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UDK-37.01
ANALYSIS OF WORD STRESS AND ITS PHONETIC AND PHONOLOGICAL
ASPECTS
Makhmatkulova Zarina Nurillayevna
Alfraganus University. Faculty of Philology, Linguistics
(English) major. Master's student.
tel:946121334
Annotation:
This study analyzes the importance of word stress in linguistics and its phonetic
and phonological aspects. Word stress plays an important role in the formation of meaning in a
language and ensuring the correct use of words in context. This study determines how stress
affects the phonetic and phonological structure of a language, as well as its role in the correct
expression of meanings. At the same time, the article analyzes the practical use of word stress
using examples from Uzbek and other languages.
Keywords
: stress in a word, syllable in a word, linguistics, analysis, phonetic structure,
phonological structure, written speech, supersegment, segment, speech process, sound, speech
tone, empirical, comb, interrogative, command, emotional.
Introduction.
Word stress is one of the important issues in linguistics and is of great importance
in analyzing its phonetic and phonological aspects, determining the structure of the language, the
formation of meaning, and the effectiveness of communicative relations in the language. In each
language, word stress plays an important role in defining and performing a certain meaning, and
at the same time can affect the phonetic and phonological structures of the language.
The correct understanding and study of meaning requires the identification and correct use of
word stress. Analyzing its phonetic and phonological aspects helps to ensure the breath and tone
of the language, as well as a clear and precise understanding of the meanings in the language.
Elements such as stress, accent, and intonation change the meaning in the language, and their
study helps to create new concepts and practical innovations in the fields of combinatorics and
pragmatics.
The relevance of this research is to understand the fundamental points of linguistics and
determine the pragmatic and phonetic characteristics of word stress in Uzbek and other
languages, and to establish the basis for further analytical and scientific research in the field of
linguistics.
The goals and objectives of the research on the topic "Analysis of word stress and its phonetic
and phonological aspects" are as follows.
The main objective of this study is:
The purpose of the study is to determine the role and
significance of word stress in linguistics, to analyze its phonetic and phonological aspects. The
study examines the role of word stress in the formation of the semantic structure of the language,
its influence on sound structure, accent and intonation. It also identifies the use of word stress in
context and its role in linguistics and pragmatics.
Based on the main objective of this study, the following tasks were set.
1. Define word stress: Understand the general definition of word stress in linguistics and how it
operates in terms of its phonetic and phonological aspects.
2. Analyze phonetic aspects: Analyze the phonetic aspects of word stress, namely the formation
of stressed sounds, their effect on sound structure, intonation, and the functions of accents in
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language.
3. Study the semantic and pragmatic significance of word stress: Analyze the impact of stress on
the meaning structure, semantic content, and the correct use of words and phrases in a pragmatic
context.
4. Study the practical application of word stress: Consider the practical application of word stress
in language, including its impact through examples in Uzbek and other languages.
This study can serve as a basis for new research in the fields of linguistics, pragmatics, and
lexicology by identifying the role and significance of self-stress in linguistics.
Level of understanding of the research topic
A number of theoretical and empirical
scientific research works have been carried out by scientists in English, Russian and Uzbek
phonolinguistics on the specific features of stress and its practical classification, mainly since the
1960s. In them, scientists gave different definitions of word stress or accentema. According to B.
A. Bogoroditsky, stress is characterized by an increase or decrease in articulatory and respiratory
energy. According to D. Jovnes, stress is defined as the level of impact associated with the pitch
of the sound produced when breathing out with a strong impact. H. Sweet also agrees with the
view that stress is directly related to the force of the exhaled breath. Another English linguist, A.
Gimson, claims that the stressed syllable is explained by the higher respiratory effort and
muscular energy expenditure than other unstressed syllables in the same word.
D. Crystal's phonetic description of stress is that stress represents the degree of stress in forming
a syllable. According to Pouldauf, word stress is the opposition of a stress peak or peaks in a
word (lexical unit, lexeme) to another stress peak or peaks in the word, taking into account the
existing syllables.
Research methodology
: This study uses several theoretical and practical methods to analyze the
phonetic and phonological aspects of word stress. The main methodological approaches in the
study consist of the following elements:
1. Descriptive-analytical method: The descriptive-analytical method is used to examine the
phonetic and phonological aspects of word stress.
2. Comparative method: This method studies the differences and similarities between the stress
and accent structure of different languages that express the same meaning and their phonetic
structure.
3. Practical research methods: The study also includes empirical studies on the practical stress of
the language and its phonetic and phonological aspects.
4. Mathematical-statistical method (computer analysis): Modern computer analysis tools can also
be used to analyze the phonetic and phonological aspects of word stress.
Research analysis and results:
Syllables and stress together constitute a structural system that
forms words. Stress is the center that holds the phonetic shell of a word together (in a complex
state), and a means that helps to distinguish one word from another in the flow of speech.
Unlike written speech, the flow of oral speech consists of a sequence of sounds that have a
specific divisibility property, and the series of sounds that have such a divisibility property is
called a series of segment units. However, our oral speech does not consist only of segment units.
In addition, it also has supersegment units superimposed on the series of sounds that are located
in a row and have a divisibility property, and these units provide the expressiveness of our
speech. Supersegment units include stress, pauses, and other emotional coloring of speech (sign,
question, command, emotion, etc.). All of the above units together form the tone of speech.
Oral speech is expressed through the interaction of segmental and supersegmental units. Among
them, stress is the most important supersegmental unit. In the process of speech, stressed and
unstressed syllables alternate, creating the rhythm of speech.
Correctly formed sentences in the process of speech usually require the correct use of
supersegmental units in several places. Placing word stress on the syllable that corresponds to the
existing norms of a multi-syllable word and using word stress without errors determines the
fluency of speech in the language.
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Words can be understood even when some vowels and consonants are pronounced incorrectly
through stress and the main tone of the sound. However, if all vowels and consonants in a spoken
word are pronounced correctly, and a mistake is made in applying stress, speech will be seriously
impaired.
Many researchers believe that stress is a phenomenon related to the vowel in the syllable, and
lexical stress falls on the vowel in the syllable. The vowel has a dominant character in
distinguishing stressed and unstressed syllables. However, not all scientists fully agree with this
idea. Some literature shows that stress helps to distinguish not the vowel in the syllable, but the
entire syllable from the rest. That is why the stress segment is distinguished from the phoneme
perceived as a unit.
K. Kreidler notes that vowels are sounds that have their own significance in the language. One of
the distinctive features of a vowel is that it carries with it the main tone of the stress and sound,
of course, in the composition of the word, in the syllable. Another English linguist, Peter Rovch,
proposed a two-pronged approach to identifying the characteristics of a stressed syllable, rather
than directly defining it:
1) consider what the speaker did to produce the stressed syllable;
2) consider what properties of the sound make the syllable appear stressed to the listener. In
other words, we can study stress from the perspective of production and reception; although both
are interconnected, they are not exactly the same thing. The production of stress depends mainly
on the speaker's ability to pronounce the stressed syllable with greater muscular effort than the
unstressed syllable. Usually, when we produce a stressed syllable, we expel the air from the
lungs with high pressure. Such activity is observed in almost all speech organs.
A series of experiments conducted to determine how lexical stress is formed have shown that for
the perception of a stressed syllable, various properties of sound, mainly vowels, are important.
The reason is that the formation of syllables is closely related to vowel sounds. Word stress is the
lengthening and emphasising of a certain vowel (or syllable) in a word. From the point of view
of perception, the common feature of all stressed syllables is their clear distinction from the rest
of the unstressed syllables. At least four factors are important for this clarity [2].
1) Most people perceive stress on a syllable that is pronounced higher than the rest. However,
just pronouncing a syllable higher does not necessarily determine its prominence.
2) The length of the syllables is also important for differentiation. For example, if 1 syllable in a
nonsense word is stressed, it is longer than the rest /
ta:ta:ta:ta:/
talaffuz qilinadi.
3) Each syllable has a low or high pitch; in speech, the pitch of a sound is related to the vibration
of the vocal cords, which in musical terms means high and low notes. Therefore, syllables with a
high pitch are considered stressed, while syllables with a low pitch are considered unstressed.
4) The next factor that affects the stress of a syllable is whether it has a vowel that is different
from the vowels in the neighboring syllables. If we change one vowel in that meaningless word
/ta:ti:ta:ta:/
It sounds like that syllable is stressed. While this effect is not as strong or
significant as the above, it is useful in clarifying whether vowels are strong or weak.
Clarity, then, arises within the framework of four important factors: pitch, length, pitch, and
characteristics (typical tone).
Generally, all four factors are present at the same time, but sometimes only one or two of them
may be active.
Professor Abduazizov classifies the phonetic components of accent as follows:
a) According to the movement of the speech organs. That is, stress is characterized by a
significant increase in the activity of the larynx and breathing and the duration of high-frequency
articulation of the vocal cords.
b) From the point of view of acoustics, a stressed syllable has a higher intensity and a higher tone
of sound, duration than other unstressed syllables.
c) In terms of perception, a stressed syllable is characterized by a higher pitch, duration, and
higher tone of sound than unstressed syllables.
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Using word stress means not only dividing a sound into syllables through the duration of the
sound and the high or low level of the tone, but also, from the point of view of phonetics,
forming a word based on prosodic relationships in the structure of the language.
As noted, stress is one of the formative properties of a word. Regardless of whether a
word is monosyllabic, disyllabic or polysyllabic, it necessarily has its own stress. The formative
function of stress forms words phonetically, that is, it combines stressed and unstressed syllables
in a sound sequence using articulatory means using volume, stress and the main tone of the
sound. The accentual-rhythmic structure of a word is a structural element of the phonemic
structure of a word, which is formed on the basis of the syllable structure, the connection of
phonemes and the phonetic structure. These three components of the phonetic structure of a word
are combined within the framework of the accentual-rhythmic structure, as a result of which a
word is formed that can be used as a semantic and linguistic unit.
D.B. Frye argues that accent differences are perceived by the listener in terms of four complex
interrelated physiological dimensions: length, pitch, thinness-thickness, and high pitch. Physical
and mental factors are interrelated: duration, pitch, fundamental frequency, and the structural
structure of the speech sound waves. If we consider the perception of an English accent, several
factors influence it: [3]
1) the length of the syllable,
2) the height of the syllables
3) the stress present in the vowels in the syllables
4) the presence of the main tone of the syllables
5) kinesthetic memories are related to the perception of the syllable they are creating.
Studies conducted using various instruments have shown that the vowel in a stressed syllable
has a higher frequency, impact, thickness, and longer duration than the vowel in unstressed
words.
Three features are important in distinguishing stressed and unstressed syllables in the Uzbek
language. First, the stressed syllable is pronounced longer than the rest of the syllables, second,
the stressed syllable is pronounced more clearly than the unstressed syllable, and third, the
stressed syllable is pronounced louder than another unstressed syllable. For example, the last
second syllable of the words dala, paxta, ona is pronounced longer, clearer, and louder than the
first syllable.
According to its phonetic and phonological nature, English stress is a more complex
process than Uzbek word stress, and its importance in the language is also higher. D. Crystal and
Gimson also agree with this opinion and define English word stress as a difficult process to
implement. The reason is that although there are similarities between definitions and approaches
to stress in existing scientific studies, we sometimes encounter contradictory opinions. For
example, according to Vrabel, only meaningful (independent) words can receive word stress in
English, and articles, on the contrary, do not receive stress.
Some literature suggests that both articles and prepositions have potential (probable) stress in
some sense. Therefore, in all sources about English stress, several exceptions are noted. Uzbek
word stress, unlike English word stress, is characterized by general norms. Perhaps that is why in
sources about Uzbek phonology and phonetics, authors give very brief information about word
stress and its specific features.
Word stress and sentence stress are interconnected. Because, within the framework of the
function of word stress and sentence stress, both are important from a theoretical and practical
point of view. Sentence stress usually falls on the most necessary syllable in a word, on the
syllable designated by the word stress. Therefore, the accentual structure of nouns and
determiners is the order of stress in a word combination. At the same time, the stress pattern of a
word combination is formed by semantic and syntactic factors. Words that are always stressed in
a word combination are words that have a nominal meaning. They express the main concept in
the word combination, so any word with a certain semantic significance in a sentence can receive
sentence stress.
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It should be noted that word stress and sentence stress cannot be described as exactly the same
process. While word stress distinguishes one or more syllables in a word, sentence stress
emphasizes one or more words or phrases in a sentence.
Therefore, sentence stress is an important component of intonation. These two types of stress are
sometimes used interchangeably in research at different levels, since their factors, functions, and
components are different. For example:
can
The word is often unstressed, but in some cases like
this one, it can be stressed;
Now you can see it. Can you see it? I can.
English word stress
sometimes retains its own characteristics within a sentence or clause, affecting the tone of a
sentence to a higher or lower level. Perhaps for this reason, some linguists study word stress and
sentence stress without separating them. [7].
In phonological terms, lexical stress (also called accent-differentiating stress) has the
property of distinguishing meaning. This is the case in many languages, in particular in English
and Uzbek. [10]:
1)
There has been a significant
increase
in the number young people who smoke.
2)
The population may
increase
by 15 percent.
In the quoted sentences
increase
The word is
originally a noun ['ɪnkriːs], and in the next sentence, the verb [ɪn'kriːs] is performing its function.
In Uzbek, apple (fruit), apple (infinitive form of the verb).
We use lexical stress to distinguish words and phrases that have the same sound sequence: 'black
'bird (black bird, any black bird (phrase)), 'black-bird (a type of bird found mainly in Europe and
North America (compound)). Out of context, we can only distinguish such words by stress.
In short, word stress falls on one of the syllables of a word and determines its meaning
and pronunciation. Word stress is also called lexical stress or lexical stress.
Based on the issues considered in the study, we can draw the following conclusions and make
suggestions.
Conclusion:
The analysis of word stress and its phonetic and phonological aspects is an important area of
linguistics. Stress, the force of pronunciation given to words and word parts or syllables, is
important for distinguishing meaning in language, conveying context, and influencing meaning.
On the phonological side, it is important to understand how stress distinguishes a specific sound
or even a level in a language and how it affects the word and the question. Analyzing the
phonetic aspects of word stress helps to show the specific sounds of a language and their
interaction with each other. The phonological aspects are also necessary for understanding the
levels, tones, and interactions in a language.
Offers:
1. Expanding stress and phonological analysis methods: Introducing more practices and
experimental analysis methods to determine word stress. This will help to provide significant
results depending on the habitat and context of the language.
2. Using linguistic techniques: Introducing new methods in linguistics, such as the use of
computer models or other auxiliary techniques, can be effective in determining word stress and
its phonological effects.
3. Conducting phonological investigations: For a detailed analysis of stress and phonological
elements, it is necessary to study the effects of different phonetic elements on tone and proximity.
This will help to understand the logical concept and meaning of the language more deeply.
4. Analyzing differences in many languages: In the field of phonetics and phonology, comparing
stress and connection in different languages can help to identify differences between
languages.
5. Taking into account the social and cultural context: Accent and phonological features affect
the social and cultural context of the language, so it is necessary to analyze these factors.
These suggestions help to better understand and analyze the phonetic and phonological aspects
of word stress.
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