Читать книгу Stress Variation in English - Alexander Tokar - Страница 7

In addition to the obvious questions raised by variably-stressed words such as applicable and adult—1) What are the causes of stress variation exhibited by these and other English words with stress doublets? 2) Why do only some English words have stress doublets? 3) Do words with stress doublets prefer particular stress patterns and if so, why?—the present monograph will attempt to give a more precise answer to the general question of why English words (either with or without stress doublets) are stressed the way they are stressed. According to a popular view, Present-day English is a LatinLatin-like language as far as its stress system is concerned (HayesHayes 1995: 181). Thus, since “[i]n the three hundred years that intervened between the Norman ConquestNorman Conquest and Chaucer, the [English] language was inundated by Romance words” (Halle & KeyserHalle &Keyser 1971: 97), the stress rule of contemporary English is essentially the stress rule of Classical Latin: “Stress falls on the penultimate syllable if it contains a long vowel or is closed. […] Else stress is antepenultimate” (van der Hulstvan der Hulst 2010a: 459). An illustration is the word paprika, which in British English, according to LDOCE, is interchangeably stressed /ˈpæprɪkə/ and /pəˈpriːkə/. As one can notice, when stress in paprika is penultimate, the vowel in the penultimate syllable /ˈpriː/, which bears stress, is long. When, by contrast, paprika is pronounced /ˈpæprɪkə/, the vowel in the unstressed penult /prɪ/ is short. The stress patterns /ˈpæprɪkə/ and /pəˈpriːkə/ can thus both be said to be in accordance with the Latin Stress Rule.

At the same time, however, in the case of the stress variation /ˈɛkskwɪzɪt/ vs. /ɪkˈskwɪzɪt/ (Oxford English Dictionary, henceforth OED), the vowel in the penultimate syllable remains short irrespective of whether stress in exquisite is penultimate or antepenultimate. Similarly, it does not matter whether stalactite and stalagmite are stressed pen-pen- or antepenultimately. In both /ˈstælæktaɪt/ vs. /stəˈlæktaɪt/ (OED) and /ˈstælæɡmaɪt/ vs. /stəˈlæɡmaɪt/ (OED), there is a short vowel in the penult that is followed by a coda consonant, i.e., /læk/ and /læɡ/; stress in the trisyllables stalactite and stalagmite is thus supposed to be penultimate in accordance with the LatinLatin Stress Rule. A fairly similar case is necropsy, for which the OED gives segmentally identical British English transcriptions /ˈnɛkrɒpsi/ and /nɛˈkrɒpsi/: As one can notice, these transcriptions differ from each other only with regard to the location of the stress symbol (ˈ).

Similar examples can be found among disyllabic English words, which are not covered by the LatinLatin Stress Rule, stating that “[i]n words with 2 or fewer syllables, primary stress occurs on the initial syllable” (StressTyp2 database), i.e., in contrast to a disyllabic English word, in which stress is either initial or final (e.g., /ˈædʌlt/ vs. /əˈdʌlt/ of adult), in a disyllabic Latin word, stress can only be initial, i.e.,

Words with a heavyheavy penultimate syllable receive penultimate stress, words with a lightlight penult receive antepenultimate stress, and in all other cases where a word is too short to obey these laws, stress falls as far as possible to the left. (HayesHayes 1995: 50)

According to van der Hulstvan der Hulst (2010a: 445), in the English language “[p]rimary stress falls on the final syllable in nouns if the vowel is long, in verbs if the vowel is long or there are two closing consonants.” The diachronic basis of this assertion is the view, expressed in Halle & KeyserHalle & Keyser (1971: 99–101), that the stress system of contemporary English was shaped not only by LatinLatin but also by (Old) FrenchFrench:

The nonnative vocabulary of Chaucer consisted of two types of words, namely learned words largely of LatinLatin origin and everyday words borrowed from Old FrenchFrench or Anglo-Norman. These two classes had different stress patterns. (Halle & KeyserHalle &Keyser 1971: 99)

A convincing critique of this view can be found in FournierFournier (2007: 232), who argues that:

FrenchFrench stress is not a central component of English stress, an analysis confirmed by history: most words of all lengths stressed on the final are relatively late borrowings, from the 17th century onwards. (FournierFournier 2007: 232; author’s italics)

From a purely synchronic perspective, the view that final stress in English crucially depends upon the length of the vowel in the final syllable/the number of closing consonants when the vowel is short cannot be accepted because especially words with stress doublets provide too many counterexamples. For instance, for the verb migrate the OED gives segmentally identical British English transcriptions /mʌɪˈɡreɪt/ vs. /ˈmʌɪɡreɪt/ and the American English transcription /ˈmaɪˌɡreɪt/, i.e., migrate is always pronounced with a diphthong in the ult (which counts as a long vowel), but stress in migrate is not always final in Present-day English. A similar case is the adjective overt, for which LDOCE gives segmentally identical British English transcriptions /ˈəʊvɜːt/ vs. /əʊˈvɜːt/ and American English transcriptions /ˈoʊvɜːrt/ vs. /oʊˈvɜːrt/. The adjective under consideration is thus also always pronounced with a long vowel in the ult, even when stress in overt is non-final. The noun decade is interchangeably stressed /ˈdekeɪd/ and /deˈkeɪd/ (LDOCE), with both the stressed ult /ˈkeɪd/ of the latter and the unstressed ult /keɪd/ of the former containing a diphthong.

Of the 268 variably-stressed disyllables in LDOCE (including words such as caffeine, which, according to the dictionary, is stressed only /ˈkæfiːn/ in British English vs. only /kæˈfiːn/ in American English), 173 (~64.55 %) are disyllables such as caffeine, in which stress differences are not accompanied by segmental differences involving the quality of the vowel in the ult. Thus, if the ult bearing stress contains a long vowel or diphthong, then also the unstressed ult of an initially-stressed alternative pronunciation likewise contains a long vowel or diphthong (e.g., /kæˈfiːn/ vs. /ˈkæfiːn/ of caffeine). Similarly, if the ult bearing stress contains a short vowel, then (a qualitatively unreduced) short vowel also occurs in the ult of an initially-stressed alternative pronunciation. E.g., address is, according to LDOCE, only /əˈdres/ in British English, but it is /əˈdres/ vs. /ˈædres/ in American English. The ult /res/, which contains a short vowel (being followed by only one coda consonant), thus occurs in both the finally-stressed pronunciation /əˈdres/ and the initially-stressed alternative /ˈædres/. (Notice, however, that in YouTube videos featuring the spoken occurrences of address, initial stress was heard by the author only in environments such as IP address or street address, whereas in contexts such as State of the Union Address, Gettysburg Address, inaugural address, commencement address, etc., where address expresses the meaning “public speech,” stress in address was exclusively final. The variation /əˈdres/ vs. /ˈædres/ is thus, at least in part, a matter of semanticssemantics.) Anyway, the fact that disyllables such as caffeine and address constitute the majority of variably-stressed disyllables in English strongly suggests that the quality of the vowel in the ult plays a relatively insignificant role in the assignment of stress in disyllabic English words.

Another important number is that in Oxford Dictionaries (henceforth OD), there are 48,428 solidly-spelled polysyllables whose only stress pattern (given in the dictionary) is non-initial stress. E.g., inhibit is stressed only /ɪnˈhɪbɪt/ (OD), with stress in the word not falling upon its first syllable /ɪn/. Of the 48,428 polysyllabic words in the OD such as inhibit, 28,944 (~59.77 %) have righthand strings such as, e.g., /‑ˈhɪbɪt/ of /ɪnˈhɪbɪt/, which occur in at least one other English word. E.g., apart from occurring in the transcription /ɪnˈhɪbɪt/ of inhibit, the righthand string /‑ˈhɪbɪt/, which begins with the primary stress symbol (ˈ), also occurs in the transcription /prə(ʊ)ˈhɪbɪt/ of prohibit (OD). (The percentage of such cases rises to ~66.55 % if, apart from counting only exact matches such as /‑ˈhɪbɪt/ of /ɪnˈhɪbɪt/ and /prə(ʊ)ˈhɪbɪt/, we ignore the onsetonset of the primary-stressed syllable. E.g., /kəˈlɒtəmi/ of colotomy is the only transcription in the OD that contains the righthand string /‑ˈlɒtəmi/. At the same time, however, apart from /kəˈlɒtəmi/ of colotomy, the dictionary also has the transcription /ləˈbɒtəmi/ of lobotomy, which shares with /kəˈlɒtəmi/ the righthand string /‑ˈ-ɒtəmi/.)

Notice further that of the 48,428 polysyllabic words such as inhibit, 35,525 (~73.36 %) have transcriptions such as /ɪnˈhɪbɪt/, in which the righthand string that begins with the primary stress symbol (ˈ) is segmentally longer (i.e., contains more phonetic segments, with the durationduration symbol (:) not counting as one of them) than the remaining lefthand string preceding it. Thus, for instance, the righthand string /‑hɪbɪt/ of /ɪnˈhɪbɪt/ consists of four phonetic segments while the immediately preceding lefthand string /ɪn/ has only two. (If also the duration symbol (:) is taken into consideration (e.g., in /ʃɪˈkɑːɡəʊ/ of Chicago (OD), the righthand string /‑kɑːɡəʊ/ consists of six rather than five phonetic segments), 36,017 (~74.37 %) non-initially-stressed words in the OD dictionary can be said to have segmentally longer righthand strings such as /‑kɑːɡəʊ/ of /ʃɪˈkɑːɡəʊ/.)

The connection between these numbers is the Old EnglishOld English Stress Rule: “Primary stress falls on the first syllable (of the root/stem)” (van der Hulstvan der Hulst 2010a: 446). Assuming that this rule is still alive in contemporary English, we can argue that inhibit is stressed /ɪnˈhɪbɪt/ because the righthand string -hibit-hibit counts morphologically as the root of the word. Thus, because apart from occurring in inhibit this righthand string also occurs in, e.g., prohibit, both inhibit and prohibit count for an English speaker as morphologically complex words consisting of the components in-in-/pro-pro- and -hibit-hibit. These components do not have meanings of their own, but as many authors suggest, components of which morphologically complex English words are made up are not necessarily traditional morphemesmorphemes (i.e., meaning-bearing units). As, e.g., AronoffAronoff (1976: 12) aptly observes in this connection: “What even vague sense does prefer share with confer and transfer? or commit with remit and submit? or receive with conceive and perceive? or consume with presume and assume? or reduce with induce and deduce? None.”

The (purely formal) segmentation in-in-/pro-pro- + -hibit-hibit raises, however, the question of which of these components should count morphologically as the root of inhibit and prohibit, for the root is the only obligatory element in a word (e.g., Mel’čukMel’čuk 2001: 69), i.e., a word may be affixless, but it may not be rootless: Any word contains at least one root. As Mel’čuk (2001: 69–79) explains, roots are different from affixes both semantically and formally. With regard to the former, roots are associated with more concrete meanings than those usually expressed by affixes. With regard to the latter, however, roots usually contain more segments than affixes (Mel’čuk 2001: 69). Needless to say, since the components in-/pro- and -hibit-hibit are not associated with discernible meanings of their own, it is only the formal length-criterion that can be relied upon to answer the question of which of these two components counts in inhibit and prohibit as the root. Since the righthand component -hibit-hibit contains more segments than the lefthand components in-/pro-, the former is clearly more like a root whereas the latter are more like prefixes. Inhibit and prohibit are, therefore, both stressed /‑ˈhɪbɪt/, with the location of stress in these words being the root–prefix boundaryroot–prefix boundary location (and precisely because of this fact, it does not matter that the penult /ˈhɪ/, which receives stress, ends in a short vowel and is thus not supposed to be stressed in accordance with the LatinLatin Stress Rule). Likewise, given the numbers presented above, it can be conjectured that similar analyses apply to the majority of non-initially-stressed English words. E.g., colotomy is stressed /kəˈlɒtəmi/ not (or at least, not only) because the penult /tə/ ends in a short vowel—stress in /kəˈlɒtəmi/ should thus be antepenultimate in accordance with the Latin Stress Rule—but (also) because the segmentally longer righthand string -otomy-otomy, which colotomy shares with lobotomy, counts morphologically as the root.

Consider also the stress variation /ˈɒksᵻdʒᵻneɪt/ vs. /ɒkˈsɪdʒəneɪt/ of oxygenate (OED; only British English). To begin with, observe that in the view of many authors, suffixes in English have intrinsic properties with regard to stress; e.g., KettemannKettemann (1988: 290) speaks of a diacritic featurediacritic feature that is contained in the lexicon entry dedicated to a particular English suffix. This diacritic feature is what triggers, in a particular suffixed derivative, a particular stress-related behavior. Thus, for instance,

it can be stated that Anglo-SaxonAnglo-Saxon suffixes never affect the stress of the words to which they are added […]. Of the others, some, like -esce-esce, take a stress themselves in addition to the stress on the root-word […]; others, like -ion-ion, invariably throw the stress on to the syllable preceding them […]; while others again throw it on to the second syllable before them. (KingdonKingdon 1949: 148)

A challenge to views similar to this is, however, posed by “mixed suffixesmixed suffixes,” which “have two or more distinct modes of operation” (FudgeFudge 1984: 45). E.g., the suffix -ate-ate of /ˈɒksᵻdʒᵻneɪt/ is a stress-neutralstress-neutral suffix: Stress in the derived verb oxygenate falls upon the same syllable as in the base noun oxygen: /ˈɒksɪdʒ(ə)n/ (OD). Similarly, vaccinate is stressed /ˈvaksɪneɪt/ (OD) because vaccine is stressed /ˈvaksiːn/ (OD) whereas adsorbate is /adˈsɔːbeɪt/ or /adˈzɔːbeɪt/ (OD) because adsorb is /ədˈzɔːb/ or /ədˈsɔːb/ (OD); the suffix -ate-ate thus again acts as a stress-neutral suffix. In /ɒkˈsɪdʒəneɪt/, by contrast, the very same suffix -ate-ate acts as a stress-shiftingstress-shifting suffix, causing the derived verb oxygenate to have a different stress pattern than the base noun oxygen. What is interesting about the case of oxygenate is that the preferred stress pattern of this verb is not the preferred stress pattern of a similar variably-stressed -ate-ate-derivative hydrogenate, which is /ˈhaɪdrəʊdʒəneɪt/ vs. /haɪˈdrɒdʒəneɪt/ according to the OED. Of 69 native English speakers who were found to have pronounced oxygenate in YouTube videos, everybody (100 %) used initial stress in this verb, i.e., /ˈɒk-/, but of 14 native English speakers who were found to have pronounced the verb hydrogenate, 10 (~71.43 %) used the antepenultimately-stressed version /haɪˈdrɒ-/. In agreement with these findings, the OD gives for oxygenate only the initially-stressed transcription /ˈɒksɪdʒəneɪt/, whereas in the case of hydrogenate the transcription /haɪˈdrɒdʒəneɪt/ is placed before the transcription /ˈhʌɪdrədʒəneɪt/. This stress difference can only be accounted for if we assume that (for the majority of contemporary English speakers) hydrogenate is not a suffixed but prefixed derivative, with the segmentally longer righthand string -rogenate-rogenate, which hydrogenate shares with nitrogenate (vacillating, according to the OD, between the stress patterns /ˈnʌɪtrədʒᵻneɪt/ and /nʌɪˈtrɒdʒᵻneɪt/), counting morphologically as the root and hence receiving stress on its first syllable. Oxygenate is, by contrast, the only -ygenate-word in the OD dictionary; English speakers have therefore no reasons to morphologically segment oxygenate into the prefix ox-ox- and the root -ygenate (or into the prefix o-o- and the root -xygenate). The morphological structure of oxygenate is thus oxygen + -ate-ate, i.e., the verb is a genuine -ate-ate-derivative and therefore, like other genuine -ate-ate-derivatives, preserves the stress of its base oxygen.

Another English suffix that has more than one distinct mode of operation with respect to stress is -al-al. Thus, for instance, while both the trisyllabic derivative personal and the disyllabic base person are stressed initially, /ˈpəːs(ə)n(ə)l/ and /ˈpəːs(ə)n/ (OD), in the derivative–base pair parental vs. parent only the latter is stressed on the first syllable: /pəˈrɛnt(ə)l/ vs. /ˈpɛːr(ə)nt/ (OD). It is tempting to say that the stress patterns of personal and parental are both in accordance with the LatinLatin Stress Rule: In /ˈpəːs(ə)n(ə)l/, stress is antepenultimate because the penult /sə/ ends in a short vowel, whereas in /pəˈrɛnt(ə)l/, stress is penultimate because the penult /ˈrɛn/ is closed. Note, however, that also in the trisyllabic derivatives parentage and parenthood, the penultimate syllable is closed, but they are nonetheless stressed /ˈpɛːr(ə)ntɪdʒ/ and /ˈpɛːr(ə)nthʊd/ (OD), preserving the initial stress of the disyllabic base parent.

An alternative explanation is that the morphological structure of parental is not the “correct” (i.e., semanticssemantics-based) parent + -al-al but pa-pa- + rental, i.e., the disyllabic righthand string rental, which occurs in English as a separate word, counts morphologically as the root and therefore attracts stress on to its first syllable. (Cf. /satɪsˈfakt(ə)ri/ of satisfactory and /ɒˈkʌlt/ of occult, whose righthand strings /‑ˈfakt(ə)ri/ and /‑ˈkʌlt/ also occur in the OD as the transcription of the initially-stressed trisyllable factory/the monosyllable cult. Cases such as satisfactory–factory or occult–cult constitute ~29.82 % of the 48,428 non-initially-stressed polysyllabic words in the OD dictionary, i.e., in 14,440 non-initially-stressed English words, the righthand string that begins with the primary-stressed syllable also occurs in the OD as the transcription of either an initially-stressed polysyllable or a monosyllable.) Likewise, simply because there is the word oral, mayoral is in American English stressed not only /ˈmeɪər(ə)l/ (OED), preserving the stress of mayor, but also /meɪˈɔr(ə)l/ (OED); pastoral is (also in American English) stressed not only /ˈpæstər(ə)l/, preserving the stress of pastor, but also /pæsˈtɔr(ə)l/ (OED); electoral is, according to Merriam-Webster Online, not only eˈlectoral, preserving the stress of elect(or), but also elecˈtoral. In the YouTube video 1oTFB9wdGl4 (14.06.2016), the stress pattern cliˈtoral is used by an American English speaker whereas in InJCUD0K2co (14.06.2016) a British English speaker can be heard saying cliˈtoral; a YouTube video in which clitoral is interchangeably stressed ˈclitoral and cliˈtoral by one and the same English speaker is _U_wKwVj8i8 (14.06.2016). These stress patterns strongly suggest that some Present-day English speakers analyze the (t)oral of these words as the root, i.e., these -al-al-derivatives are for them not suffixed but prefixed derivatives. Another similar case is the variation /ˈkant(ə)n(ə)l/ vs. /kanˈtɒn(ə)l/ of cantonal (OD). In addition to regarding it as the inherited variation /ˈkantɒn/ vs. /kanˈtɒn/ of canton (OD), the stress pattern /kanˈtɒn(ə)l/ can also be seen as the preserved initial stress of the disyllabic tonal, which occurs in English as a separate word and may therefore (from a purely formal point of view) be perceived as the root of the trisyllabic cantonal.

To reiterate, words with stress doublets challenge the popular assumption that stress in a polysyllabic English word should fall upon a particular syllable when it exhibits a particular segmental makeup (e.g., a long vowel in the penult). Additionally, cases of stress variation among suffixed derivatives raise the question of why in the case of some English suffixes, there is apparently more than one diacritic featurediacritic feature triggering a particular stress-related behavior. It is thus the author’s hope that a systematic account of the phenomenon of stress variation, which will be presented in the following chapters of this monograph, will contribute to a better understanding of the general stress assignment principles by which contemporary English speakers abide when deciding where to place stress in a polysyllabic English word.