[General] Secondary Stress in English

[The apprentice]

Dear teachers and members:

My understanding about the secondary stress is as follows:

If a sound is neither stressed nor reduced, consequently it's neither weaker than the reduced sound nor stronger than the stressed one as those sounds in one-syllable words;.

Hunt /hʌnt/ ;Think /θɪŋk/; Road /roʊd/;Take /teɪk/

Schwa sound is a reduced sound, and primary stress is a stressed sound; secondary stress is a sound in-between.

As stated above, secondary stress is weaker than primary stress and stronger than Schwa. It is placed prior to the syllable it stresses with a short vertical mark at the foot of the syllable with the secondary stress. I've noticed that all word having a secondary stress has a primary stress in it also; I don't know if this is a phonological rule.

Secondary stress occurs in words from three syllables on

1) Recommend (rec-om-mend) /ˌrekəˈmend/; 2) Conversation (con-ver-sa-tion) /ˌkɒn vərˈseɪ ʃən/ 3) Pronunciation (pro-nun-ci-a-tion) /prəˌnʌnsiˈeɪʃən/

I would like to know if one-syllable words and verbs either take the secondary stress or primary one in connected speech; for instance:

(a) I think she was in the city.

/ˌaɪˈθɪŋkʃiːwəzɪnðəˈsɪti/

(b) March is a beautiful month.

/ˌmɑː(r)tʃəzəˈbjuːtəfəlˌmʌnθ/

Your insight and feedback will be deeply appreciated.

 

[Raymott]

This example from Wikipedia suggest that you can do that:

Jack, preparing the way, went on.
[ˈdʒæk | pɹəˌpɛəɹɪŋ ðə ˈweɪ | wɛnt ˈɒn ‖ ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosodic_unit

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

All words of more than one syllable have a primary stress.

 

[The apprentice]

I already kinow that Chralies Bernstein, but I would like to know if those stresses I assigned to those words above are correct?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I already kinow that Chralies Bernstein, but I would like to know if those stresses I assigned to those words above are correct?

Call me Charlie!

Sorry, I thought Raymott had already answered that.

You wrote: "If a sound is neither stressed nor reduced, consequently it's neither weaker than the reduced sound nor stronger than the stressed one...."

I'm saying that that never happens. In a two-syllable word, one syllable is always stronger. In a word with more than two, one is always strongest.

If you're talking about words of more than two syllables, it varies. And it doesn't matter, because those secondary stresses usually take care of themselves.

You also wrote: "Schwa sound is a reduced sound...."

That's not always true. For instance, the stress is on schwa syllables in turtle, concerning, and murderer.

In "connected speech" (sentences) it varies, depending on context. As a stand-alone statement, we would usually say:

"I think she was in the CIty."
"MARCH is a beautiful MONTH" or "MARCH is a BEAUtiful month."

But in a conversation, they could be:

"I THINK she was in the city" or "I think she WAS in the city" or "I think she was IN the city."

"March IS a beautiful month."

I wouldn't use any secondary stresses on any of those.

Hope that helps!

 

[MikeNewYork]

"That's not always true. For instance, the stress is on schwa syllables in turtle, concerning, and murderer."

We must use a different definition for "schwa". In your three examples, the stress is on a short u, a short e, and a short u, respectively. Not all short vowels are schwas.

 

[Raymott]

Shwa (/ə/) is most definitely not /ɜː/ (or the rhotic version) or as in "nurse, turtle, person, her ..."

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

"That's not always true. For instance, the stress is on schwa syllables in turtle, concerning, and murderer."

We must use a different definition for "schwa". In your three examples, the stress is on a short u, a short e, and a short u, respectively. Not all short vowels are schwas.

Sorry. I sit corrected. I should have made clear that I was writing only about standard American, in which the U, E, U are neither long or short in those words. They're not pronounced at all.

In Britain and parts of the U.S., they are pronounced, but differently, depending on the place and person. For instance, a Briton might say tuhtl, and Brooklynite might say toytl. In standard (boring) American, it's trtl.

 

[MikeNewYork]

So you are saying that the U in turtle and murderer and the E in concerning are not pronounced at all? On what planet?

 

[Raymott]

In standard (boring) American, it's trtl.

I don't believe that. What system of phonetics are you using? Can you provide a link? Or perhaps an authority who can back up your claim?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I don't believe that. What system of phonetics are you using? Can you provide a link? Or perhaps an authority who can back up your claim?

Syllables are all required to have vowels. So when there is no vowel pronounced, we use them as place-holders to affirm that it is, in fact, a syllable. As you know, American English uses different pronunciations than British. For example, see the pronunciation in this American dictionary entry:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/murder

That is, we go directly from the M to R (an mmm sound followed by an rrr sound) and D to R without pronouncing a vowel.

I also mentioned that there are many variations within the U.S. For example, New York, where Mike is from, has many of its own accents. Some New Yorkers will say moidah, some will say merdah, some will say muhduh, some will say mwoiduh (like the actor Hunts Hall). In the southern U.S., muhdah is common.

Nonetheless, the Merriam-Webster pronunciation above is standard American English, and that's the only point I was trying to make.

 

[Raymott]

I see "mur·der \mər-dər\" on your link. So, you are asserting that a schwa is not a vowel sound and doesn't need representing in a phonemic representation?
/tərtəl/ is a different sound than /trtl/. (If schwa is not represented, /trtl/ could represent /trətlə/.)
Still, if you can find a system or authority, etc. that transcribes 'turtle' as /trtl/ or 'serve' as /srv/, and which doesn't bother indicating a schwa, I'd be interested to see it. If this system is idiosyncratic to you (ie. it has one user), then it might not be so helpful for students, and you could consider amending it.

 

[MikeNewYork]

Charlie, that is all well and good, but your statement that the short vowels were unstressed was incorrect.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

"That's not always true. For instance, the stress is on schwa syllables in turtle, concerning, and murderer."

We must use a different definition for "schwa". In your three examples, the stress is on a short u, a short e, and a short u, respectively. Not all short vowels are schwas.

That's true. Not all short vowels are schwas. I can't find a place where I said they were.

If I did, I sit corrected.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Charlie, that is all well and good, but your statement that the short vowels were unstressed was incorrect.

Hm. Help, please. I can't find where I said that. I did say this:

"I think she was in the CIty."
"MARCH is a beautiful MONTH" or "MARCH is a BEAUtiful month."

But in a conversation, they could be:

"I THINK she was in the city" or "I think she WAS in the city" or "I think she was IN the city."

"March IS a beautiful month."
​

There are a lot of stressed short vowels there. So I certainly agree that short vowels can be stressed. We stress them all the time, right?

 

[MikeNewYork]

Then what did this mean "the stress is on schwa syllables in turtle, concerning, and murderer"?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Then what did this mean "the stress is on schwa syllables in turtle, concerning, and murderer"?

Oh. Here's the post you got that from:

Me: "That's not always true. For instance, the stress is on schwa syllables in turtle, concerning, and murderer."

You: We must use a different definition for "schwa". In your three examples, the stress is on a short u, a short e, and a short u, respectively. Not all short vowels are schwas.
​

I meant that the stress in those three words is on TUR, CERN, and MUR.

That's all. I wasn't making a generalization about where stresses belong. Again, it varies.

None of those are short vowels, are they? The U's aren't pronounced uh as in rum, and the E isn't pronounced eh as in red. Lookit:

Merriam-Webster - turtle
Merriam-Webster - concern
Merriam-Webster - murder

And yes, we might have different understandings of what schwa means. And to paraphrase Sheryl Crowe, I've got a feeling we're not the only ones. These online folks think it's only used in unstressed syllables:

Dictionary.com

...and these folks think that the A's in America and the U in cut are schwas:

Merriam-Webster - schwa

...while I would have called the A's and U all short U's if anyone had asked me: Uh-meric-uh. cuht. (They usually don't.)

So what do I know. But did you notice?: Even though they say that schwas go in unstressed syllables, they didn't balk at putting them in the stressed syllables of turtle, concern, and murder, did they?

So schwas are like hives: they can pop up anytime, anywhere. Meanwhile, these folks have a somewhat broader view that will especially interest ESL students:

Wiki

Meanwhile, it still looks like we all mean pretty much the same thing when we say schwa, though the above links show that you're right, there might be some subtle distinctions.

Hope that clarifies!