American English Stress is Based on Syllable Structure
In addition to knowing the correct pronunciation of the vowel like we talked about last week, you must also determine which syllable to stress. In English, we only pronounce the vowel of the stressed syllable and the unstressed syllables receive a schwa sound or a reduced form of the vowel. Non-native English speakers often have difficulty knowing which syllable to stress. But there are some guidelines to follow when determining which syllable to stress. It is generally based on three things.
- Whether the syllable is closed or open.
- The part of speech
- Suffixes and prefixes
Today we will talk about open and closed syllables.
How do you determine whether a syllable is open or closed? Let’s first define open and closed syllables. Since syllables are made up of sounds, we need to look at the basic shape of these syllables. A syllable can be a Vowel (or V) or a Vowel Consonant (VC) or a Consonant Vowel (CV) or Consonant Vowel Consonant (CVC). It is never just a consonant (C). Syllables can take on more complicated combinations as well, but these four are basic. The closed syllable combination in these four examples is the CVC combination. A closed syllable begins and ends with a consonant and a vowel is in between. An open syllable is one that ends in a vowel. Here are a couple of examples:
Closed (CVC) =Cat
Open (CV) =Re
A general pattern that you can follow if you don’t know which syllable to stress is to stress the closed syllables because closed syllables often are the stressed syllable: a BOUT, a CHIEVE, i NEPT,
Sometimes a word contains two syllables and both are closed. In this case, it is not so clear which one to stress: For example, MOUN tain has two closed syllables. The syllable stress is on the first syllable.
Next week, we’ll talk about the parts of speech which dictate stress placement and it may help you understand syllable stress more completely.
Would you like more practice with this skill? Join our online Stressing Out membership class and learn about this in more detail so that you become an expert at correctly stressing words!
