2296: (New) Hebrew Stress Mar 30, 2021
Traditionally, Hebrew stress was almost always placed on the final syllable of the word, though there is a pattern which places it on the penultimate syllable. Increasingly however the stress is placed on the penultimate syllable outside of that aforementioned pattern, in general colloquial use, names, and loanwords. Previously, the stress was always predictable depending on syllable weight—i.e. the syllable length and whether the syllable had a coda—but the stress now is phonemic, insofar as it is now used to distinguish between words of different meanings, such as
/ˈboker/ (בּוֹקֵר)—"morning" /boˈker/ (בֹּקֶר)—cowboy
2295: Prosodic Stress Mar 29, 2021
In addition to the way that an individual word will have stress, stress in a sentence adds or indeed creates meaning. For instance:
[*x* indicating stress]
*He* didn't rob her (indicates someone else was a robber)
He didn't rob *her* (indicates someone else was robbed)
This sort of differentiation of meaning can be seen in practically any part of a sentences, even though the literal, structural form will be the same. This is known as prosodic stress since it is the prosody of the sentence which acts to add meaning. Any fun examples of this, write in the comments.
2293: Secondary Stress Mar 27, 2021
Much like with personal matters, words can have not only primary but also secondary stress, especially in certain environments. As the name implies, there is a level of stress that most languages have that introduces phonetic distinctions, but there can also be a secondary level which is less extreme in its change of volume/pitch, but still has a function. In some languages like Hawai'ian or Estonian, this is a part built into every word or at least sentences no matter what, and is therefore predictable. In English, this not predictable, but common in certain structures such as with compounds where the first syllable has primary stress as in:
laundry-cleaner, where the first syllable of 'cleaner' has secondary stress. This makes it easier to determine when listening that there is indeed a compound rather than two distinct words.
2291: Stress in Tonal Languages Mar 25, 2021
It would be reasonable to assume that tonal languages, which already rely on changes in pitch to distinguish between words don't have stress or meter since those functions also involve volume, length, and even pitch. This assumption would be incorrect however. While it is true that these features are less relevant than in certain non-tonal languages, stressed syllables have been found in Mandarin for example by utilizing change in the fundamental frequency of the pitch (i.e. the swing in pitch of one individual tone) greater than that of the unstressed syllable, which would therefore have a more narrow change in pitch by itself.