Accent in Simple and Complex Words of English

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1 (A), Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (Institute for Anglistics/ American Studies), course: PS English Sounds and Letters - Past and Present, 8 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Word accent is a largely discussed field in modern linguistics. If one looks up the combination of the expressions 'word' and 'accent' in an Internet search engine like "Google", one receives thousands of different websites concerning this issue. In this paper, I want to put together all the important facts of accent in English words and at the same time try to avoid a too complex view on the many details of the topic. In this attempt, I will focus on words in isolation and will only take a small outlook on accent in connected speech.