The stressed syllable is the one on which the stress of a word falls.
Syllables are the phonological units that make up words. A syllable can be defined as the sound that, from an articulation, makes up a phonic nucleus, distinguished from others by the depressions of the voice. Tonic , for its part, is the adjective that qualifies that which brings vigor or strength to something.
The notion of stressed syllable refers to stressed syllables . This means that the prosodic accent falls on them: the greatest phonetic intensity in the pronunciation. When the spelling rules indicate it, the stressed syllable also receives the accent .
stressed syllable vs. unstressed syllables
In a word, it is possible to differentiate between the stressed syllable and the unstressed syllables . While the stressed syllable has prosodic accent, unstressed syllables lack this accent .
Let's look at the case of the word "hospital" . This term has three syllables ( hos – pi – tal ) and is therefore trisyllabic . The prosodic stress falls on the last syllable ( tal ), while the unstressed syllables are hos and pi . Because "hospital" is stressed on the final syllable, it is an acute word . The stress rules indicate that acute words that do not end in N , S or vowel do not have an accent: that is why "hospital" lacks this sign.
On the other hand, for this very reason, "song" is an acute word with two syllables ( bisyllable ) that has an accent. The stressed syllable is "ción" , while "can" is an unstressed syllable.
In poetry, the stressed syllable is important when creating rhymes.
Use of the accent in Spanish
Summing up, therefore, when establishing what the accent on stressed syllables is, we must take into account the well-known accentuation rules of Spanish. Rules that determine the following:
-In acute words, the stressed syllables will have the accent if they end in -n, in -s or in a vowel. Examples of this are coffee, melon or heart. On the contrary, examples of words of this type that do not have the corresponding accent are wall and clock.
-When it comes to plain words, stressed syllables will have an accent if they do not end in -n, -s or a vowel. Very clear examples are prison or chalice.
-In esdrújulas words, the stressed syllables will always have the accent, regardless of the type of letter in which they end. We can use terms such as bat, tear, loan or machine as examples.
-As in the previous case, we can establish that when it comes to overesdrújulas words, they will always, with some exceptions, have an accent mark on the stressed syllable in question, without taking into account the letter in which they end. Example are quickly or take it away from me.
As you can see, stressed syllables are always stressed, although not all of them have an orthographic accent (tilde).
The stressed syllable in other languages
All the information presented refers to the stressed syllables in Spanish. However, in each language they are subject to some rules or others and are identified by different characteristics.
A clear example of this is French, in which the stressed syllable always coincides with the last syllable of each word.