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1 Fundamental concepts

of the theory of prominence

1.1 Introduction
When we speak –either English or Spanish– we always highlight some syllables over others in an
utterance in order to make our meaning clear. Sometimes we choose only one syllable –and therefore
only one word– to stand out over the rest (as in, for instance, What are you doing UP so late?) , but
very often –depending onthe length of the utterance, the choice of words and mainly the message we
want to convey– we give prominence to more than one syllable (as in HOW would you LIKE to COME
for a WALK?). The aim of this opening chapter is to analyze how speakers of these –and many other–
languages produce these highlighting effects and for what linguistic purposes. The area of Phonetics
which studies this aspectof speech is PROSODY and the term normally used to refer to different
degrees of salience is PROMINENCE. We shall first define prosody and then we shall look at the
various phonetic and phonological features which explain prominence during speech.
By prosody we mean all those aspects of speech which are not accounted for in an ordinary
phonemic transcription showing only vowels and consonantsand which normally extend over more
than one single sound. In this chapter we shall analyze notions such as stress, accent and prominence,
degrees of stress, stress-shift and notation systems for stress and accent. Since we are catering for
advanced learners whose mother tongue is Spanish, constant reference to similar problems in that
language is included in our discussion. We must also beaware of the fact that prosody is an area in
which there is considerable terminological disagreement and this can be a hindrance when we consult
different authors.
Chapter 1 is organized as follows: the first two sections, 1.2 and 1.3, survey the phonetics and
phonology of prominence. Degrees of word stress is addressed in 1.4 and lexical and postlexical
notation systems, in 1.5. Theaccentuation vs prominence issue is analyzed in 1.6. Rhythm is
discussed in 1.7 and pause and intonation, in section 1.8. Section 1.9 introduces the notion of stressshift. Notes and advice for the Spanish learner are included in section 1.10.

1.2 Prominence
Irrespective of the length of an utterance, whether it is one, two or several words long, we always
make at least one syllable stand out withrespect to its neighbouring syllables, so that the words
containing those particular syllables will in turn stand out with respect to other, non-prominent words.
For instance, if we say the word drama in isolation, syllable dra- will invariably sound more

© H. Ortiz 2011 - Word stress and sentence accent

2

prominent than syllable -ma. This is because dra- contains a strong, relatively longvowel, as opposed
to the second syllable, which has a short, weak vowel, and most importantly because it begins pitch
movement. When we pronounce a word in isolation we tend to say it with falling intonation, i.e. a
pitch that begins high and finishes low / edrA˘m´/; a few people would probably say it with rising
intonation, i.e. a pitch that begins low and finishes high /ydrA˘m´/, amongother options. We should
bear in mind that the important thing is not what type of pitch movement it is but where it begins –in
this case, on syllable dra-. In other words, apart from syllable quality and length, we also associate
prominence with syllables which have the capacity to begin different types of pitch movement –
falling, rising, level, falling-rising, etc. In Figure 1.1 we can see thepitch traces –i.e. patterns
representing the moving pitch– of the word drama in schematic form, first with falling, then with
rising intonation:

beginning of
falling pitch
movement

drA˘

m

drA˘

´

m

´

beginning of
rising pitch
movement

Figure1.1: The pitch traces of the word drama said with falling and rising intonation.

If we now analyze the word company we...