Differences in the position of stress in English, Kazakh and Russian.

Different syllable in one and the same word are usually pronounced with a different degree of prominence. Such special prominence given to one or more syllables in the same word is called word accent (or word stress).Word accent is subdivided into 4 groups: dynamic accent, musical accent, qualitative accent and quantitative accent. All existing languages have either the force or the musical type of word accent. English, Russian, Kazakh, German, French and other European languages belong to the force type of word accent, the only difference being in the degree of the force with which the stressed syllables are pronounced. To the musical type of word accent belong Swedish, Norwegian, and oriental languages, such as Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean and others. British and Soviet phoneticians distinguish three degrees of word accent in English: primary, secondary and weak. The strongest accent is primary, the second strongest is secondary. The syllables with primary and secondary accents are called stressed, while syllables with weak accents are called unstressed. Languages may also be classified according to the position of word accent in disyllabic and polysyllabic words. From this point of view languages have either free word accent or fixed word accent.

To the fixed type of word accent belong French and Kazakh (the final syllable is accented), for example, (бала, жасуша, қ алам, дә птер), Polish (the penultimate предпоследний syllable is accented). English and Russian belong to the so-called free word accent. It means that the main accent may fall in different words on a syllable occupying any position. The position of the stress in each particular word remains unchanged, or fixed. In Russian and English there are words in which the main stress falls either on the first, or the second, or the third, etc. syl­lable in a word. Accent is called shifting if it changes its position from one morpheme to another in different derivatives and grammatical forms of the word. For example:

in Russiant: холод, холодный, холода;

in English: ‘accent, to aс’cent, accentu’ation, ac’centuate; ‘subject, sub’jective, subjec’tivity, etc.

In languages with free word accent it is extremely dif­ficult to determine the position of the stress in every word. Such is the case with the Russian language. Its accentuation system must be learnt individually.

The accentual system of English is also free. But it is easier to learn the English accent than the Russian one due to a number of reasons. There exist in English certain tendencies which make the occurrence of word accent more predictable than in Russian. Prof.V.A.Vasailyev describes them as follows: the recessive tendency, the rhythmic tendency, the retentive tendency, and the semantic factor. These four help learners to determine the position of word accent in most English words.

The accentual structure of English words may also be analysed from the phonological point of view. The accentual structure fulfils three main functional constitutive, distinctive, recognitive. The distinctive function may be observed in phonological oppositions: presence of stress vs. absence of stress. In English’ word accent is capable of differentiating one word from another word,

e.g. ‘conduct (n) - conduct (v),

‘local (adj) - local (n),

‘abstract (a) - ab’stract (v),

‘increase (n) - in’crease (v),

‘perfume (n) - per’fume (v), etc.

In Russian accentual structure fulfils word-differentiating function, as in ‘жаркое – жар’кое, пла́ чу- плачу́.

The recognitive function of the accentual structure consists in the correct accentuation of words which makes it easier to understand speech. Wrong accentuation may produce two kinds of mistakes: phonological and phonetic.

The violation of the recognitive function of the accentual structure results in the following: 1) wrong accentuation of words produces a strong foreign accent; 2) it produces a comic impression upon the listener; 3) wrong accentuation of words hampers the communication.