English Orthography a Guide to Word Stress and Vowel Quality

Abstract

Chomsky et Halle, dans leur livre The Sound Pattern ofEnglish (1968), emettent la diese que les anglophones sont capables d'induire de l'orthographe anglaise quel doit etre le model ä appliquer. L'auteur de cet article est de l'opinion que meme les non anglophones peuvent dans une large mesure prendre l'orthographe anglaise comme point de depart pour leur choix parmi les possibilites d'accentuation et de qualites vocaliques qui se presentent. Une analyse generative de Panglais donne les regles de l'accentuation et des alternances vocaliques, que l'auteur de l'article applique ensuite pedagogiquement en essayant ainsi de les rendre utiles pour Papprentissage de Panglais comme langue etrangere.Chomsky und Halle stellen in ihrem Buch The Sound Pattern ofEnglish (1968) die These auf, daß Muttersprachler das korrekte Betonungsmuster eines englischen Wortes aus seiner Schreibung entnehmen können. Der Autor dieses Artikels ist der Auffassung, daß auch Nichtmuttersprachler die englische Schreibung weitgehend als Ausgangspunkt für die korrekte Wortbetonung und Vokalqualität nehmen können. Eine generative phonologische Analyse des Englischen liefert die Regeln für Betonung und Vokalalternation, die der Autor dieses Artikels pädagogisch umsetzt und somit für das Erlernen des Englischen als Fremdsprache nutzbar zu machen versucht. "It is noteworthy, but not too surprising, that English orthography, despite its often cited inconsistencies, comes remarkably close to being an optimal Orthographie System for English." (Chomsky and Halle 1968: 49)

English Stress Rules and Native Speakers

“…Exceptions are the Alternating Stress Rules, although evidently applied in a different manner than that stated by Chomsky and Halle, and the rule stressing the final syllable of verbs ending in a consonant. Because of the lack of agreement among the native speakers as to the pronunciation of nonsense words representing most of the generative phonological rules tested, not only as regards analysis of segments, but also as to the placement of stress, it is concluded here that English does not have such an optimal orthographic system as Chomsky and Halle (1968), Dickerson (1978), and others have suggested.…”

Understanding the Innerworks of Word Stress in RP and Cameroon English: A Case for a Competing Constraints Approach

“…Put simply, a heavy syllable is one which (a) has a tense vowel or (b) has a diphthong as its nucleus, and /or (c) ends with a consonant cluster, while a light syllable is one which has none of the characteristics. (a) We find ourseleves there in the face of a"hen or chicken" debate trying hard to determine which one produces the other, indeed in the middle of the circularity long pointed out by Dickerson (1978). If one were to make an exclusive statement, one would think that it makes more sense to say that stress influences vowel quality; one would maintain, for instance, that the of pertain is due to the occurrence of stress on the second syllable, while the weak vowel of the comparable words bargain, mountain and fountain is due to the absence of stress on the second syllable.…”

Morphological Make-up as the Predictor of English Word Accent

“…Gordon (1974) recommended a good dictionary as the simplest way to correct pronunciation as word accent is not that predictable. For years generative analysis of English phonology has afforded handy rules for stress placement (Birjandi & Salmani-Nodoushan, 2005;Chomsky & Halle, 1968;Dickerson, 1978Dickerson, , 1981Dickerson, , 1982Dickerson, , 1985Dickerson, , 1986Dickerson, , 1989Dickerson & Finney, 1978). This article shows how morphological make-up can help to predict English word accent.…”