2020-03-16 Pronunciation: stress timing

Greg Malivuk
gmalivuk@staffordhouse.com
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - Notes from all classes
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English is a stress-timed language. In normal sentences, each stress takes about the same amount of time.
happening again
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In your group, count how many beats each line of the poem has, and mark which syllables are stressed.
What parts of speech have stress in the poem? - nouns, adjectives, adverbs, main verbs, question words, quantifiers
What parts of speech don’t? - prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, articles, pronouns
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The words that normally get stressed are content words. These give the important information, so we make sure to pronounce them clearly.
The words that are normally unstressed are function words. There aren’t as many words of these types, so it’s easier to understand them even if they’re not pronounced clearly or fully.

black ____ white - There are really only two words that might fit here, so we only need one tiny sound to know which one.