Differences of lexical stress assignments in British and American English - USD Repository
DIFFERENCES OF
LEXICAL STRESS ASSIGNMENTS
IN BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH
A Thesis
Presented to the Graduate Program in English Language Studies
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Magister Humaniora (M. Hum)
in English Language Studies
Carla Sih Prabandari
056332013
ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES
THE GRADUATE PROGRAM
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
January, 2008
DIFFERENCES OF
LEXICAL STRESS ASSIGNMENTS
IN BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH
A Thesis
Presented to the Graduate Program in English Language Studies
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Magister Humaniora (M. Hum)
in English Language Studies
Carla Sih Prabandari
056332013
ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES
THE GRADUATE PROGRAM
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
January, 2008
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY
This is to certify that all the ideas, phrases and sentences, unless otherwise stated, are the ideas, phrases and sentences of the thesis writer. The writer understands the full consequences including degree cancellation if she takes somebody else’s ideas, phrases and sentences without a proper reference.
ABSTRACT
CARLA SIH PRABANDARI. (2008). DIFFERENCES OF LEXICAL STRESS
ASSIGNMENTS IN BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH. Yogyakarta:
English Language Studies, Graduate Program, Sanata Dharma University The present study is an attempt to investigate the differences between
British English (BE) and American English (AE) from the view point of lexical stress assignments. The study is aimed at answering two research questions. The first is how BE and AE differ in the assignments of lexical stress. The second is questioning the linguistic factors which account for the differences.
As the bases of the analysis, some theories are reviewed. The first is the theory of English phonology which mainly discusses English syllable structure and English stress systems. Second, the discussion on English morphology is also presented because morphology also influences stress placement. The last is a brief history of the source of English vocabulary. The study is a dictionary analysis. It means it relies on the dictionary as the source of data. The data were collected
th from the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 7 ed., published in 2005.
The first part of the findings is the result of a thorough manual scanning of the dictionary which yielded total of 308 words showing the different stress placements in BE and AE. They consist of 60 adjectives and adverb, 203 nouns and 45 verbs. Based on the syntactic categorization of the lexical items, in adjectives and adverbs, the primary stress in BE tends to fall farther to the left and in AE to the right. The primary stress of nouns in BE also tends to fall farther to the left but in AE to the right. Finally, the phenomenon of stress differences in verbs happens to be the opposite of the previous categories. In BE, the stress of the verbs falls farther to the right than that of AE.
The second part of the findings shows that the linguistic factors which account for the different stress assignments in BE and AE are phonological factors, namely syllable weight and stress assignment rules, morphological processes and etymological background of words.
The phonological analysis revealed that for stress assignment purposes, syllable weight plays a significant role in determining the stress both in BE and AE, i.e. the syllable weight is decisive for stress purposes: heavy syllables usually attract stress. Within the framework of stress assignment rules, it was find out that the same word may be stressed differently in BE and AE because those varieties apply different rules of stress assignments. The morphological analysis showed that morphological processes can override phonological rules in certain cases. However, such cases cannot be generalized because they are also lexically conditioned. This lexical conditioning makes certain affixes behave differently when combine with certain lexicon. The etymological analysis revealed that word origin sometimes influences the stress in either BE or AE. Loanwords from languages with a very different nature from English may be stressed differently in the two varieties. While in one variety the stress of the loanwords has adopted the rules of stress in English, in the other variety, the stress stills follow the stress of their origin.
ABSTRAK
CARLA SIH PRABANDARI. (2008). DIFFERENCES OF LEXICAL STRESS
ASSIGNMENTS IN BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH. Yogyakarta:
Kajian Bahasa Inggris, Program Pasca Sarjana, Universitas Sanata Dharma.Penelitian ini merupakan sebuah upaya untuk mempelajari perbedaan antara British English (BE) dan American English (AE) dari sudut pandang letak tekanan kata. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menjawab dua pertanyaan yang diajukan. Pertama, bagaimana perbedaan BE dan AE dalam letak tekanan kata. Kedua, faktor linguistik apa yang berpengaruh dalam perbedaan letak stress.
Beberapa teori diulas sebagai dasar dalam menganalisis data. Pertama adalah teori tentang Phonology bahasa Inggris yang mencakup struktur suku kata dan sistem tekanan kata dalam bahasa Inggris. Kedua adalah paparan mengenai morphology bahasa Inggris karena morphology merupakan faktor yang mempengaruhi letak tekanan. Terakhir adalah tinjauan singkat mengenai sejarah asal usul kosa kata dalam bahasa Inggris. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode analisis kamus. Jadi data yang dikupmulkan bersumber dari kamus. Sumber data adalah dari kamus Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, edisi 7, terbitan tahun 2005.
Bagian pertama dari hasil penelitian ini merupakan hasil dari proses penelusuran kamus yang berhasil mengidentifikasi total keseluruhan 308 kata yang mendapat tekanan berbeda dalam BE and AE. Angka tersebut terdiri dari 60 kata sifat dan kata keterangan, 203 kata benda, dan 45 kata kerja. Berdasarkan penggolongan menurut jenis kata, pada kata sifat dan kata keterangan, tekanan primer cenderung terletak lebih ke kiri dalam BE dan lebih ke kanan dalam AE. Tekanan primer pada kata benda juga menunjukkan kecenderungan yang sama, yaitu lebih ke kiri pada BE dan ke kanan pada AE. Yang terakhir, fenomena perbedaan stress pada verb menunjukkan hal yang berlawanan dari kata sifat, kata keterangan maupun kata benda. Di BE tekanan pada verb cenderung lebih ke kanan.
Bagian kedua dari hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa faktor linguistik yang mempengaruhi peletakan tekanan adalah faktor fonologi, yaitu berat ringannya suku kata dan sistem aturan tekanan, faktor morfologi, yaitu proses-proses morfologi, and faktor etimologi yaitu latar belakang asal-usul kata.
Analisis fonologi mengungkapkan bahwa dalam penentuan letak tekanan suatu kata, berat-ringannya suku kata berperan sangat penting baik dalam BE maupun AE. Dengan kata lain, berat suku kata menentukan letak penekanan dalam kata. Suku kata yang berat biasanya memungkinkan mendapat tekanan. Dalam kerangka sistem pengaturan tekanan, terbukti bahwa sebuah kata yang sama bisa mendapat tekanan yang berbeda dalam BE dan AE karena kedua dialek menggunakan aturan berbeda dalam peletakan tekanan. Analisis morfologi membuktikan bahwa dalam kasus tertentu, proses-proses morfologi dapat menunggangi aturan-aturan fonologi. Namun demikian, hal tersebut tidak dapat digeneralisasikan karena dalam hal ini kasus tersebut dikondisikan oleh leksikon. Kondisi yang dipengaruhi oleh leksikon/kata membuat afiks tertentu bertindak secara berbeda bila digabungkan dengan kata-kata tertentu. Analisis etimologi mengungkapkan bahwa asal-usul kata terkadang berpengaruh pada letak tekanan entah dalam BE atau AE. Kata-kata serapan dari bahasa yang memiliki karakteristik yang berbeda dari bahasa Inggris mungkin mendapat tekanan pada suku kata yang berbeda di BE dan AE. Di satu dialek letak tekanan dari kata serapan mungkin sudah mengadopsi sistem tekanan dalam bahasa Inggris, di dialek yang lain, letak tekanan masih mengikuti sistem dari bahasa aslinya.
PREFACE
This thesis tries to look at the differences between BE and AE as the two most prominent varieties of English from the view point of the words stress placement. In English there is a special relationship between different parts of a word. In an English word of two or more syllables, one of these will have the prominence or stress. If a learner does not stress one syllable more than another or stresses the wrong syllable, it may be very difficult for the listener to identify the word. This is because the stress pattern of a word is an important part of its identity for the native speaker. However, in this study, the word stress differences between BE and AE do not seem to cause a serious problem of intelligibility.
BE and AE referred to in this study may be considered as two different dialects of English. However, they may also be treated as different languages although they are by far mutually intelligible. Just as two different languages can have their own linguistic features, so do BE and AE. They may have their own grammar. They may have their own phonological systems. The first objective of the study is to investigate how much BE and AE are different in terms of word stress placements. The second objective is to identify linguistic factors which may be responsible for the variations to appear. In other words, it is meant to find out the reasons why such variations are possible to occur. However, this study does not aim at judging which variety is better. It is because we all know that all languages in the world and all varieties of any language are linguistically equal. Furthermore, this study does not suggest that we over-emphasize the differences between the two varieties and that one variety is better than the other.
I would like to praise and thank God for His blessings and providence. He has sent me so many helping hands that finally I managed to finish this thesis. First of all, I would like to address my special thanks to Dr. Fr. B. Alip,
M.Pd. M.A., my advisor, for his guidance, correction and encouragement. I am sincerely grateful to him also for sparing his invaluable time for consultation.
I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. B.B. Dwijatmoko, M.A. for his encouragement and for lending me many books. I would also like to seize this opportunity to acknowledge my sincere gratitude to all teachers of the English Language Studies at Sanata Dharma University. They have motivated me to learn and study more to improve my professionalism. Special thanks and appreciation are also due to all my classmates for their sincerity to share their knowledge. I do hope that they also benefit from our friendship.
Let me also thank all my colleagues at the English Language Education Study Program for their encouragement and attention. They have been the source of my motivation to be a more professional teacher.
Last, but not least, I am indebted to my husband and children, my father and mother, my brothers and sisters and my family-in-law for their love, support and encouragement they have granted me throughout the writing of this thesis.
Carla Sih Prabandari
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN
PUBLIKASI KARMA JILMLAR UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma: Nama : Carla Sih Prabandari Nomor Mahasiswa : 056332013
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:
DIFFERENCES OF LEXICAL STRESS ASSIGNMENTS IN BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH
beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk: pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di Internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.
Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta Pada tanggal: 5 Mei 2008 Yang menyatakan (Carla Sih Prabandari)
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page
PAGE OF TITLE …………………………………………………………... i PAGES OF APPROVAL …………………………………………………... ii STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ………………………………………... iv ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………........... v
ABSTRAK …………………………………………………………............... vii
PREFACE ………………………………………………………….............. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS …………………………………………………... xi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ………………...……………………………. xiv LIST OF FIGURES …………………………...……………………………. xv LIST OF TABLES …………………………………………………………. xvi CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION …………………………………………...
1 A. Background of the Study ……………………………………………….
1 B. Problem Limitation ….…………………………………………………...
5 C. Problem Formulation …………………………………………………….
6 D. Objectives of the Study ………………………………………………...
7 E. Benefits of the Study …………………………………………………...
7 CHAPTER II. THEORETICAL REVIEW …………………………………
8 A. Theoretical Review ...………………………………………....................
8 1. The English Syllables ...……………………………………………….
8 a. Syllable Structure …………………………………………..............
9 b. Syllabification …… …………………………………………..........
10 c. Types of Syllables ………………………………………….............
14 2. Stress Patterns in English …………………………………………......
15 a. Definition of Stress …………………………………………...........
15
b. Stress and Syllable Structure ………………………………………
16 c. Ambisyllabicity ………………………………………….................
16 d. Degrees of stress …………………………………………...............
17 e. Lexical Stress and Lexical Category ……………………………….
20
f. Stress Placement ………………………………..…………………..
21 g. Stress Rules in English …………………………..….......................
22 3. Morphological Processes ……………………………………………...
25 a. Affixation …………………………………………..........................
25 b. Conversion …………………………………………........................
26 c. Compounding …………………………………………....................
27 d. Backformation …………………………………………..................
28 e. Borrowing ………………………………………….........................
28 4. Origin of English Vocabulary ………………………………………...
29 a. Anglo-Saxon Bases …………………………………………...........
30 b. Celtic Borrowings ………………………………………….............
30 c. Latin Borrowings …………………………………………..............
31 d. Scandinavian Borrowings ………………………………………….
31 e. French Borrowings …………………………………………............
32 B. Previous Research ……………………………………………………….
34
1. Ling and Grabe’s Study on British and Singapore English ..…………
34 2. Berg’s Study on British and American English ..……………………..
34 C. Theoretical Framework ………………………………………….............
35 CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY …………………………..
40 A. Research Method ………………………………………….......................
40 B. Data Source and Data Gathering ………………………………………...
40 C. Data Processing ………………………………………….........................
41 D. Data Analysis …………………………………………............................
42 CHAPTER IV. RESEARCH FINDINGS, ANALYSIS AND
44 DISCUSSION ……………………………………………..……….…… A. Research Findings ………. ……………………………….......................
44 1. Adjectives and Adverbs ………………………………………….........
45 2. Nouns ………………………………………….....................................
47 3. Verbs ………………………………………….....................................
50 B. Analysis and Discussion …………………………………………............
51 1. Phonological Conditioning of Stress in BE and AE ………………….
51
a. Adjectives and Adverbs …………………………………………....
52 b. Nouns …………………………………………................................
57 c. Verbs ………………………………………….................................
64 2. Morphological Influence on Stress Placement in BE and AE ………..
68 a. Prefixation ………………………………………….........................
68 b. Suffixation …………………………………………........................
74 c. Conversion …………………………………………........................
81 d. Backformation …………………………………………..................
86 e. Compound Stress…………………………………………...............
87 3. Etymological Influence of Stress ……………………………………..
89 a. French Loans ………………………………………….....................
89 b. Loans from other languages ………………………………………..
90 CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS …………………..
97 A. Conclusions …………………………………………...............................
97 B. Suggestions …………………………………………................................ 101 BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………….......................... 103 APPENDICES ……………………………………………………………… 106
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
U : Ultimate (Final) PU : Penultimate (Second from the last) APU : Antepenultimate (Third from the last) PAPU : Pre-antepenultimate (Fourth from the last) APAPU : Ante-Pre-antepenultimate (Fifth from the last) MSR : Main Stress Rules LVS : Long Vowel Stressing ESR : Early Stress Requirement DSS : Derivational Secondary Stress SCA : Stress Clash Avoidance ASR : Alternating Stress Rule BE : British English AE : American English A : Applicable NA : Not Applicable
LIST OF FIGURES
Page Figure 2.1 The basic structure of a syllable ………………………………..
10 Figure 2.2 The steps of setting up a syllable ………………………………
11 Figure 2.3 Example of syllabification of the verb construct …….....……... 12 Figure 2.4 The syllabification of the word sprint …..……………………..
13 Figure 2.5 The syllabification of the word mind …..……………………… 13
Figure 2.6 The syllabification of the word texts …..……………………… 13 Figure 2.7 Coda capture: Ambisyllabic consonant ………………………...17 Figure 2.8 The classification English vowels ..……………………………
19
LIST OF TABLES
Page Table 3.1 Classification of raw data ……………………………………….
42 Table 3.2 Summary of data classification ………………………………….
42 Table 4.1 Frequency distribution of stress divergent words ……………….
44 Table 4.2 Adjectives and Adverb Stress Patterns ………………………….
45 Table 4.3 Noun Stress Patterns …………………………………………….
48 Table 4.4 Noun Stress Patterns …………………………………………….
50 Table 4.5 Stress Patterns of Adjectives ending in –ary/-ory ……………...
76 Table 4.6 Nouns ending in –y/-ary/-ory ………………...…..…………….. 77
Table 4.7 Suffix –ly ……………………………………………………….. 77Table 4.8 Adjectives ending in –ate ……………..………………………... 78Table 4.9 Verbs ending in –ate ……………………………………………. 80Table 4.10 Backformation of verbs ending in –ate ……………..………... 87 Table 4.11 French Loan Compound Words ……………………………….88 Table 4.12 Compound Words ……………………………………………...
88 Table 4.13 Latin Loanwords with PU stress in BE ………………………..
91 Table 4.14 Greek Loanwords with PU stress in BE ……………………….
92
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This chapter consists of five sections. The first is the background of the
study. It discusses the reasons underlying the present study. The second section is the problem limitation which narrows down the scope of the study. The third section is the problem formulation. The last two sections are the objectives and the benefits of the study.
A. Background of Study
The use of speech sound for communication is one of characteristics of human language. It is actually a secondary function of human organs (Aitchison, 2003). Language makes use of a limited number of sounds, which are meaningless. Yet, those limited sounds can be combined to form an unlimited number of meaningful units of words (Carstairs-McCarthy, 2002). This feature of language has been called duality. Speech sound, however, are not randomly combined. There are rules to obey in order to build a possibly acceptable word. Words, therefore, can be broken down into individual sound segments. In the case of English, besides rules for combining sound segments into words, there are also rules that govern the stress placements. Violating the stress rules may result in a change in meaning, or, even worse, in a misunderstanding. Furthermore, linguists consider word stress as a high priority in any pronunciation teaching (Kenworthy, 1987).
As an English teacher, I often have to answer my students’ question about what variety of English I speak and teach. They want to know whether I speak British or American English. After all, English has spread too far and wide to be uniform. As a matter of fact, there are numerous varieties of English. People recognize British English and American English as the most prominent varieties. Logically, for Indonesian people being able to speak either of the two varieties is ideal because they consider British English and American English as the two most influential and prestigious varieties. Since Indonesians are mostly foreign learners of English, it is useful, therefore, to choose one of them as their reference accent.
Due to a series of historical events, English has developed into a lot of varieties. Two most prominent varieties have been mentioned above. One is Standard British English and the other is Standard American English. It has been known that British and American English differ in some respects. Among others are lexical, phonological and syntactic differences. The structure of subjunctive exhibits one of syntactic differences (Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik: 1985), as seen in the example below: BE: The employees demanded that he should resign.
AE: The employees demanded that he resign.
In addition, AE uses simple past tense in some case where BE prefers to use present perfect tense, e.g. He’s just gone home and He just went home. As for difference in spelling, some are quite systematic, e.g. British word ending -our and -ise are -or and -ize in AE respectively, and some apply to individual words, such as BE cheque and programme become check and program in AE (Quirk et al. 1985). Examples of lexical differences are abundant. Below are a few of them.
BE AE
Mobile phone cellphone Petrol gas Tap faucet Cooker stove Sweets candy
Among those aspects which differentiate British English from American English, however, phonological differences are the most easily observed.
Phonological differences between British and American English cover both segmental level, such as phoneme variations, and suprasegmental levels, such as pronunciation and stress placement. In terms of phoneme variation, BE is known as a non-rhotic dialect, while AE is a rhotic one (McMahon, 2002). In BE word final sound /r/ in words like war and care is not pronounced unless it is followed by a word beginning with a vowel, but in AE /r/ is retained. In addition, a number
/ of systematic sound correspondence can be identified, e.g. the BE diphthong
əʊ/ / in know, go and boat is pronounced as in EA. The word garage is
ʊo/ pronounced differently in British and American. Besides, American English uses flapping sound, which is not present in British English. American would pronounce the /t/ and /d/ in the words writer and rider as almost the same /raiDer/.
All these indicate that phonology may cause serious problems in the process of teaching and learning English. Of course, there are plenty other evidence showing the differences between BE and AE but they are irrelevant to be discussed here. However, for most Indonesian, there is another problem which is sometimes ignored by English teachers, that is the English stress pattern. Since learning a language means learning to speak, pronunciation becomes important. Being able to speak and pronounce words with the right stress is important because the primary function of language is for oral communication. Thus, pronunciation is the gist of language. In many occasions, language mastery is closely associated with education, so any language error affects the credibility of the speaker. We may ask ourselves: how often we judge one's overall competence from their pronunciation. Although it is not always true, we often consider people with sloppy pronunciation as less competent than those with careful pronunciation. Moreover, superior language skills are especially important to businesses whose consumers are educated professionals, such as physicians and lawyers. And if the speaker represents a business, it will be a reflection of the general quality of the business.
There is a danger when the teachers are not aware that Indonesian and English are two different languages in nature. The facts that Indonesian is a relatively syllable-timed language and English is a stress-timed language are often overlooked. In Indonesian, the length of utterances is very much influenced by the number of syllables in them. In contrast, the length of utterances in English depends mostly on the number of stressed elements in them. As a consequence of not realizing this significant difference, many English teachers speak without paying attention to the stress patterns. It means that they fail to be a good model for their students. Therefore, their students often make mistakes in stress placement.
Correct word stress patterns are essential for the learner’s production and perception of English (Kenworthy, 1987). It is very likely that if a non-native speaker produces a word with the wrong stress pattern, an English listener may have difficulty in understanding the word, even if the individual sounds have been well pronounced. Before expecting that their students can speak with clear pronunciation, an English teacher should have awareness of word stress and sentence stress (Kelly, 2000). Therefore, in introducing a new vocabulary item, for example, the teacher must have some considerations, such as what the students need to know about the new word to be introduced: meaning, spelling, pronunciation and even collocation. With regards to pronunciation, stresses are important. Learners need to develop a concern for stresses in their pronunciation. It is difficult for a learner to do it themselves, so it is the teacher’s job. As the teachers themselves have gained awareness of stress, they can and should find various ways to encourage students’ awareness of stress, too.
B. Problem Limitation
There are many varieties of English other than British and American. All those other varieties are just as worthy of study as British and American.
However, these two varieties are the ones spoken by most native speakers of English and studied by most foreign learners. British English (BE) in this study refers to the form of English which is also known as Received Pronunciation (or
RP). Meanwhile, American English (AE) in this study refers to the variety of
English spoken mostly in North America, some people also call it General
American (GA). In Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, it is referred to as
NAme. Throughout the discussion, we will use BE and AE to refer to the two
varieties being studied.The focus of this study is on how contemporary British English differs from American in terms of the lexical stress assignments. That is, in comparing the two varieties, it is convenient to take one as the basis for comparison and to describe the other by contrast with it. This study takes British as its basis and describes American in relation to that basis. It is done because the main source of data is taken from the whole population of the Oxford Advanced Learner's
th Dictionary, 7 edition, published in 2005.
Among other differences, pronunciation is considered the most prominent. It includes consonants and vowel articulation and distribution and stress patterns. However, this study only focuses on the different lexical stress assignments between BE and AE. The differences in consonant and vowel articulation and distribution will be discussed as a supporting factor influencing the different stress assignments.
C. Problem Formulation
The following questions are formulated in attempt to study the variation of lexical stress placement in British and American English:
1. How is the lexical stress assignment in British English different from that in American English?
2. What linguistic factors account for the differences?
D. Objectives of Study
The objectives of the study are set as follows:
1. It aims to reveal the differences between British English and American English in terms of lexical stress assignments.
2. It also attempts to identify possible factors which account for the differences.
E. Benefits of Study
The results of the analysis on the difference between BE and AE will hopefully provide some insights for English teachers and learners. Firstly, I hope that English teachers in Indonesia are more aware that stress placement is a potential problem faced by Indonesian learners. Secondly, after being aware of the differences, they become more consistent in using and teaching the variety of English that they would teach to their students. By such awareness hopefully they will not over-emphasize the differences between BE and AE but can be better models for their students. Thirdly, the results of study can give some contributions to the development of linguistic study, especially in English phonology. It can help people understand more about the nature of the English language and its plcace among the emerging varieties of world Englishes.
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter deals with 3 major parts. The first part is a review of previous
studies on the different stress patterns among some varieties of English. The second part presents a theoretical review. This section will discuss the syllable structure in English, the English stress system, the word formation processes and a brief history of the English Vocabulary. The last section is the theoretical framework upon which the present study is based.
A. Theoretical Review
This section is divided in four major parts. Stress is property of syllables; therefore, prior to the discussion of stress system, we will discuss the syllable structure in English. Following the discussion on syllables structure and stress in English is the review of morphological processes, in which we shall see the relevance with phonology. The last part of the theoretical review will present a brief discussion of the history of English and the source of English vocabulary.
1. The English Syllables
Just as segments are composed of features, the syllable itself is made of smaller constituents that are organized in a hierarchical structure. Furthermore, native speakers also demonstrate knowledge that syllables have internal structure. They can identify whether a word is possible or not by seeing the elements contained in it. Native speakers of English, for instance, can say that the word
blide sounds English while dlide does not and cannot be an English word because
intuitively they know that the cluster of /bl/ is possible in English while /dl/ is not.a. Syllable Structure
Native speakers of a language are usually able to count the syllables contained in a word without any difficulty even though they do not have formal knowledge of phonology. They know that the word book consists of a single syllable, while potato three syllables. However, the definition of syllables is not that simple. According to Giegerich (1992), there are two principles to follow in defining what syllables are. They are the sonority principle and number of phonemes contained in a syllable. Obeying the two principles, we can explain more complexities of syllable structure. The complexities include the boundary between words, boundary within words, the maximum number of phonemes in a syllable and phonotactic constraints.
Syllable structure varies among languages. The most common structure is CV, that is, a sequence of a single consonant followed by a vowel. Many languages allow only CV or CVC syllables, like Indonesian. English, however, permits very complex syllable structures. It allows up to three consonant both before and after the vowel or Peak.
A syllable is analyzable into an Onset, which is optional, and a Rhyme, which is built upon a Peak/Nucleus and an optional Coda (McMahon, 2002). Most syllables start with a consonant or a consonant sequence known as the onset. However, onset is an optional part of a syllable. We are familiar with the term rhymes. We can find them in poetry and nursery rhymes. The rhyme of a syllable may contain an obligatory peak or nucleus and an optional coda. The peak or nucleus is usually occupied by a vowel; and a coda may contain a consonant or a combination of consonants. Let’s take an example. The syllable structure of the /spr English word sprint is illustrated below.
ɪ nt/
Figure 2.1 The basic structure of a syllable b.Syllabification
The syllabification of monosyllabic words as in the example above is not problematic. In longer words, however, it may be confusing as to whether intervocalic consonants belong to the coda of the previous syllable or the onset of following. In setting up syllables, there are four steps to follow (O'Grady, Dobrovolsky & Katamba, 1996). The four steps elaborated by O’Grady et al. are especially important in uncovering the syllabification of disyllabic and polysyllabic words. The diagram below shows the steps of syllabification.
Figure 2.2 The steps of setting up a syllableTo see the syllabification of the verb consrtuct, let’s follow the steps as described in Figure 2.3. In step a, we can find two vowels, which means that the word consists of 2 syllables. In step b, there is only one consonant to the left of / /
ǝ but there are 4 consonants to the left of / /. Therefore, we must decide whether all
ʌ the four can be the onset of the second syllable. First, it should be noted that the maximum number of consonants occupying the onset position is three. Then we must check whether the three violate the phonotactic constraints or not. Phonotactic constraints mean s restrictions on possible combination of sounds (McManis, Stollenwerk & Zheng-Sheng, 1987). The consonants that do not violate the phonotactic constrains can be grouped together forming the onset of the second syllable. Grouping the intervocalic consonants to form onset as long as they do not violate phonotactic constraints is called Onset Maximization Principle (Carr, 1993). Finally, the /n/ is the one left, so it must belong to the coda of the first syllable, and /k, t / constitute the coda of the second syllable.