The link between pitch and stress

Most discussions of tone in Kamtok suggest an obvious link between pitch and stress. Dwyer (1966) state that Kamtok tone involves two separate but related features that are pitch and stress. The high pitch is usually accompanied by stress while the low pitch is usually unstressed. Mbassi-Manga (1976) goes further to point out that Kamtok does not have unstressed syllables as one finds in English. Except for emphatic stress, each syllable is uttered with the same amount of strength, except the last syllable which receives slightly more energy. Thus instead of talking about stressed and unstressed syllables, he suggests the notions of primary and secondary stress. Consider the following examples:

Mbassi-Manga (1976) argues that in casual speech stress occurs on the final syllable of each word taken in isolation and of the sense group in connected speech. Thus pitch and stress combine in Kamtok to give its speech a characteristic melody that distinguishes it very clearly from English. Most researchers agree on the significance of tone in Kamtok and on the fact that although it exhibits stress, the language is syllable-timed. Those who accept the significance of tone in Kamtok but hesitate to conclude that it is a tone language argue that similar tone differentiations exist in the local variety of (standard) English, without leading to the conclusion that English is a tone language. Clearly developments in the area of tone are worthy of longitudinal studies.