Word Stress Patterns Research Articles

Prosody outweighs statistics in 6-month-old German-learning infants' speech segmentation.

It is well established that infants use various cues to find words within fluent speech from about 7 to 8months of age. Research suggests that two main mechanisms support infants' speech segmentation: prosodic cues like the word stress patterns, and distributional cues like transitional probabilities (TPs). We tested 6-month-old German-learning infants' use of prosodic and statistical cues for speech segmentation in three experiments. In Experiment 1, infants were familiarized with an artificial language string where TPs signaled either word boundaries or iambic words-a stress pattern that is disfavored in German. Experiment 2 was a control and only the test phase was presented. In Experiment 3, prosodic cues were absent in the string and only TPs signaled word boundaries. All experiments included the same conditions at test: disyllabic words with high TPs in the string, words with low TPs and words with non-co-occurring syllables. Results showed that infants relied more strongly on prosodic cues than on TPs for word segmentation. Notably, no segmentation evidence emerged when prosodic cues were absent in the string. This finding underlines early impacts of language-specific structural properties on segmentation mechanisms.

Enhancing Language Learners’ Comprehensibility through Automated Analysis of Pause Positions and Syllable Prominence

This research paper addresses the challenge of providing effective feedback on spontaneous speech produced by second language (L2) English learners. As the position of pauses and lexical stress is often considered a determinative factor for easy comprehension by listeners, an automated pipeline is introduced to analyze the position of pauses in speech, the lexical stress patterns of polysyllabic content words, and the degree of prosodic contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables, on the basis of F0, intensity, and duration measures. The pipeline is applied to 11 h of spontaneous speech from 176 French students with B1 and B2 proficiency levels. It appeared that B1 students make more pauses within phrases and less pauses between clauses than B2 speakers, with a large diversity among speakers at both proficiency levels. Overall, lexical stress is correctly placed in only 35.4% of instances, with B2 students achieving a significantly higher score (36%) than B1 students (29.6%). However, great variation among speakers is also observed, ranging from 0% to 68% in stress position accuracy. Stress typically falls on the last syllable regardless of the prosodic expectations, with the strong influence of syllable duration. Only proficient speakers show substantial F0 and intensity contrasts.

NOUN STRESS IN UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE: DIACHRONY OF CODIFICATION (BASED ON "THE FIRST READER FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS" BY A. KRUSHELNYTSKYI, O. POPOVYCH, B. LEPKYI (1918))

The article traces the peculiarities of noun stress in "The First Reader for Public Schools" (1918) by A. Krushelnytskyi, O. Popovych, and B. Lepkyi, which has not been the subject of linguistic research. This publication introduces the textbook by the mentioned authors into the academic discourse. The mentioned textbook was used in practice in primary and secondary Ukrainian-language education in western Ukraine during the time of Austria-Hungary. The norm for all levels of language at that time was the "Malorusko-German Dictionary" by E. Zhelekhivskyi and S. Nedielskyi (1886). Based on this lexicographical work, a phonetic orthography, known as "zhelekhivka," was formed, which the Ministry of Education recognized as official for Ukrainian education. The process of standardizing literary stress in the Ukrainian language is still ongoing today. Therefore, analyzing stresses in a school textbook published over a hundred years ago can help shed light on certain accentuation patterns that have evolved over time. Furthermore, the collected empirical material will enable researchers to substantiate the choice of one or another normative stress pattern. During the research process, it was discovered that the primary stress patterns in "The First Reader" align with contemporary normative stress patterns found in various paper and electronic dictionaries. The article also analyzed non-standard stress patterns in current usage. In the stress patterns of first-declension nouns, the authors of "The First Reader" systematically employ dactylic stress, which is a characteristic feature of the Ukrainian language. However, within the framework of the current accentuation norms, this dactylic stress is often considered incorrect in many cases. Some first-declension nouns exhibit stress patterns influenced by dialectal environments and the influence of the Polish and German languages. This is especially relevant when it comes to the stress patterns of borrowed words. In "The First Reader," one can also observe the form-distinguishing and content-distinguishing functions of stress, which differ from contemporary accentuation models. Among the second-declension nouns, stress patterns with an emphasized prefix were identified, which could partially enrich the normative basis of contemporary literary language. Additionally, a group of diminutive nouns with consistently stressed final syllables was identified. "The First Reader" does not feature deviant stress patterns among third and fourth declension nouns. The findings can be used in further scientific research, lexicographic practice, or in the educational process.

Word Stress of Derive word

Due to the fact that pronunciation is a fundamental component of English conversations, it is crucial that it be done correctly. word stress of derived words is one of the important aspects of English pronunciation that affects the understanding and expression of word meanings accurately. The goal of this study is to examine the word stress patterns in words that are English-derived. Although there are variations and exceptions, word stress in derived words typically adheres to a set of rules and patterns. In this study, we examine the word stress patterns in noun to verb, adjective to noun, and verb to noun derivations. Additionally, we looked at how prefixes and suffixes affected stress patterns. The purpose of this study is to advance the field of English pronunciation and provide a better understanding of the stress patterns in derived words. In this study, we collected data and examined stress patterns using a variety of sources, including dictionaries and pronunciation guides. The findings of this study can aid English language learners in getting better at pronouncing words. The findings of this study might help English learners in perfecting their pronunciation abilities and understanding words derived from them more precisely.

An Analysis of Medical Students’ Performance on the Word Stress Patterns in English Polysyllabic Medical Terms

Word stress instruction has increasingly become a focus among EFL teachers. Owing to the phonological differences between the learner’s first language and English, EFL learners of different nationalities encounter varying degrees of difficulty when pronouncing English polysyllabic words. The majority of EFL students studying medicine tend to find it particularly challenging to pronounce English polysyllabic medical terms correctly. To gain better insights into this issue, this study aims to assess Thai medical students’ ability to correctly mark stress in English polysyllabic medical terms and to analyze their errors in identifying their stressed syllables. A purposive sampling was employed to recruit seventy-five mixed-ability first year medical students enrolled in the course entitled “Foundation English for Medical Profession II” of the academic year 2020 in a public university in Thailand to participate in the study. The participants were asked to pronounce 40 medical terms via Zoom, and the quantitative data were analyzed statistically. Nine students of mixed English ability took part in the semi-structured interviews, and thematic analysis was employed to analyze the qualitative data. In light of the key findings, pedagogical implications and recommendations are discussed and highlighted in the study, which found it evident that word stress instruction should be integrated in the EAP/ESP courses for medical students either as part of the core lessons or through supplementary online resources.

Stylistic alignment in natural conversation involving second language speakers

Abstract To date, a growing body of second language (L2) research has investigated linguistic alignment as a pedagogical intervention, focusing on L2 learners’ alignment behaviors in task-based interactions (e.g., Jung, YeonJoo, YouJin Kim & John Murphy. 2017. The role of task repetition in learning word-stress patterns through auditory priming tasks. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 39(2). 319–346; Kim, YouJin, YeonJoo Jung & Stephen Skalicky. 2019. Linguistic alignment, learner characteristics, and the production of stranded prepositions in relative clauses: Comparing FTF and SCMC contexts. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 41(5). 937–969). Linguistic alignment refers to a tendency where one speaker’s utterances align with particular language features of those of the other speaker in dialogue. The current study investigated how L2 speakers’ alignment behaviors differ in natural dialogues between L2-L1 and L2-L2 dyads in terms of language style (i.e., stylistic alignment) and the role of non-linguistic factors in the occurrence of stylistic alignment. The study analyzed a corpus of 360 texts using a computational tool. Results showed that stylistic alignment occurred to a greater extent in the L2-L2 dyad than in the L2-L1 dyad with respect to the word range, word frequency, word imageability, and proportion of bigrams proportion produced by the interlocutors. Furthermore, findings demonstrated the degree of stylistic alignment on each of the four selected lexical features was affected by numerous factors including age, group membership, nonnative speaker status, familiarity between interlocutors, and linguistic distance between L1 and L2. The effect of each factor on stylistic alignment in conversation is discussed in detail.

A Polish five-year-old with protracted phonological development

ABSTRACT This case study examines the phonology of a five-year-old Polish-speaking boy with protracted phonological development. A multi-tier analysis of his phonology revealed that word length, stress patterns, vowels and most consonants were largely compatible with the adult target while coronal consonants requiring fine control of tongue shape (fricatives, affricates, liquids) and most consonant clusters posed difficulty for the child in all word positions. Labial and dorsal features were well-established; in fact, [Labial] outcompeted other places of articulation in problematic sequences of both singletons and clusters. The case profile demonstrates asynchronous development of individual phonological elements and tiers. A proposed treatment plan exploits the child’s strengths to address his needs and minimise the discrepancy between the tiers.

Erroneous Word-Stress Patterns Used by EFL Yemeni Learners

This experimental study aims at investigating the English word-stress patterns used by Yemenis, learning English as a foreign language, and the erroneous stress patterns used by them. Accent or stress is a feature of high significance in English speech. At the level of a word, one syllable gets accentuated with primary stress. To achieve the purpose of this study, and to find out to what extent word stress of Received Pronunciation English poses difficulty on Yemeni Arabic speakers using English as a foreign language, 120 subjects of various scientific disciplines, were chosen for data collection. They were recorded and their utterances went through deep analysis based on the auditory impression of the researcher and on the spectrographic evidence resulting from the speech analysis of the software program PRAAT. The most significant findings reached by the researcher were that word-stress in the four-syllable target words were the most problematic for the speakers in which 53.2% of them put the stress, randomly, on the wrong syllables in words. Three-syllable target words appeared to be less problematic as 44.4% of the participants placed the stress inaccurately in words. The least difficulties encountered by the speakers were with the two-syllable target words where 70.6% of the speakers managed to pronounce the words with correct stress placement. It is noteworthy to mention that there was a tendency among the speakers who produced wrong stress patterns, to accent either the first syllable or the one including a long vowel or a diphthong in the words.

In Time with the Beat: Entrainment in Patients with Phonological Impairment, Apraxia of Speech, and Parkinson's Disease.

In the present study, we investigated if individuals with neurogenic speech sound impairments of three types, Parkinson’s dysarthria, apraxia of speech, and aphasic phonological impairment, accommodate their speech to the natural speech rhythm of an auditory model, and if so, whether the effect is more significant after hearing metrically regular sentences as compared to those with an irregular pattern. This question builds on theories of rhythmic entrainment, assuming that sensorimotor predictions of upcoming events allow humans to synchronize their actions with an external rhythm. To investigate entrainment effects, we conducted a sentence completion task relating participants’ response latencies to the spoken rhythm of the prime heard immediately before. A further research question was if the perceived rhythm interacts with the rhythm of the participants’ own productions, i.e., the trochaic or iambic stress pattern of disyllabic target words. For a control group of healthy speakers, our study revealed evidence for entrainment when trochaic target words were preceded by regularly stressed prime sentences. Persons with Parkinson’s dysarthria showed a pattern similar to that of the healthy individuals. For the patient groups with apraxia of speech and with phonological impairment, considerably longer response latencies with differing patterns were observed. Trochaic target words were initiated with significantly shorter latencies, whereas the metrical regularity of prime sentences had no consistent impact on response latencies and did not interact with the stress pattern of the target words to be produced. The absence of an entrainment in these patients may be explained by the more severe difficulties in initiating speech at all. We discuss the results in terms of clinical implications for diagnostics and therapy in neurogenic speech disorders.

On the nature of metrical phonology of Iraqi Arabic: A non-linear approach

The paper is an in-depth study of how the principles and rules of the metrical theory of phonology have found their way to apply to Iraqi Arabic words and expressions. Iraqi lexical items have amassed evidence illustrating that both foot and stress are the hub of phonological designs of parametric prominence entailed in mapping and building up word syllables. Nevertheless, this is not a free-for-all which is far beyond restrictions or exceptions. Some constraints are not imposed to deviate from the metrical norms of Iraqi words nor some exceptions are made to distort their lexical frames, but rather they are adopted to emphasize that any theory's premises are generally the same but its applicable ends are definitely different in so far as the language or the dialect in question is concerned. The paper also digs deep certain metrical phenomena taking place in Iraqi word stress patterns like the extra metrical behavior of some word syllables and segments, and cyclic and non-cyclic parameters of some morphological operations of words.

The role of orthographic cues to stress in Italian visual word recognition

In this study, stress diacritics were used to investigate the processing of stress information in lexical decision. We ran two experiments in Italian, a language in which stress position is not predictable by rule and only final stress—that is, the less common pattern—is orthographically marked with a diacritic. In Experiment 1, a lexical decision task, two factors were manipulated: the stress pattern of words—antepenultimate (nondominant) and penultimate (dominant)—and the presence/absence of the diacritics, signalling the stress position. Participants were faster to categorise stimuli as words when they bear dominant than nondominant stress. However, the advantage disappeared when the diacritic was used. In Experiment 2, a same-different verification task was used in which participants had to decide if a referent word and a target were same (carota-CAROTA, /ka’rɔta/; tavolo-TAVOLO, /’tavolo/) or different. We compared two conditions requiring a “different” response, in which referent and target with dominant and nondominant stress were congruent (caròta-CAROTA; tàvolo-TAVOLO) or incongruent (càrota-CAROTA; tavòlo-TAVOLO) with the word’s stress. For words with dominant stress, “different” responses were faster in the incongruent condition than the congruent condition. This congruency effect was not observed for words with nondominant stress pattern. Overall, the data suggest that stress information is based on lexical phonology, and the stress dominance effect has a lexical base in word recognition.

Punching through the barrier

Abstract This paper aims to investigate how productive oral vocabulary development can be promoted by focusing on word stress patterns. The Rhythmic Fight Club (RFC) pronunciation technique has been used in numerous ESL/EFL classrooms, but its effect on the L2 vocabulary development of learners has yet to be investigated. The present study focused on adult ESL learners and tested a four-stage learning cycle aimed at developing productive oral vocabulary. This paper focuses on findings related to one aspect of that learning cycle which used the RFC to draw learner attention to word stress patterns in order to control productive output. Findings reveal that repetition of target words whilst making a gesture helped to enhance the learners’ productive output accordingly. The paper concludes that kinaesthetic/tactile classroom teaching techniques such as the RFC can help learners to develop productive oral vocabulary by reconceptualising their perception of English speech rhythm.

영어 3음절 이상 다음절어의 철자에 근거한 강세패턴 분석

The purpose of this paper is to provide formal stress patterns of basic English words, which have more than three syllables, for Korean learners’ understanding of English rhythm. The basic assumption for this paper is that it might be effective for Korean learners of English to comprehend the English stress patterns of frequently used English words. Under this assumption, 495 English polysyllabic words (having more than three syllables) are chosen as the data of this paper from the list of basic vocabulary in the 7th English curriculum for Korean primary and secondary education. Those English polysllabic words are analyzed using mainly four basic spelling-based stress rules by Hahn and Dickerson (1999). Based on the evidence in this paper, it is assumed that a systematic exposure to spelling-based stress patterns will not only provide Korean learners of English with pronunciation learning practices that allow them to improve their production of English polysyllabic words, but also help them teach themselves on their own pace.

Offline and online processing of acoustic cues to word stress in Papuan Malay.

The present study investigates to what extent acoustic cues to word stress facilitate both offline and online word processing in Papuan Malay. Previous production research has shown acoustic evidence for word-stress patterns in this language, counter to earlier predictions. A discussion of the literature on word stress perception and word stress in Papuan Malay is provided and complemented with reports of three word recognition tasks. The first two presented sequences of acoustically manipulated syllable dyads to native listeners in an offline word recognition task. This was done in order to investigate the individual contribution of each of the acoustic cues (F0, duration, intensity, spectral tilt) to the perception of word stress. F0 appeared a relevant cue when stimuli were embedded in a phrase, not in isolation. A follow-up reaction time experiment (online processing) investigated to what extent word recognition was facilitated when either an acoustically weak or an acoustically strong syllable was the cue to identify a word. Reaction times were shorter for strong syllables than for weak syllables. The outcomes suggest that Papuan Malay has a form of perceptually relevant word stress, which is particularly salient for irregular (ultimate) stress rather than for regular (penultimate) stress.

Understanding prosody and morphology in school-age children’s reading

We examined the unique contributions of prosodic awareness and morphological awareness to school-aged children’s word reading and reading comprehension. A total of 110 elementary-age children from Grades 4 and 5 participated in the current study. To measure prosodic awareness, children were asked to listen to and reflect on the stress patterns of multisyllabic words and identify the syllable of the word that contained the primary stress. Two measures of morphological awareness were administered including morphological production and the nonword suffix choice task. Prosodic awareness and morphological awareness were significantly correlated in the low to moderate range. We found that both metalinguistic skills uniquely predicted word reading, and morphological awareness was the only predictor of word reading that also explained individual differences in reading comprehension. Furthermore, the relationship between prosodic awareness and word reading was partially mediated by phonemic awareness and morphological awareness, and the relationship between prosodic awareness and reading comprehension was fully mediated by morphological awareness and word reading. We conclude that prosodic awareness assessed at the word-level only affects word reading, which in turn supports reading comprehension. We also provide further evidence for the role of morphological awareness as a unique contributor to both decoding and meaning-making processes.

Knowledge of word stress patterns in English in Korean Learners: The case of English trisyllabic nouns

This study aims to explore Korean learner knowledge of word stress patterns in English trisyllabic nouns. Building upon the previous findings from Guion (2005), further studies should look at data regarding more syllabically complex words. While the stress placement rules in English require at least three syllables to be applied, the study (Guion, 2005) only observed the individuals’ stress placement patterns in English disyllabic words. The prevalence of longer polysyllabic words in the English language necessitates observation of Korean learner speech patterns in English trisyllabic words. A total of 16 Korean learners of English participated in the experiments that explore the distributional patterns of stress placement based on word type (i.e., nonwords and real words) and syllable stress position on English trisyllabic nouns. Compared to that of native English speakers, Korean learners of English showed significantly higher error rate on stress placement rules in English nouns—particularly higher error rates on production and perception of nonwords, compared to that of English real words. The predictive factors (word type, syllable structure, and syllable weight) had a significant effect on the stress placement on both groups. Based on the results, our goal is to discuss how the learners use their previous language learning experience when they decide on which syllable to apply stress.

Focus on form options in second language pronunciation instruction: The case of lexical stress

Pronunciation instruction has historically been notorious for its intense reliance on repetition practice and mechanical drilling across most foreign and second language settings. However, research indicates that form‐focused instruction can be substantially beneficial to the development of phonological skills (Saito, 2012). The current quasi‐experimental study builds on this strand of research by measuring the impact of focus on form (FonF) on English as a foreign language learners’ retention of English word stress patterns, drawing mainly upon the so‐called macro‐options introduced by Ellis (e.g., 2008). Eight intact classes (N = 129), randomly assigned to four groups (output, input‐enhancement, corrective feedback, and control) were subjected to a series of mini‐lessons orchestrated by the researchers over an 8‐week period. The learners’ short‐ and long‐term phonological uptake was assessed by immediate and delayed word‐reading tests, respectively. The results indicate that the output‐oriented group outperformed the others on the immediate posttest, whereas the input‐enhancement group outdid the corrective feedback group. However, none of the three FonF options had a significant durable impact. The findings imply that production‐based instruction must be given a high priority in the domain of teaching suprasegmental features, not least lexical stress. Furthermore, phonologically overloading learners during each instructional period is not recommended.

Perception of lexical stress cued by low-frequency pitch and insights into speech perception in noise for cochlear implant users and normal hearing adults.

Cochlear implant (CI) users show great difficulty for understanding speech in noise and this fact may partly stem from their poor low-frequency (LF) pitch perception and temporal fine structure (TFS) processing. Clinical assessment of pitch perception is usually based on non-speech tasks. However, linguistically relevant contexts such as lexical stress may better reflect the role of pitch in speech perception, especially for everyday speech where background noise is inevitable. Hence, the study aimed to assess perception of lexical stress cued by LF pitch and TFS cues for CI and normal hearing (NH) listeners, and to investigate relationships with speech perception in noise. The low-pass-filtered Word Stress Pattern (WSP-LPF) test was used to evaluate perception of lexical stress cued by LF pitch. Speech perception was assessed with the sentence test with adaptive randomized roving level (STARR) test which presented everyday sentences at low, medium, and high levels in a fluctuating noise to estimate a Speech Reception Threshold. This new test intended to give a realistic estimate for real-world listening. Median WSP-LPF scores in NH (N = 18) and CI listeners (N = 18) were 12.0Hz and 67.0Hz, respectively. The corresponding STARR scores were - 9.1dB and 17.3dB. Group differences were statistically significant (p < 0.001). Analysis showed significant positive correlations for NH (rs = 0.50) and CI listeners (rs = 0.60). Present findings reveal stronger correlations than previous studies using non-speech materials, supporting that CI listeners' poor speech perception in noise might be strongly associated with their inability for LF pitch perception and TFS processing.

The Production of word stress patterns in English noun to verb conversion words by adult EFL learners in Indonesia: A Phonological Study

The Production of word stress patterns in English noun to verb conversion words by adult EFL learners in Indonesia: A Phonological Study

New varieties of English: Issues of incomprehensibility and unintelligibility

The present article discusses new varieties of English with reference to intelligibility and comprehensibility. It has been observed that new varieties of English display deviant phonological features. Speakers of these varieties insert a sound, delete a sound, substitute a sound, and rearrange sounds when they pronounce certain words. Moreover, they use deviant word stress patterns. These things affect the intelligibility of their speech. The new varieties differ at the level of discourse as well; the content and language used to perform certain speech acts such as coaxing, responding to questions, etc., may result in miscommunication. Thus, unintelligibility is a result of mother tongue interference and incomprehensibility is a result of mother culture interference. The article illustrates unintelligibility and incomprehensibility using examples from non-native varieties of English.