What term describes emphasis on syllables within words?

What term describes emphasis on syllables within words?

• A. Stress
• B. Intonation
• C. Rhythm
• D. Tone

Answer: (A)

Emphasis on syllables within words is called stress. It means one syllable is more prominent than the others—louder, longer, and often with a sharper vowel quality. This prominence helps us pronounce words clearly and can even affect meaning or grammatical function in some languages. By comparison, intonation is the rising and falling of pitch across a sentence rather than within a single word, rhythm is the overall pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a stretch of speech, and tone refers to pitch used to convey meaning in tonal languages or to express attitude. A familiar English example is the word record, where the noun stresses the first syllable (REcord) and the verb stresses the second syllable (reCORD).

Emphasis on syllables within words is called stress. It means one syllable is more prominent than the others—louder, longer, and often with a sharper vowel quality. This prominence helps us pronounce words clearly and can even affect meaning or grammatical function in some languages. By comparison, intonation is the rising and falling of pitch across a sentence rather than within a single word, rhythm is the overall pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a stretch of speech, and tone refers to pitch used to convey meaning in tonal languages or to express attitude. A familiar English example is the word record, where the noun stresses the first syllable (REcord) and the verb stresses the second syllable (reCORD).