World language must have the rule of the requirements of having the words or sentences. People who talk must contain the word or the word can be combined as a sentence.
Indonesian language as one of the world language to be spoken in Indonesia also contains words and sentences and how they speak among Indonesian people. When Indonesian language are spoken, the words and the sentences must have the rule to be stressed and contain the syllable.
Stress and syllable are talked about in a knowledge name phonetics area. All the world language must have this knowledge because the phonetics area relates to the way how people speak the words or the sentences.
Indeed, Indonesian language must have phonetics knowledge especially in stress and syllable. Before talking about Indonesian stress and syllable, here are the meaning based on The Official Indonesian Language Dictionary (KBBI: Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia).
Stress word is divided into two meanings:
1. The word stress for sentence means that there is stress in Indonesian word which is considered to be important in a sentence.
- Ani membeli bubur ayam (Ani buys chicken porridge)
This sentence emphasizes the word Ani as the stress of a sentence which means that only Ani who buys the chicken porridge.
- Ani membeli bubur ayam
This sentence emphasizes the word membeli (buy) as the stress of a sentence which means that Ani buys the chicken porridge not eating or making the porridge.
- Ani membeli bubur ayam
This sentence emphasizes the word bubur ayam (chicken porridge) as the stress of a sentence which means that Ani only buys chicken porridge which is not other things.
2. The word stress for word means that there is stress in Indonesian syllable for only a word itself. It relates to the syllable.
According to The Official Indonesian Dictionary (KBBI: Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia) means:
- Syllable: The structure in which happens in one or the arranging of the phoneme which is formed by the constituent word.
Example of Syllable in Indonesian language:
| Indonesian | The Syllable | Meaning (in English) |
| Ibu | I-bu | Mother |
| Makan | Ma-kan | Eat |
| Konstituante | Kons-ti-tu-an-te | Constituent |
| Di mana | Di ma-na | Where |
| Kalender | Ka-len-der | Calendar |
Syllable relates to the stress for a word. The stress in a word happens in only one word which has one syllable as in (I-bu) or the syllable which is more than one as in (Ma-kan) or (Ka-len-der). The function of the stress in this syllable is to emphasize the meaning or the purpose of the word.
In brief that Indonesian words has its syllable and stress. The main function of the stress and syllable in Indonesian language is to emphasize the meaning of the word in a sentences or the purpose of which the word is spoken by the people in the relation of the context of discussion.
The syllable and the stress can be sounded differently related in how people of Indonesia in different provinces speak. They relates to the accent of the people who speak in a provinces or regions.
Therefore, the people of Indonesia who is from Java can have different stress and syllable by the way people who is from Sumatra.