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The IUP Journal of English Studies

Syllable Structure and Word Stress in Dogri

Article Details

Pub. Date	: Sep, 2020
Product Name	: The IUP Journal of English Studies
Product Type	: Article
Product Code	: IJES110920
Author Name	: Devina Krishna
Availability	: YES
Subject/Domain	: Arts & Humanities
Download Format	: PDF Format
No. of Pages	: 16

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Abstract

In the field of linguistics, prosody deals with the elements of language that are properties of syllables and larger units of speech. Stress and tone are the major elements of what constitute the prosody within a language, and these have been the least discovered areas within the field of research. Dogri is a major language belonging to the western Indo-Aryan group of languages; however, the description of its prosodic features has been neglected. It is a tonal language with stress occurring on syllables within words. This paper focuses on unearthing the syllable structure in Dogri and rules of syllabification, i.e., how syllables are divided in Dogri. The second half of the paper focuses on the word stress phenomenon in Dogri, taking into account the different patterns of syllable in Dogri and the assignment of stress on those patterns. Word stress phenomenon in Dogri has been examined taking into account the Metrical Phonology framework. Further, it is followed by instrumental acoustic analysis of the words of various syllable structure, as a close examination by instrumental means would show that the variety of syllables are spoken with varying degrees of breath force.

Introduction

It is imperative to make a distinction between segmental and prosodic features while studying speech. The segmental system consisting of consonants and vowels may be a matter of simple understanding to a layman, but the prosodic features of stress and tone are an entirely different matter that needs sharp insight and knowledge. The prosodic properties are fundamental frequency (fo, the acoustic correlate of perceived pitch), duration, intensity (the acoustic correlate of perceived loudness), and, to some extent, vowel quality. These prosodic components offer a wide variety of functions in speech communication: diminishing word boundaries; stating pragmatic differences, such as statement versus question; expressing emotion; and so forth.

At the word or lexical level, prosodic properties encode lexical tone and lexical stress. In common parlance, prosodic features of speech are those that are not predictable from the inherent properties of consonants and vowels. Prosody is an important aspect to both