Verbal emphasis in Ukrainian and German languages: cross-linguistic relations

Abstract

Nowadays typological studies of related and unrelated languages are becoming of great importance. Appealing to historic, comparatively-synchronous, contrastive parallels of several languages opens up the possibility of highlighting the certain features of their historical and cultural development. Scientific research studies of such kind help to clarify the universal, common and distinctive features of comparative languages, as well as to substantiate the uniqueness of every language as a national phenomenon. Important for contrastive phonetics is the study of super-segmental means, in particular prosodic means, that is stress and intonation. In comparative linguistics to identify the peculiarities of stress in comparative languages can be used such criteria: nature of stress, the place of stress in a word, quality of stress and function of stress. These criteria were taken in to account in our research because they give quite objective data for achieving the goal. This article is devoted to the comparative study of verbal stress in the Ukrainian and German languages. The object of our study is verbal stress in the Ukrainian and German languages, which distinguishes and differs a word from the speech flow – the basic unit of the language mechanism of a particular language. There is considered the means of distinguishing the stressed syllable, the ratio of longitude and stress of a vowel sound, the place of stress in a word, functions of word stress. The main regularities of the accent norm of parts of speech in the Ukrainian and German languages. In the course of study, we came to the conclusion that in the Ukrainian and German languages the stressed syllable is characterized by dynamism, duration and expressiveness of timbre, that is dynamic stress is typical for both languages. Both languages have different place of stress in the word. With some apprehension, it can be considered a fixed accent in the German language, where the first sellable is mainly stressed (there are some rare exception, so it cannot be called a typical feature). In the Ukrainian language the accent is diverse and mobile, there are certain patterns of accent norm of parts of speech. Such free dynamic stress has a significative function, it distinguishes the grammatical forms of lexeme and the meaning of words. However, In the German language, in cases where the accent is free, the significative function is also used. In both compared languages we can find a side accent in addition to the main accent. Complex words have such accent. In the Ukrainian language the side stress is the first and the main stress is the second; in the German language, the main stress is the first and the side stress is the second. Common for all types of stress is the culminative function (design of word through the allocation of its prosodic center). Mobile stress has a significative (word-distinguishing) function.