Top researchers explore the nature of stress and accent patterns in languages, especially the nature of their representations and how people learn them.

Stress and accent are central, organizing features of grammar, but their precise nature continues to be a source of mystery and wonder. These issues come to the forefront in acquisition, where the tension between the abstract mental representations and the concrete physical manifestations of stress and accent is deeply reflected. Understanding the nature of the representations of stress and accent patterns, and understanding how stress and accent patterns are learned, informs all aspects of linguistic theory and language acquisition. These two themes - representation and acquisition - form the organizational backbone of this book. Each is addressed along different dimensions of stress and accent, including the position of an accent or stress within various prosodic domains and the acoustic dimensions along which the pronunciation of stress and accent may vary. The research presented in the book is multidisciplinary, encompassing theoretical linguistics, speech science, and computational and experimental research.

Do you have a fear of transcription? Are you daunted by the prospect of learning and handling unfamiliar symbols? This workbook is for students who are new to linguistics and phonetics, and offers a didactic approach to the study and transcription of the words, rhythm and intonation of English. It can be used independently or in class and covers all the pronunciation details of words, phrases, rhythm and intonation. Progress is deliberately gentle with plenty of explanations, examples and 'can't go wrong' exercises. In addition, there is an associated website with audio recordings of authentic speech, which provide back-up throughout. The audio clips also introduce students to variations in accents, with eleven different speakers. Going beyond the transcription of words, the book also ventures into real discourse with the simplification systems of colloquial English speech, rhythm and intonation.

This handbook presents detailed accounts of current research in all aspects of language prosody, written by leading experts from different disciplines. The volume's comprehensive coverage and multidisciplinary approach will make it an invaluable resource for all researchers, students, and practitioners interested in prosody.

Explores the nature of stress and accent patterns in natural language using a diverse range of theories, methods and data.

A team of world-renowned phonologists present new perspectives on word stress, exploring stress as a phenomenon, data selection, and analysis.

Luigi Burzio's Principles of English Stress challenges many of the assumptions that have underpinned the generative description of English stress and more generally 'standard' metrical theory. Central to Burzio's analysis is a novel typology of metrical constituents that includes ternary feet and excludes monosyllabic feet. The analysis is essentially nonderivational in character: principles of well-formedness check for the presence of stress and weight in the output. The principles themselves are organized into a hierarchy consisting of a hardcore-controlling foot form that in cases of conflict may override principles of metrical consistency and alignment of edges. The interplay among these competing principles accounts for the cyclic effects of the standard theory. A special role is accorded phonetically null syllables that analyse hidden metrical structure to preserve a simple foot inventory and sharply curtail the standard theory's extrametricality.