‘INVESTIGATING THE EFFECT OF MISPLACEMENT STRESS ON CHANGING SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES OF WORDS (A CASE STUDY OF ALBAHA UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AT TERTIARY LEVEL - FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND ARTS - ALMANDAQ)’

The purpose of this study is to look into the effect of misplacement stress on changing syntactic categories of words used by Albaha University students at the Faculty of Science and Arts – Almandaq at the tertiary level. The aim of this research is to demonstrate the effects of misplaced stress on the syntactic categories of words (verbs and nouns). To get and process the gathered data, a descriptive qualitative method is used. The study's population is third-year English department students' for the academic year 2021–2022. In the first semester, the students take a phonology course, which is beneficial to our study. The study's sample included 20 male students. The researcher designed an oral recorded test and a written test to collect the data. To measure the acoustic properties of English words for the oral recorded test, the data was analyzed using "Praat soft wave." For the written test, the SPSS program was used. The findings revealed a clear deficiency in the students' ability to manage stress effectively. This failure attributed to a lack of knowledge about stress placement and its effect on syntactic category. Furthermore, students do not get enough practice and feedback on stress placement while speaking and reading activities. Keywords: Stress Placement, Word Stress, Syntactic Category, Albaha University   Students