Stress in Language 1

What Stress Actually Is

• Relative pitch (fundamental frequency)
  Other uses of pitch
  • Tone in tone languages
    Japanese: katta (LOW-HI) `bought', katta (HI-LOW) `won'
  • Intonation (all languages)
    I failed the test. I failed the test?
• Relative loudness
• Relative duration
  Other use of duration
  • Contrastive length of vowels and consonants in some languages: Japanese doose, dosee, doosee; kata, katta

Uses of Stress

• Lexical stress: stress for distinguishing words from each other
  insert, insert; incense, incense; refer, reefer; suspect, suspect
• Contrastive stress
  I'd like to buy a book on stress.
  I'd like to buy a book on stress.
  I'd like to buy a book on stress.
  I'd like to buy a book on stress.
  I'd like to buy a book on stress.
• Stress as an aid to finding boundaries.
  For languages such as English, where stress tends to fall on the first syllable, a hearer can use a stressed syllable to help decide where a word begins.
• Stress as a clue to relative informativeness
  Dog is stressed, the isn't.
• Stress as a way to guide and organize the articulation of speech

Take me back to the Rhythm and Cognition Home Page.

Last updated: 7 November 1995
URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~gasser/stress1.html
Comments: gasser@salsa.indiana.edu
Copyright 1995, The Trustees of Indiana University