LINGUIST List 7.52

Thu Jan 11 1996

Disc: Word Stress

Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <dizdartam2000.tamu.edu>

Directory

1. David Prager Branner, Stress

I'm sorry to say I find a number of the words on Lloyd Holliday's list
(Linguist List, Vol. 7-43) doubtful. I think there has to be
recognition of dialect differences within American English, even on
such a brief list. Some of the examples listed as "American" grate
terribly on my ears, and I would hate to find people in other
countries thinking they were proper American English. And the
following words are listed as having "UK" stress but are are the
familiar America pronunciations, at least to my ears:

	addre'ss (n)
	de'tail (in some uses)
	defa'mato,ry
	e'xpert (adj.)
	rea'ctiona,ry
	resea'rch (v.)
	re'search (n.)

The example "extraordinary" I think misses the mark. English friends
of mine pronounce this with the two adjacent vowels "ao" distinguished
and stressed on the "o", whereas the familiar pronunciation in this
country is to merge them as "o" (which is stressed).

At least one example, "lieutenant", puzzles me. (I say
"lieute'nant".) Surely if one is going to write "Febuary" in the
American column then "leftenant" should appear in the UK column.

Another matter is that I do not think it makes sense to list
differences in secondary stress as part of the same list. If "UK"
pronunciation does not *emphasize* secondary stress, that is not the
same as saying it does not have secondary stress.

		Sincerely,

David Prager Branner, Yuen Ren Society
Asian L&L, University of Washington, Box 353521
Seattle, WA 98195-3521 USA			
<charmiiu.washington.edu>
Web: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~yuenren/Circular.html