Stress (definition)

Stress refers to the prominence of a syllable relative to the other syllables in a word or other prosodic domain. Phonetically, it is measured in terms of length (duration), amplitude (loudness), and frequency (pitch), where stressed syllables show greater length and amplitude and higher frequency. Stress can be used to distinguish meanings like in the differentiation between the noun and verb "produce" (e.g. 'produce (noun: fruits and vegetables) vs pro'duce (verb: to make something)).

Stress in Gaelic is almost always on the initial (first) syllable of a word.

See Also

• Intonation (definition)
• Prosody (definition)

External Links

• http://akerbeltz.org/index.php?title=Unstressed_vowels
• http://pachamamatrust.org/f2/1_K/commerce/Intro/002b_Stress_KCoA.htm

The link below takes you away from the Gaelic Wiki to Wikipedia. Since wikipedia pages can be edited by anyone, they often contain inaccurate information. So be careful!

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_(linguistics)

References

• Ladefoged, D. (2010) A Course in Phonetics. 6th Edition. Wadsworth Publishing.