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Lexical prosody refers to the specific amplitudes, pitches, or lengths of vowels that are applied to specific syllables in words based on what the speaker wants to emphasize. The different stressors placed on individual syllables can change entire meanings of a word. Take one popular English word for example:
The fallacy of accent (also known as accentus, from its Latin denomination, and misleading accent [1]) is a verbal fallacy that reasons from two different vocal readings of the same written words. In English, the fallacy typically relies on prosodic stress, the emphasis given to a word within a phrase, or a phrase within a sentence.
In English, such stress patterns carry relatively little functional load, especially in contrast to tone languages, such as Mandarin. That is, there are few word pairs which are phonetically identical but distinguished by prosody alone, with CONduct/conDUCT being one of the rare examples. Nevertheless, correct positioning of stress is an ...
Dysprosody, which may manifest as pseudo-foreign accent syndrome, refers to a disorder in which one or more of the prosodic functions are either compromised or eliminated. [ 1 ] Prosody refers to the variations in melody, intonation , pauses, stresses, intensity, vocal quality, and accents of speech. [ 2 ]
The use of proper prosody can increase intelligibility, make it easier for listeners to understand the speaker. This is true across languages. In English, word stress is less important than tone in Mandarin, but is still essential for full intelligibility. The use of proper prosody also affects listeners’ judgments of proficiency, and competence.
If the penultimate syllable is stressed, the accent is used if the word ends in any other letter, as in cárcel. That is, if a word is written without an accent mark, the stress is on the penult if the last letter is a vowel, n, or s, but on the final syllable if the word ends in any
In English orthography, a continuing prosodic boundary may be marked with a comma (assuming the writer is using commas to represent prosody rather than grammatical structure), while final prosodic boundaries may be marked with a full stop (period).
Features of prosody substantially contribute to differences between American Indian and General American accents. [8] For example, even within the English of Colorado River Indians, there are differing rules for stress placement on words.