12 placement as well as their attitude towards English word stress. Not only were
phonological theories used as the ground, but also some morphological theories were since they were related to English word stress.
a. The Definition of Stress
English is one example of a stress-timed language other than Russian and Arabic Checklin, 2012: 1. The syllables of these languages are not stressed
equivalently, which means that there is always a syllable prominently emphasized among others. Stress-timed languages differ from that of syllable-timed languages
in the sense of the stress distribution. Syllable-timed languages do not weigh the differentiation of assigning stress on certain syllables of a word. Thus, syllable-
timed languages treat each syllable equally in terms of its duration and length Crystal as cited in Checklin, 2012: 2. There are two types of a stress-timed
language, notably a free-stress language and a fixed-stress language. A fixed-stress language typically has predictable stress patterns. Every word, no matter what it
belongs to lexically, is always stressed the same way without weighing the number of syllables Kager, 2007: 195.
There is an exception to this nature, because in fixed-stress languages, the morphological structure such as affixation may as well relocate the stress Kager,
2007, pp. 195-196. For example, in Turkish, the stress often falls on the final syllable, such as in tani-
ˈdik ‘acquintance’; tani-dik-ˈlar ‘acquintances’ and tani- dik-lar-
ˈim ‘my acquintaces’ Sezer as cited in Apoussidou, 2011: 97. The second type is a free-stress language, which does not reflect the nature of predictability of
13 the stress. Quite contrary to fixed-stress languages, the stress on a free-stress
language occurs freely, and does not depend merely on the number of syllables, as seen in Russian words such as boro
ˈda ‘beard – singular’, bˈorody ‘beard – plural’, ba
ˈgrit ‘to paint crimson’, and ˈbagrit ‘to spear fish’. A stress-timed language usually employs culminativity, a way in assigning
more prominence to a certain syllable Kager, 2007; Hayes, 2009. In other words, culminativity is only applicable to a syllable that acts as the peak. Hayes 2009
claims that there are exceptions to this culminativity that include auxiliary verbs, articles, prepositions, and pronouns p. 271. As neither part of a free-stressed nor
a fixed-stressed language, English adopts the stress patterns differently due to the nature of the borrowed Germanic and other Romanic languages such as Latin and
French McMahon, 2002: 120. Word stress in English, therefore, has strong affinity with Germanic, Latin,
and French languages McMahon, 2002: 120. The word stress in English is not different from the word stress in other languages since it distributes a ranged
amount of energy upon a certain syllable, so that it is louder and more powerful than other syllables in the word Yavas, 2011: 156. In line with what Yavas
proposes, Poldauf 1984 defines word stress as the most distinct syllable that carries the peak among other syllables of a word p. 12. This emphasis or peak is
in the form of energy allocation. By allocating more energy on a certain syllable, the syllable will be more prominent Dardjowidjojo, 2009: 163. It means to say
that the stress placement of a word is the allocation of greater emphasis to a syllable, so that it becomes intensified.
14 The intensification of a syllable of an English word could be the change in
pitch, length, andor loudness. Pitch is the most discernible feature of stress compared to length or loudness Fry as cited in Ashby, 2011: 160. These distinctive
pitch, loudness, and duration are all caused by the amount of energy allocated into a syllable of a word Katamba, 1996; Roach, 1998; McMahon, 2002; Gordon, 2011;
Ladefoged Johnson, 2011; Yavas, 2011. Stress is relative, which means that not all syllables carry the same amount of stress. There is always a secondary stressed
andor an unstressed syllable Giegerich, 1992: 179.
b. The Importance of Stress
