Degrees of stress and rhythmical tendency

There are actually as many: degrees of stress in a word as there are syllables. A.C.Gimson, for example, shows the distribution of the degrees of stress in the word examination. The opinions of phoneticians differ as to how many degrees of stress are linguistically relevant in, a word. The British linguists usually distinguish three degrees of stress in the word. The primary stress is the strongest, it is marked by number 1 in the, word examination, the secondary stress is the second strongest marked by 2. All the other degrees are termed weak stress. Unstressed syllables are supposed to have weak stress. The American scholars В.Bloch and G.Trager find
four contrastive degrees of word stress, namely: loud, reduced loud, medial and weak stresses. Other American linguists also distinguish four degrees of word stress but term them: primary stress, secondary stress, tertiary stress and weak stress. The difference between the secondary and tertiary stresses is very subtle and: seems subjective. The criteria of their difference are very vague. The second pretonic syllables of such words as libe'ration,,recog'nition are marked by secondary stress in RP, in General American they are said to have a tertiary stress. In GA a tertiary stress also affects the suffixes -оrу, -ary, -ony of nouns and the suffixes -ate, -ize, -y of verbs, which are considered unstressed in RP e.g. 'territory, 'cere,mony, 'dictio,nary, 'demonst,rate, 'orga,nize, 'simpli,fy. British linguists do not always deny the existence of tertiary stress as a tendency to use a tertiary stress On a post-tonic syllable in RP is also traced. However, the British conception of three degrees of word stress is accepted as the teaching norm.

We would like to point out right here that the accentual structure of English words is liable to instability due to the different origin of several layers in the Modern English wordstock. In Germanic languages the word stress originally fell on the initial syllable or the second syllable, the root syllable in the English words with prefixes. This tendency was called recessive. Most English words of Anglo-Saxon origin as well as the French borrowings (dated back to the 15th century) arе subjected to this recessive tendency. Unrestricted recessive tendency is observed in the native English Words having no prefix, e.g. mother, daughter, brother, swallow, in assimilated French borrowings, e.g. reason, colour, restaurant. Restricted recessive tendency marks English words with prefixes, e,g, foresee, begin, withdraw, apart. A great number of words of Anglo-Saxon origin are moresyllabic or disyllabic, both notional words and form words. They tend to alternate in the flow of speech, e.g. I 'don't be'lieve he's, 'right.     

The rhythm of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables gave birth to the rhythmical tendency in the present-day English which caused the appearance of the secondary stress in the multi-syllabic French borrowings, e.g.,revolution,,organi'sation, as,si-mi'lation, etc. It also explains the placement of primary stress on the third syllable from the end in three- and four-syllable words, e.g. 'cinema, 'situate, er'ticulate. The interrelation of both the recessive and the rhythmical tendencies is traced in the process of accentual assimilation of the French-borrowed word personal on the diachronic level, e;g; perso'nal — perso'nal — personal.

The appearance of the stress on the first syllable is the result of the recessive tendency and at the same time adaptation to the rhythmical tendency. The recessive tendency being stronger, the trisyllabic words like personal gained the only stress on the third syllable from the end, e.g. 'family, 'library, 'faculty, 'possible.

The accentual patterns of the words 'territory, 'dictionary, 'neces,sary in GA with the primary stress on the first syllable and the tertiary stress on the third are other examples illustrating the correlation of the recessive and rhythmical tendencies. Nowadays we witness a great number of variations in the accentual structure of English multisyllabic words as a result of the interrelation of the tendencies. The stress on the initial syllable is caused by the diachronical recessive tendency or the stress on the second syllable under the influence of the strong rhythmical tendency of the present day, e.g. 'hospitable— ho'spitable, 'distribute — dis'trihute, 'aristocrat — a'ristocrat, 'laryngoscope — la'ryngoscope.

A third tendency was traced in the instability of the accentual structure of English word stress, the retentive tendency: a derivative often retains the stress of the original or parent word, e.g. 'similar — as'similate, secom'mend - recomme'ndation.