2018-01-15 Pronunciation: stress in sentences and poems

Greg Malivuk
[email protected]
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - notes from all classes
---
Nursery Rhymes give good examples of English sentence stress and rhythm:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.
---
English is a stress-timed language. This means that sentences with the same number of stresses will take (about) the same amount of time to say.
How many “beats” does each line of “Mary Mary” have?
2
2
3
2
2
3
---
Contrastive Stress
---
“and pretty maids all in a row” - We might stress pretty if someone else was talking before about ugly maids.
---
I asked you to buy ten red roses.
What if we stress…?
I - not another person
asked - it’s not just a favor from you, but also not a command from me
you - not another person
buy - not steal
ten - not another number
red - not another color
roses - not another flower
---
John read the book to his daughter.
- How many different ways can we put primary stress in this sentence, and what do they mean?
---
Can you think of a sentence that rhymes with this one?
Then she fell down in the water.
Before she could cry
He made her all dry.
And she ran back home to her mother.
---
This is called a Limerick in English. It has the rhyme scheme A A B B A and 3, 3, 2, 2, 3 beats in each line. (Usually there are two unstressed syllables between each beat.)
---
Homework: Find a clean Limerick that you like, to share with the class tomorrow.