2018-03-12 Pronunciation: stress in sentences

Rhythm and stress in phrases and sentences.
Handout p. 59 - Repeat the words and phrases. Notice that they have the same stress patterns.
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idiosyncratic - o . . . 0 .
With your partner, come up with a phrase or short sentence that has this same syllable and stress pattern.
- _ _ _ ^ _
John said he can hear it.
He is energetic.
loves to buy cosmetics
I want you to listen.
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English is a stress-timed language. The speed that we speak depends on stressed syllables.
This can be heard much more strongly in poems and rhymes than in normal speech.
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p. 60 exercise 3A - Count how many strong, stressed syllables each line of this common nursery rhyme has.
Mary, mary - 2
Quite contrary - 2
How does your garden grow? - 3
With silver bells - 2
And cockle shells - 2
And pretty maids all in a row. - 3
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There once was a fisher named Fischer		3 a
Who was fishing for fish in a fissure		3 a
When a fish with a grin				2 b
Pulled the fisherman in.			2 b
Now they’re fishing the fissure for Fischer.	3 a
- This form is called a Limerick..
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What types of words usually have the stress in most of these rhymes?
- nouns, (main) verbs, adjectives, adverbs, interrogatives
What types of words do not have stress?
- pronouns, prepositions, articles, auxiliary/helping verbs
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These are often called content and structure words, respectively.
Content words carry the important information/content/meaning of the sentence.
Structure words make the grammar correct, but don’t carry that much information.
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There are also not many options for the positions where structure words go, so we don’t need to hear them that clearly to know what the word should be.
possible ____ change