Stressed and Unstressed Syllables

Introduction

In the previous article we looked as syllabic rhythm. In this article, we will begin to study accentual rhythm.

Accentual rhythm is what most people think of when you mention meter or scansion. Yes, these are iambs and trochees and all that prosody created centuries and centuries ago by Greek thinkers to describe the Greek language (see more here). So what is accentual rhythm, and how does it work in English?

In these articles, please note that much of the vocabulary (such as "flex syllables," "syllabic families," "syllabic vs. accentual rhythms," etc.) has been developed by Emily C. A. Snyder to help define how Anglophone Prosody functions. Anything that has been invented by Emily C. A. Snyder will be marked with an asterisk *

Peculiarities of English

English is an accentual-syllabic language. What this means is that our rhythm is created in two ways: through syllables (the different units of a word) and accent (whether those units are stressed or unstressed).

However, English also has flex syllables* which are typically monosyllabic words that may or may not be emphasized, depending on the speaker's intonation, and the rhythm of the words surrounding it. Flex syllables will be covered in separate articles.

Vocabulary

Prosody: The study of the rhythm of speech. We break down prosody by metric feet.
Metric Foot: A single unit of one (1) beat and the rhythms over it
Syllabic Rhythm*: The number of syllables on a foot. Syllabic rhythm was covered in the previous article.
Accentual Rhythm*: The accents attributed to each syllable in a foot.

Accentual Rhythm*

In this article, we're going to begin to look at Anglophone (English) accentual rhythm. There's a lot to cover regarding accentual rhythm, particularly since we have been using borrowed terminology that doesn't quite graft on to English. But to begin with, some helpful terminology:

Accents: In English, accent is felt through stressed or unstressed syllables.
Syllable: Is a single unit of a word. So the word "Yes" is monosyllabic (having only one unit). While the word "mus-ic" is multisyllabic (having more than one unit). You can read more here.
Stressed Syllables: These are syllables which are given extra weight or emphasis.
Unstressed Syllables: These are syllables which are given less weight or emphasis.

It's important to note that only multisyllabic words have definite, fixed accentual rhythm. This will be important when we look at flex syllables* and secondary stresses later on.

Other languages may not employ accentual rhythm at all. Or accent may be determined by vowel length or short/long words. How does your language work?

Greek Prosody

Although we'll become more nuanced as we go on, it's helpful to look again at what we can learn from Greek prosody. While Eminem was able to rap in octosyllabic tetrameter, most spoken verse isn't quite that fast. Most verse drama tends to use metric feet of double or triple syllabic rhythm. So, let's look at those! (See a fuller list here.)

If a syllable is unstressed we will put it in lowercase or we will use the annotation: —
If a syllable is stressed we will put it in UPPERCASE or we will use the annotation: /

Disyllabic Metric Family

Iamb: unstressed STRESSED — /
Trochee: STRESSED unstressed / —
Pyrrhus: unstressed unstressed — —
Spondee: STRESSED STRESSED / /

Trisyllabic Metric Family

Tribrach: unstressed unstressed unstressed — — —
Dactyl: STRESSED unstressed unstressed / — —
Amphibrach: unstressed STRESSED unstressed — / --
Anapest: unstressed unstressed STRESSED — — /
Bacchius: unstressed STRESSED STRESSED — / /
Cretic: STRESSED unstressed STRESSED / — /
Molossus: STRESSED STRESSED STRESSED / / /

What's the difference between Syllabic and Accentual Rhythms?*

Syllabic Rhythm, as we discussed before, only counts the number of syllables in any metric foot. Accentual Rhythm tells us which accents are emphasized on a metric foot. Let's try out a line from Shakespeare's Hamlet on a musical sheet.

For syllabic rhythm, we would notice that we feel five strong beats (pentameter), and that each foot has double syllables (disyllabic).

But in accentual rhythm, we ask where the emphasis falls. So we might write out this same line like this:

But...is it really accented that way?

If you're singing along, though, you may have some quibbles with whether the emphasis should be going up or down, or whether "and," "the" and even "shocks" are really STRESSED or unstressed. That's why we'll need to talk about flex syllables* soon!

However, when we're scanning text for accentual rhythm, the first thing we want to do* is to look for multisyllabic words. Again, only multisyllabic words are consistently accented in English. In this line of text our multisyllabic words are: "heartaches" "thousand" and "natural." Let's look closer at them:

Heartaches: The emphasis is on the first syllable. HEART-ache. From our list above, that makes this word a trochee.
Thousand: The emphasis is on the first syllable. THOUS-and. So this is also a trochee.
Natural: This word is actually elided. That means that it's a word that we can either say all three syllables (NAT-ur-al) or we can shove some of the syllables together (elision). In this case, most actors pronounce this word in this line as "natr'ul." In either case, we have a stressed first word. Regardless, it's in the trochee family. (More on accentual families later!)*

In our scansion, therefore, we're seeing a lot of trochaic family accentual rhythm. But this is generally considered an iambic line of verse. Why is that? Well, it's important to remember that while we're looking for the accent, we name the type of accentual rhythm we see not by the word but by the metric foot.

Take a look at the image above again. Do you see how each metric foot follows the pattern of unstressed STRESSED? That makes this line iambic, even though it borrows trochees to get there.

Putting it together

When scanning (studying) a piece of meter*, we always begin with the metric feet. In this line of verse from Hamlet,, Shakespeare uses five (5) strong beats per line. For our purposes we would then say:

Because there are five (5) strong beats
That means that the line has five (5) feet per line
So we would call it pentameter (5)

Then we look at the syllabic rhythm.*

We feel two (II) syllables over each beat
That means that the line is written in double, which we call disyllabic (II)
Putting these together, we have disyllabic pentameter (II/5)

Then we look at the accentual rhythm.*

We discover where the accents fall by scanning (studying) the multisyllabic words first. In this case, we see that there is generally a rhythm of unstressed STRESSED — / per foot
Because it is unstressed STRESSED — / we call this accentual rhythm iambic (Ib)*...meaning

II(Ib)/5
Iambic Pentameter

BUT WAIT! Shouldn't it be disyllabic iambic pentameter? Yes, technically. However, since iambs are already in the disyllabic metric family, we don't need to repeat that. Except...well...