#The syllable as a prosodic unit. Word stress, its nature and functions. Linguistically relevant types of word stress.
Word-stress can be defined as the singling out 1 or more syllables in a word which is accomplished by the change of the force of utterance, pitch of voice, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of vowels.
Types of word-stress: 1. Tonic stress - refers to the syllable in a word which receives the most stress in an intonation unit; 2. Emphatic stress - if you decide to emphasize sth, you can change the stress from the principal noun to another content word such as an adjective or an intensifier; 3. Contrastive stress - is used to point out the difference between one object and another; tends to be used with determiners like "this, that, these, those"; 4. New information stress - when asked a question, the requested information is stressed more strongly (the rule of theme and rheme). Degrees of word-stress: 1. Primary; 2. Secondary; 3. Tertiary; 4. Weak.
Functions of word-stress: 1. Constitutive - unites syllables into words; 2. Distinctive - differentiates the meanings of words or their forms; 3. Identificatory - identifies a succession of syllables as a definite accentual pattern of a word.