Syllables and Stress, part 2

As mentioned in the previous post on stress, syllable stress can present a difficulty when learning a new language.

Is there an easy rule for determining which syllables are stressed in English? Some languages have predictable stress rules. For instance, in Polish, stress is always on the penultimate (second to the last) syllable. In English, stress and syllable accent is unpredictable. When one learns a new English word, the stress patterns that the word has must be memorized in addition to the definition of the word, rhyming with horizon.

Product naming and pronunciation

In product naming and branding, this is a blessing and a curse: Would you know the correct pronunciation of a name you haven't encountered yet? The intuitive thing to do would be to look for names that are similar to it, but even this technique can throw you for a loop.

Here's an example:
If you never saw the name Verizon before, how do you think it would be pronounced? You would probably look for a similar word. But is it more like Amazon or horizon? In both cases the stressed syllables are different! A few years ago, I've met some people that would pronounce Verizon (VER-iz-on) with the accent on the first syllable (like the first syllable in the word "very") so that it would rhyme with Amazon. You would eventually find out (through commercials or whatnot) that the proper pronunciation is (ver-EYE-zin) with the accent on the second syllable.

Stress variation and homographs

A word's meaning can vary depending on which syllable is stressed, these fall into the category of homographs. This was discussed here: homophones/homographs/homonyms.

There are also words that can be pronounced in different ways, with each of them being acceptable (different stressed syllables).

Examples:
kilometer
Caribbean
caramel

These are not considered homographs since the words have the same meaning no matter which way you say them.

Syllables and Stress, part 1

Syllables that are stressed can present another complication when trying to learn a language. Not all languages use stress like English does. In French there is no stress for individual words, although there is intonation (changing the tone of voice) when you are asking a question, which is a different topic altogether.

The rules for assigning stress in English are quite complex. Stress in English is lexical, that is, it comes with a word and usually has to be memorized. Similar words often have similar stress patterns, but this is not always true.

Words that appear to be similar can have completely different stress rules. This can really confuse people that are just learning English language.

Example

Take the following two words:
photograph
photographer

Notice that these 2 words are very similar (same root word) and will even appear in the dictionary as one entry. The stressed syllable is different in each case. For photograph, stress the 1st syllable. For photographer, the 2nd syllable is stressed. Even if you stress the wrong syllable (or stress no syllables at all), most English speakers will still know what you mean, although the word may sound a bit unusual. There are a lot of other English words like this which change their stress patterns completely even though a simple suffix (such as "-er") is added.

Multiple Meanings: Homonymy vs Polysemy

In a previous post, polysemy (the multiple meanings of words) was discussed. How does this differ from homonyms, which are words that are spelled the same and have different meanings?

There are also words which have the same spelling but are pronounced differently. These are called homographs. The reverse case can be true, with words having different written forms and same pronunciation. These are known as homophones.

Summary:

homograph: same spelling, different pronunciation

Example
dove: a kind of bird
dove: past tense of dive

homophone: different spelling, same pronunciation

Example
two, too, to

homonym: same spelling, same pronunciation, and the words have different meanings

Example
bank: a financial institution
bank: a slope bordering a river

You may have noticed that homonymy and polysemy are very similar. How does one distinguish these two concepts? It is often useful to look into the etymology of the word, i.e., its historical origin. Another way to examine this concept would be to analyze the commonality of the different possible meanings of the word.

Here is an example that can show you how to differentiate homonyms and polysemic words:

plain = polysemic (can be thought of "simple" as in plain English or "devoid of complexity" plain shirt)

bank = homonym (no relation to each other; a river bank has nothing to do with a financial institution)

Phonetics: Why we say 'cheese'

Phonetics is defined as the study of sounds made in the production of human languages. It is important to note that sounds and spellings of the English language are quite different. Not all English words are spelled the way they are sounded. Words such as "through" and "night" have more letters in them than sounds. Spelling vs. sound will be brought up again, for now I want to concentrate on the basics of phonetics.

As human beings, we produce sounds using our vocal tract. Where we make the sound (known as the place of articulation) matters. For instance, the [p] and [b] sounds use the lips. I won't bore you with a full list of the locations of each of the sounds, but I'll present an interesting factoid.

When pronouncing the long E vowel sound (IPA symbol [i]), which occurs in words such as "seat" and "meet", the relative position of the tongue is toward the front of the mouth. Furthermore, the lips are not rounded when pronouncing this sound (unlike the [o] sound in "go" which causes the lips to be round). Thus, when you say "cheese", it forces your mouth to be in a position which kind of looks like you are smiling.

Phonetics has even more uses than you might think. Ever think about why your dentist tells you to open your mouth and say "ahhhh"? This is because the "ah" sound is pronounced with the tongue in the back of the mouth, thus preventing your tongue from getting in the way of the dentist's work!