stress in compounds

Langue Orale
STTRREESSSS
IIN
N
CO
OM
MPPO
OU
UN
ND
DS
S
1/
PRINCIPES DE BASE
Les composés de –ever: l’accent tombe tjs sur la 1ère syll de ever: how’ever, when’ever,
whatso’ever.
Les composés de any-, some-, no- et every- st tjs accentués sur la 1ère
syllable: ‘anybody, ‘anyhow, ‘anyone, ‘somehow, ‘nobody, ‘nothing.
Exception: , any’more.
Attention: -some en 2ème position est inaccentuée: ‘handsome ‘irksome
‘troublesome.
Avec how ou where en 2ème element l’accent tombe tjs sur la 1ère syllable
du mot.
Les composés de -self/selves, l’accent tombe tjs sur self/selves: my’self
your’self.
Les composés contenant le suffix -hood sont tjs accentués sur le 1er
élément: ‘childhood.
Petit indice: un composé avec mots attachés et trait d’union a plus de
chance d’être accentué sur le 1er élément que sur le 2ème.
COMPOUND NOUN STRESS RULE
Compounds are semantically inseparable units: a ‘green ‘house, a ‘greenhouse
(une serre). In a compound, the meaning does not amount to the added meanings of its
compounding elements.
Primary stress on 1st word, secondary stress on 2nd word: 12
Ex : ‘ash,tray ; ‘baby,sitter ; ‘birth-,control ; ‘blood-,test ; ‘chamber ,music ; ‘earth,quake ;
‘foot,note ; ‘girl,friend
The 2nd word has secondary stress, so it is not reduced.
BUT : Frenchman /’fren!m"n/ ; Ireland /’a#"l"nd --> these are not compounds nouns.
Whatever the nb of syllables of the 2nd element, it is not reduced, which is one of the
characteristics of compounds;.
Only some historic compounds, such as ‘breakfast, ‘cupboard or ‘necklace exhibit vowel
reduction --> the merging process of the two elements has reached its ccl, they can now be
treated as words without internal structure.
SPECIAL CASES:
N1 or N2 = proper noun --> 21
• N1 = proper noun (in particular, names or roads, avenues, but regular pattern
for words with street: ‘Baker ,street ; ‘Oxford ,street)
o ,Buckingham ‘Palace ; ,Park ‘Avenue ; ,Fulham ‘Road ; ,Greenwich
‘Village ; ,Grosvenor ‘Square ; ,Victoria ‘Station
• N2 = proper noun 21
o ,River ‘Thames ; ,Loch ‘Ness ; ,Mount ‘Everest
! N2 is made of N1: 21 in particular in nouns referring to food
• ,paper ‘napkin ; ,cotton ‘dress ; ,cheese ‘sandwich ; ,pork ‘pie ; ,olive ‘oil
• BUT: regular pattern followed by nouns with cake juice milk water:
‘chocolate ,cake ; ‘orange ,juice and nouns with underlying of structure: ‘ice,cube ‘snow,flake (cube of ice, flake of snow)
! N2=N1: (formation where 1st element sub-classifies the 2nd)
• ,woman ‘writer ; ,baby ‘brother ; ,twin ‘sister
STRESS IN COMPOUND ADJECTIVES:
! Compound adjectives stress rule: primary stress on the 2 nd word 21
• ,dark-‘green ; ,far-‘reaching ; ,stone-‘deaf ; ,good-‘looking ; ,blue-‘eyed (in
particular adjectives suffixed in –ed)
! Stress shift: when a regular compound adjective is followed by a stressed syllable the
primary stress is moved back to the 1st word
• Her sweater is ,dark-‘blue --> She has a ‘dark-,blue sweater
! Special cases: main types: 12
• Word 1 = OBJECT (gr) of Word 2:
o ‘breath-,taking --> to take so’s breath
o ‘heart-,breaking --> to break so’s heart
• Word 1 = AGENT of Word 2 (“by”)
o ‘air,borne (to be borne by the air)
o ‘sun ,tanned (tanned by the sun)
NB: compound adjectives with made often follow the regular pattern: ,man-‘made
• Word 1 = PREPOSITIONAL COMPLEMENT of Word 2
o ‘water-,proof (proof against water)
o ‘home-,sick (sick for home)
! BUT: compound adjectives with FREE often follow regular pattern: ,duty-‘free ;
,tax-‘free
STRESS IN LEARNED COMPOUNDS:
Program, ideogram, epilogue, electrotype, cephalopod
! They are based on bound stems = morphemes that cannot be found by themselves,
==> do not have the status of words in English. Bound stems are semantically
transparent. Belong to learned register: medicine, anatomy, astronomy, literature etc.
! If they have no suffix, their behavior is identical to that of ordinary compounds: 12
• Pro/gram(me), ideo/gram,epi/logue…
! Stress-imposing suffixes prevent the 12 pattern: telepho’nee, telegra’phese,
xeno’phobic…
! Neutral suffixes (hood, ly, able, ant, ish etc) remain neutral. All the others become
stress-imposing with learned compounds:
• With a prefinal C2 primary stress falls on the penultimate -10:
epi’dermis, anthropo’morphism, rhodo’dendron…
• If the V of the 2 nd element is a diagraph, the stress falls on
penultimate -10: thera’peutist, dino’saurus…
• Elsewhere, it will fall on the antepenultimate -100: a’naphora,
an’tipodal, a’stronomer…