in Arabic • b-2)- Inversion of subject and predicate seems to change the words on which the stress falls, but not the stress type. • e.g ا / ar-rajulu fi –l-‘bayt/ الرجل في البيت (the man in the house ). • /fi-l-bayti –‘rajul/ في البيت رجل (there is a man in the house). • c-2)- With the possessive phrase stress on the second part . • e.g بيتالرجل/bayt-ur-‘rajul/ ( the man’s house ). • الولدكتاب /kitab Al-‘walad/ ( the boy’s book).

Sentence stress in Arabic • d-2)- Stress placement concerning the inseparable pronouns with verbs within a sentence varies: • e.g / ‘dahaba/ ذهب (he went ). • / da'habat / ذهبت (she went ). • They keep stress on the second syllable of the verb. • Finally, when emphasizing some words of the sentence, stress in this case becomes movable. • e.g /’sami wajada muna /(sami found muna)سامي وجد مني . • /sami ‘wajada muna /(sami found muna)سامي وجد مني . • /sami wajada ‘muna /(sami found muna). سامي وجد مني

Stress in English and Arabic