Understanding the Innerworks of Word Stress in RP and Cameroon English: A Case for a Competing Constraints Approach

Augustin Simo Bobda

doi:10.5539/ijel.v1n1p81

Abstract

This work pursues the investigations conducted in existing comparative descriptive studies on word stress in Received Pronunciation (RP), Cameron English (CamE) speech and related accents which have provided the data for this paper, and further generative studies. Its purpose is to submit a pioneer comprehensive argument for a Competing Constraints Model of analysis of English word stress. According to this model, word stress placement in both Inner Circle and non-native accents represented by CamE is best seen as the outcome of a competition between several constraints, the winner or winners of which determine the position of stress. The constraints reviewed, or analysed when they are new findings, are those already established in older Englishes, as well as those which have developed in the course of indigenization of English in Cameroon. The complexity of English word stress is due to the diversity, and the conflicting, variable and unpredictable nature, of these constraints. The model proposed here is not helpful in predicting the position of stress as such, but does help in understanding why it falls where it falls. It helps indeed in accounting even for data hitherto regarded as exceptions to given patterns.

Highlights

The present study is motivated by the fact that an approach to English word stress based on the search for rules has proven limits, and argues for the safer “competing constraints” approach, which identifies constraints and the way they compete for stress placement, in Received Pronunciation (RP) and one non-native variety, Cameroon English (CamE)
In maintenance and insurance the following constraints are involved, which operate in ways which are neither consistent nor parallel, both within each variety considered in this study, and across the two varieties: Backward Stress (BWS), Antepenultimate Stress constraint (APS), Base Stress (BS) and New Affix Stress Property
In RP, BWS and APS win inmaintenance while BS wins in insurance; in CamE BS wins in maintenance while BWS and APS, reinforced by New Affix Stress Property win ininsurance

Summary

Introduction

Why is the stress pattern of CamE (verb) ˃record a conspicuous exception in terms of the general rules of word stress in this variety of English?. The paper attempts an answer to these and many more puzzles, using the notion of constraint which, in the context of this analysis, refers to the appeal for stress to fall on a particular syllable This appeal is based on a number of internalised rules of stress placement, conscious or unconscious. The present study is motivated by the fact that an approach to English word stress based on the search for rules has proven limits, and argues for the safer “competing constraints” approach, which identifies constraints and the way they compete for stress placement, in Received Pronunciation (RP) and one non-native variety, CamE. While some of the analyses found in the work can be found here and there in the literature, the competing mechanisms examined constitute the focus of the contribution made in the study

Some Constraints in RP

Some Constraints in Cameroon English

The competition

Findings

Conclusion