We can only stress vowels, not consonants.

Here are some more, rather complicated, rules that can help you understand where to put the stress. But do not rely on them too much, because there are many exceptions. It is better to try to "feel" the music of the language and to add the stress naturally.

1 Stress on the first syllable

2 Stress on the last syllable

There are many two-syllable words in English whose meaning and class change with a change in stress. The word present, for example is a two-syllable word. If we stress the first syllable, it is a noun (gift) or an adjective (opposite of absent). But if we stress the second syllable, it becomes a verb (to offer). More examples: the words export, import, contract and object can all be nouns or verbs depending on whether the stress is on the first or second syllable.

3 Stress on penultimate syllable (penultimate = second from end)

For a few words, native English speakers don't always "agree" on where to put the stress. For example, some people say teleVIsion and others say TELevision. Another example is: CONtroversy and conTROversy.

4 Stress on ante-penultimate syllable (ante-penultimate = third from end)

5 Compound words (words with two parts)

СРСП 5 Sentence stress

Sentence stress is the governing stress in connected speech. All words have their individual stress in isolation. When words are connected into thought groups, and thought groups into sentences, content words keep their stress and function words lose their stress. The most important words in the sentence receive stronger stress. The last stressed word in the sentence receives the strongest stress with the help of falling or rising intonation. If it is necessary for keeping the rhythm, the stress in some words can be shifted or weakened in a certain way, for example:

New YORK - NEW York CITy

in the afterNOON - AFternoon SLEEP

Note: Capital letters show stressed syllables, the backslash shows falling intonation. Emphatic stress may be used in a sentence, usually to compare, correct or clarify things. Emphatic stress singles out the word that the speaker considers the most important and in this case even a function word may be stressed strongly, for example:

Tom gave the book to \ ANN.- Том дал книгу Анне .

\ HE gave her the book. - ОН дал ей книгу .

I said that \ MAX gave the book to Ann. - Я сказал , что МАКС дал книгу Анне .

Sentence stress is not just a phonetic peculiarity of English. Sentence stress has a very important function of marking the words that are necessary for understanding the utterance. When the English listen to their conversation partners, they listen for the stressed words, because the stressed words provide important information. It is often difficult to understand the meaning of the sentence in which even one content word is missing. It is also difficult to understand the sentence in which an important word is not stressed or a function word is stressed.

The unstressed function words make the sentence grammatically correct. They are not that important in terms of the information they provide and anyway, their meaning is understandable from the context and from their immediate surrounding in the sentence. Even if you don’t get some of the quickly pronounced function words, the meaning of the whole sentence will be clear to you.

For example, a message from your friend says, “Missed train back Sunday.” You will understand that it means “I missed my train and will be back on Sunday”, right? Only the content words are given in the message, but the meaning is clear. In the same way you should listen for the stressed content words in speech to understand the meaning of the whole utterance, and stress the content words yourself for the others to understand you.

Reduction

In English as well as in Russian vowels in unstressed syllables are usually reduced. The law of reduction is not the same. Reduction is a historical process of weakening, shortening or disappearance of vowel sounds in unstressed position. This phonetic phenomenon, as well as assimilation, is closely connected with the general development of the language system. Reduction reflects the process of lexical and grammatical changes.

    The neutral sound represents the reduced form of almost any vowel or diphtong in the unstressed position: combine [`kסmbain] – combine [kəm`bain]. The vowel sounds of the two related words are in contrast because of different stress positions. The sound [i] and also [ύ] in the suffix –ful are very frequent realization of the unstressed positions, for example possibility [,pסsi`biliti], beautiful [`bju:tifύl].

There is also tendency to retain the quality of the unstressed vowel sound, for example in retreat, programme, situate.

Non-reduced unstressed sounds are often retained in:

- compound words: blackboard, oilfield

- borrowings from the French and other languages: bourgeoisie, kolkhoz.

Reduction is closely connected not only with word stress, but also with rhythm and sentence stress. Stressed words are pronounced with great energy of breath. Regular loss of sentence stress of certain words is connected with partial or complete loss of their lexical significance. These words play the part of form-words in a sentence.

Palatalization

Палатализация или смягчение — процесс превращения согласных непалатальных или «твёрдых» в палатальные или нёбные («мягкие»). Палатализация совершается чаще всего под влиянием соседних палатальных гласных или согласных, представляя собой тот или другой вид фонетической ассимиляции (палатализация комбинаторная): регрессивной (под влиянием следующего нёбного гласного или согласного: [б'ит'] = бить, [кос'т'] = кость) и прогрессивной (под влиянием предыдущего нёбного звука: диалект. формы - Ванькя = [ван'к'а], чайкю = [чajк'у], ручкю = [руч'к'у] и т. д.). Нёбный резонанс нёбного согласного или гласного сообщается смежному согласному звуку, который и сам становится нёбным или "мягким". У некоторых согласных (например, у заднеязычных) палатализация может повлечь за собой уже спонтанеическое перерождение их в другие звуки. Так, праславянские небные [к'] и [г'] обратились впоследствии в отдельных славянских языках в аффрикаты [ч] (= [тш]) и [дж] (откуда позже просто [ж]): пеку ║ печёт, могу ║ может и т. д.

Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. g. alveolar) consonant. Palatalization is typically effected by bringing the tip of the tongue near the palatal ridge, and raising the middle part of the tongue towards the palatal vault. It tends to occur in the vicinity of front vowels or palatal approximants. The palate is the roof of the mouth in humans and vertebrate animals. ... Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. ... Alveolars are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, the internal side of the upper gums (known as the alveoles of the upper teeth). A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, palatalized consonants are denoted with a small superscript j, e. g. [dʲ]. The International Phonetic Alphabet is a phonetic alphabet used by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) the human vocal apparatus can produce. ...

Palatalization can be the result of:

- A synchronic phonological process, by which some phonemes are realized as palatalized sounds in certain contexts (e. g. before front vowels), and non-palatalized elsewhere. This process does not produce two phonemes, but only allophonic variation that might even go unnoticed to the speakers.

- A synchronic grammatical process, where palatalization as a form of consonant alternation serves a grammatical purpose (for example, palatalizing the first consonant of a verb root might signal the past tense). This type of palatalization is also phonemic (it is recognized by the speakers as a contrasting feature).

- A diachronic phonemic split, that is, a historical change by which a phoneme becomes two different phonemes over time through palatalization and produces lexical splits (pairs of words in which the speakers recognize two different sounds).

Palatalization has played a major role in the history of the Uralic, Romance, Slavic, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Indic languages, among many others throughout the world. In Japanese, for example, allophonic palatalization affected the alveolar stops /t/ and /d/ turning them into alveolo-palatal affricates before /i/ (Japanese has only recently regained phonetical [ti] and [di] through borrowed words, and thus palatalization has become lexical). Synchronic study is the study of language at a particular point in time. In spoken language, a phoneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words (that is changing one phoneme in a word can produce another word) A succinct way to describe the idea of a phoneme is the smallest difference that makes a difference in meaning. ...In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar phones that belong to the same phoneme. Diachronic study is the study of the development of a language over a period of time. Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time, by means of examining languages which are recognizably related through similarities such as vocabulary, word formation, and syntax, as well as the surviving records of ancient languages.

Palatalization is common in many languages. Some English examples are: The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. The t of question and nature are pronounced as ch, or the d of soldier and procedure sound like j. As these examples suggest, in English orthography, palatalization is often indicated by a following i or u. An example from casual speech can be found when what are you up to comes out like whacha up to.

The historical change in pronunciation of the initial sound in Caesar from the /k/ sound in Classical Latin to the familiar /s/ sound in English and some other languages, through several intermediate steps (palatalized /k/ becomes an affricate, and then loses the plosive component). This change occurred universally in Latin after front vowels such as e or i.

СРСП 11 Linking [r]. Intrusive [r]

Linking R and intrusive R are phonological phenomena that occur in many non-rhotic dialects of English. In all non-rhotic dialects, the phoneme /ɹ/ does not appear in the coda of a syllable (so spar is pronounced the same as spa); in dialects with linking and/or intrusive R, however, /ɹ/ may appear at a word boundary before a vowel-initial word.

Linking R

The linking R occurs in most (but not all) non-rhotic dialects of English. In dialects that possess linking R, if a word that ends with /ɹ/ precedes a word that begins with a vowel, /ɹ/ will be realized at the onset of the next word. Thus, for example, the R in here would not be pronounced in here they are (because it is followed by a consonant), but it would be pronounced in here I am. Likewise, the R at the end of far would only be pronounced if the next word begins with a vowel, as in far away or far off. In other words, in a non-rhotic dialect with linking R, [ɹ] is retained only if it is followed by a vowel, including across word boundaries.

Intrusive R

Some (but not all) dialects that possess linking R also possess intrusive R. In a dialect with intrusive R, an epenthetic [ɹ] is added after a word that ends in a non-high vowel or glide if the next word begins with a vowel, regardless of whether the first word historically ended with /ɹ/ or not. For example, intrusive R would appear in Asia[ɹ] and Africa or the idea[ɹ] of it: Asia and idea did not historically end in /ɹ/, but the [ɹ] is inserted epenthetically to prevent a hiatus. Intrusive R also occurs within words before certain suffixes, such as draw[ɹ]ing or withdraw[ɹ]al. This is now so common in England that by 1997 the linguist John C. Wells considered it objectively part of Received Pronunciation, but he noted that it was still stigmatized as an incorrect pronunciation, as it is or was in some other standardized non-rhotic accents.