Spelling Progress Bulletin Stress: Syllable and Phrase, by

Abstract

Consideration of stress is crucial to both the teaching of word perception and proposals for an initial learning medium or an all-out spelling reform. This consideration is especially valid for American English because it is a syllable-stress language. Furthermore, some "working" knowledge of pitch and juncture, as well as stress -grammatical patterns of language (speech) -are needed to introduce learners to the graphic system. Syllabic Stress There are two types of stress: First, syllabic stress -the prominence, or importance, given to the first syllable of given /'givən/ to the second syllable of about /a-'bout/, and to the first of marvelous /'mar-və-ləs/. Second, phrasal, or sentence, stress or variations in levels of energy used in speaking -the stress given to /'liv/ in We will deliver it to you. This last type of stress indicates the relationships between words in a phrase -for example, stressed the /'thē/ said in isolation versus unstressed the /thə/ in the phrase the boy. Syllabic stress (prominence given to syllables in words) overlaps phrasal stress (prominence given to a word within phrases or sentences). It is distinctive from Spanish, for example, because Englis