Sentence stress

Sentence stress
Is the pattern of strong and weak syllables in a sentence. E.g. How do you do? OooO

English is a stress-timed language

The English language is a stress-timed language. This means that stress in a spoken sentence occurs at regular intervals and the length it takes to say something depends on the number of stressed syllables rather than the number of syllables itself. (Croatian - syllabletimed language)

e.g.
1 1 and 1 and a 1 and then a 2 3 2 and 3 and 2 and a 3 and a 2 and then a 3 and then a 4 4 4 4

The four sentences take the same length of time

 Content words (those that carry information) tend to receive stress in an utterance. These are: nouns, main verbs, adjectives, possessive pronouns (mine, yours, hers...), demonstrative pronouns (Whose books are these?), interrogatives (Why, Who, How...?), not and negative contractions (didnt, wont, shouldnt, isnt ...), adverbs (always, very, almost...) adverbial particles (to figure out, to drop off..., to take off...)

 Function (structure) words (those that express grammatical functions in an utterance) are usually unstressed, unless in final position or when used emphatically. These are:

articles, auxiliary verbs, personal pronouns, possessive adjectives, demonstrative adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions

The way you say something can affect its meaning? T or F

I asked you to buy me a bunch of red roses. I asked YOU to buy me a bunch of red roses. I asked you to buy me a bunch of RED roses. I asked you to buy me a bunch of red ROSES.

Unstressed words

Words which are not usually stressed

Pronouns
In fast speech: do not pronounce the letter H in he, her, him, his unless it is at the beginning of the sentence the vowel sound is very short

If we want to emphasize something we stress the pronouns

Auxiliary verbs

 An auxiliary verb is a verb which does not have a meaning by itself, it helps the grammar of the sentence. (e.g. be, do, have) A contraction is a short form of an auxiliary verb in writing. For example, are is contacted to re in they're. Strong from/ weak form. Some function words have two pronunciations: a strong and a weak from. For example, but can be pronounced /bt/(strong form) or /bt/ (weak form). The weak form is the usual pronunciation of these words.

Pronunciation of the verb to be

am /m/, strong form: /m/ are /(r)/ (if the following word begins with a vowel sound, the /r/ is pronounced too), strong form: /(r)/ is /z/*(a separate syllable: S, CE, GE, CH) were /w(r)/, strong form: /w: (r)/ was /wz/, strong form: /wz/

Pronunciation of the verb to do

do /d/ strong form: /du:/ Does /dz/ strong form: /dz/ Did /dd/

Pronunciation of the verb to have

have /hv/ or /v/, strong form: /hv/ has /hz/ or /z/, strong form: /hz/ had /hd/ or /d/, strong form: /hd/

Contracted forms
im /m/ hes /hiz/ shes /iz/ its / ts/