Supraseg mental phonemes are composed of 4 stresses, 4 pitches, and 4 junctures. They are as important as segmental phonemes (vowels and consonants). In this thesis the focus is pointed at the stress patterns on compound nouns. There are 4 stresses; primary stress//, secondary stress//, tertiary stress//, week//. The meanings in a sentence change whether it is a compound noun or a phrase. Compound nouns usually take a primary… tertiary stress pattern/´｀/. But sometimes they many take a double stress partern /′′/; (1) Appositive (ge´entleman + fa´rmer), (2) When the second element is special(ga´s+sto´ve), (3) Material noun+Noun (iron cu´rtain), (4) Present Participle+Noun (fiying sa´ucers), (5) Predicator/Object Nexus. And a small number of words, especially proper names, may take the poststress pattern /｀´/.
On the contrary, phrases may take a secondary-primary stress pattera /＾´/. Compound nouns and phrases are distinguished by these stress patterns. But these stress patterns are not marked on the written English books except a few special books. But when we speak, we must always keep these in our minds. When we do not know these stress patterns correctly, we can not deliver our ideas to others and can’t understand other’s words correctly. In this thesis I want to solve ambiguities in copound nouns contrasted with phrases.
|