Characteristics of unstressed syllables
Unstressed syllables are those that don’t receive any stress at
all. They tend to be weak and somewhat unclear. In contrast
to stressed syllables, unstressed syllables can have some or all
of these qualities:
- They’re shorter in duration than stressed syllables—quick
and weak. - They’re a bit quieter than stressed syllables.
- They’re lower in pitch than stressed syllables.
- Their vowel sounds are less distinct than those in stressed
syllables and are often (but not always) reduced to
become /ə/. In fact, in many unstressed syllables it
doesn’t matter if you say /ə/ or /ɪ/ or a sound in
between. The unstressed vowel is just the quick little
sound that your tongue makes while moving from one
important sound to another. There may be some variation
in what the vowel sounds like without causing
misunderstanding. (For example, the vowels in the -ed
and -s endings in Chapter 6 work this way.)
In order for speech to be easily understood, it’s important for
unstressed syllables to be much shorter and weaker than
stressed syllables. This helps the listener recognize the whole
syllable pattern of the word and begin to identify it. If there’s
not enough contrast between the stressed and unstressed
syllables, listeners’ minds may be looking for a word that has
the wrong stress pattern and never !nd the actual word.Which syllable should be stressed?
It sometimes seems that word stress in English is arbitrary—
that there’s no way to predict which syllable will be stressed
in any particular word. Actually, there are rules and
generalizations that can often (but not always) predict where
word stress will fall. They take into account the historical
origin of the word, its pre!xes and su#xes, and the word’s
grammatical function in a sentence. These rules are rather
complex, and we will only look at a few of them here. For a
more complete discussion of factors that help determine word
stress in English, see Celce-Murcia et al. 2010 pp. 185-198.Teachers sometimes wonder if they should require students
to memorize detailed rules about word stress. As with many
other aspects of pronunciation, it’s not a good idea to try to
teach all the rules to students or to expect them to memorize
them, especially with younger learners. It’s just too much. In
any case, memorizing a rule is seldom the best way to learn
to use it well. It’s better to guide students to discover some
basic generalizations about word stress and give them plenty
of practice in using the patterns they !nd.104