Contrastive Analysis of Stress in English and Kurdish | ||
| Alustath | ||
| Article 1, Volume 0, Issue 202, November 2012, Pages 45-66 | ||
| Authors | ||
| Abbas Mustafa Abbas; Rawand Sabah Ahmad | ||
| Abstract | ||
| The title of this study is a’ Contrastive Analysis of Stress in English and English’. It deals with stress in both English and Kurdish languages to point out the areas of differences and similarities between them and to show the difficulties that face Kurdish learners of English language. The two languages have different rules and patterns of using stress. It is concluded that: A. Stress in Kurdish is a morphological phenomenon whether a syllable attracts or repels the primary stress is determined by morphology, i.e. it depends on whether the word is simple or derived, and whether the derivative is created by an inflectional or a derivational affix. Since all derivational affixes attract the stress on to themselves, while most inflectional affixes, repel it.Stress in English is mainly a phonological phenomenon, i.e. the position of the primary stress is determined by resorting to phonological factors such as length, loudness, prominence, the number of the syllables in a word, etc, although suffixes can have a role in assigning stress, those that attract the stress are few in number. B. Kurdish is a syllable- timed language, i.e. whether a syllable is stressed or unstressed its vowel will preserve its quality and remain a full vowel with all its distinctive features. English, on other hand, is a stress-time language, where the vowels of the unstressed syllable, lose their quality and are reduced to a schwa. Thus, Kurdish learners of English tend, or are inclined to use the strong forms of functions words in all contexts, and give equal time and prominence to all the syllables of English words, regardless of whether they are stressed or unstressed. Hence, their version of English lacks the rhythmic beats characteristic of the native or native-like pronunciation. The differences mentioned above are main factors of the difficulties by Kurdish learners. | ||
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