structural:reformatting
Lexical prosody

Lexical prosody refers to the specific amplitudes, pitches, or lengths of vowels that are applied to specific syllables in words based on what the speaker wants to emphasize. The different stressors placed on individual syllables can change entire meanings of a word. Take one popular English word for example:

In English, lexical prosody is used for a few different reasons. As we have seen above, lexical prosody was used to change the form of a word from a noun to a verb. Another function of lexical prosody has to do with the grammatical role that a word plays within a sentence. Adjectives and nouns of a sentence are often stressed on the first syllables while verbs are often stressed on the second syllable. For example:

Here, adults will emphasize the first syllable, "IN", as "increase" functions as an adjective.

Here, adults will emphasize the second syllable, "CREASE", as "increase" functions as a verb.

Another way that lexical prosody is used in the English language is in compound nouns such as "wishbone, mailbox, and blackbird" where the first compound is emphasized. Some suffixes can also affect the ways in which different words are stressed. Take "active" for example. Without the suffix, the lexical emphasis is on "AC". However, when we add the suffix -ity, the stress shifts to "TIV".