rõhutus

Rõhutus, also known as stress in English, is a linguistic phenomenon where one syllable in a word is pronounced with greater emphasis than the others. It is a fundamental aspect of phonology, the study of sound systems in languages. The stressed syllable typically has a higher pitch, longer duration, and greater loudness compared to unstressed syllables. In many languages, stress patterns can vary depending on the part of speech, such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and can also change based on the context or meaning of the word.

Stress is particularly important in languages with stress-timed rhythm, where the timing of speech is based on the duration of stressed syllables. Examples of such languages include English, Spanish, and Russian. In contrast, syllable-timed languages, like Japanese and Chinese, have a more consistent timing based on the duration of individual syllables, regardless of stress.

In some languages, stress can also indicate grammatical information, such as the distinction between different parts of speech or the marking of emphasis. For instance, in English, the stress pattern can differentiate between homographs, words that are spelled the same but have different meanings and pronunciations, such as "record" (noun) and "record" (verb).

The study of stress patterns is crucial for understanding the phonological structure of languages and is an essential component of linguistics. It also plays a significant role in language teaching, speech therapy, and the development of text-to-speech systems.