Intonational Stress Patterns of Contemporary Spanish

Abstract

The suggestions for pronunciation have so far been limited almost exclusively to the vowels and consonants as such, and to lexical stress, or the form of words which appears accented in vocabularies and dictionaries. However, it is evident that there are other features of spoken Spanish, bound up in its intonational patterns, which are not included in a study of isolated vowels and consonants or the lexical stress of words. Native Spanish speakers grow up using these patterns automatically, and some speakers are sufficiently gifted in mimicry so that they absorb and use them over a period of time. The vast majority of students who attempt to speak Spanish, however, concentrate upon the mastery of lexical items to the exclusion of attention upon intonational features, and though they may achieve proficiency in speaking accurately, they retain a accent. Until the sound patterns of groups of words in phrases and sentences are mastered, either by subconscious mimicry or by conscious effort, spoken Spanish will always have a foreign flavor. It has been demonstrated elsewhere that the prosodic features of length and pitch, as well as stress, are present in Spanish intonation.1 Each of these factors is essential to acceptable intonation of spoken Spanish, and each deserves special consideration. The purpose of the present discussion is to point out the relationship existing between these three prosodemes under certain circumstances, and to make a case for stress as the most distinctive and influential of the three. Stress seems to have a gravitational attraction for the other two prosodemes and to form the backbone of the rhythmic system which characterizes Spanish.2 Tomas Navarro Tomas' Manual de