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II. The types of word stress.

1. In different languages one of the factors constituting word stress is usually more significant than the others. According to the most important feature different types of word stress are distinguished in different languages.

1) If special prominence in a stressed syllable or syllables is achieved mainly through the intensity of articulation, such type of stress is called dynamic, or force stress.

2) If special prominence in a stressed syllable is achieved mainly through the change of pitch, or musical tone, such accent is called musical, or tonic. It is characteristic of the Japanese, Korean and other oriental languages.

3) If special prominence in a stressed syllable is achieved through the changes in the quantity of the vowels (length), which are longer in the stressed syllables than in the unstressed ones, such type of stress is called quantitative.

4) Qualitative type of stress is achieved through the changes in the quality of the vowel under stress, it influences the distinctness of pronunciation.

Stress is seldom of one of these kinds. There are some languages where the stress is purely tonic: Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese. In many languages they use 2 or 3 means: Swedish (tonic and dynamic). As for English and Russian, they use all the 4 means: loudness (force), pitch, sound quality and sound quantity (length). English word stress is traditionally defined as dynamic, but in fact, the special prominence of the stressed syllables is manifested not only through the increase of intensity, but also through the changes in the vowel quantity, consonant and vowel quality and pitch of the voice. These means are subsidiary. In English the quantitative component of word stress is not of primary importance because of the nonreduced vowels in the unstressed syllables which sometimes occur in English words, e.g. ‘architect, ‘transport, ‘partake. All English vowels may occur in accented syllables, the only exception is [ə], which is never stressed. English vowels [i, u, əu] tend to occur in unstressed syllables. Syllables with the syllabic [l, m, n] are never stressed. Unstressed diphthongs may partially lose their glide quality.

Russian stress is not only dynamic but mostly quantitative and qualitative. The length of the Russian vowels always depends on the position in a word. The quality of unaccented vowels in Russian may differ greatly from the quality of the same vowels under stress, e.g. [a] in травы, травы, травяной, [а, о, э] undergo the greatest changes. Russian phoneticians (Zlatoustova, Bulanin) insist on the quantitative character of the Russian word stress as its principal feature, though other components of word stress in Russian are not denied.

2. Languages are also differentiated according to the placement of word stress. The traditional classification of languages concerning place of stress in a word is into those with a fixed stress and those with a free stress. In languages with a fixed stress the occurrence of the word stress is limited to a particular syllable in a multisyllabic word. For instance, in French the stress falls on the last syllable of the word (if pronounced in isolation), in Finnish and Czech it is fixed on the first syllable, in Polish on the one but last syllable. Some foreign words borrowed into Russian and proper names retain the original stresses and give an idea of the fixed word stress, e.g. French: Париж, кашне, партер; Finnish: Хельсинки, сауна; Czech: Злата Прага, Карловы Вары; Polish: Варшава, Познань.

In languages with a free stress its place is not confined to a specific position in the word. In one word it may fall on the first syllable, in another on the second syllable, in the third word – on the last syllable, etc. The free placement of stress is exemplified in the English and Russian languages, e.g. English: ‘appetite – be ‘ginning – instru ‘mental; Russian: озеро – погода – молоко. The word stress in English as well as in Russian is not only free but it may also be shifting, performing the semantic function of differentiating lexical units, parts of speech, grammatical forms. It is worth noting that in English word stress is used as a means of word-building, in Russian it marks both word-building and word formation, e.g. ‘contrast – con ‘trast; ‘habit – ha ‘bitual; ‘music – mu ‘sician; дома – дома; чудная – чудная; воды – воды; козы – козы.