EN 2207:
Practical Phonology IV
Shifting stress patterns: stress and suffixes
· Notice how the
main stress changes when a suffix is added, e.g. invite, invitation;
national, nationality
· Activity:
- Find some more words where the stress changes when
a suffix is added and learn to pronounce them correctly. Check in your
dictionary.
· Word stress rules;
Look at the following examples. Add more to the
list. Practice saying them. Check in your dictionary.
- Most two syllable nouns & adjectives have the stress
on the 1st syllable, butter, pretty
- Most two syllable verbs have the stress on the last
syllable, begin, produce
- Words ending in ‘ic’ ‘sion’ tion’ have stress
on the syllable second from the end, realistic, television, solution
- Words ending in ‘cy’ ‘ty’ ‘phy’ ‘gy’ have
stress on the syllable 3rd from the end, democracy, reliability.
- Words with many syllables have a primary and
secondary stress, international
· Compound words
- in nouns the stress is on the 1st part, greenhouse
- in adjectives, on the 2nd part, bad-tempered
- in verbs , on the 2nd part, understand
Stress in sentences
· Types of
activities:
- Listen and underline the content words in the
following sentences. Practice saying the sentences with correct stress
Can I have a coffee and a cup of tea, please?
Thanks for a
lovely meal. etc.
- How many stresses? Where are they?
I wondered if you were free on Tuesday
I’d like to meet her. etc.
Connected speech-elision
· Elision (deletion
of sounds connected speech) mostly affects the English sounds ‘h’, ‘t’, ‘d’ and
schwa,
e.g. dropping of
‘h’ in unstressed pronouns (his, her, him, he)
· In a sequence of 3
consonants ‘t’ elides, Christmas, must be
· ‘d’ elides when it
is preceded by a vowel and followed by a consonant
· there could be
· Listen to a radio
broadcast or a speech and pick out instances where elision happens.
e.g. government proposals ‘t’ is
elided, last night
Pronunciation practice
Rising and falling tone; Listen and practice
Reading selections from dialogues / drama
Emphasis on stress and intonation, rhythm, strong
and weak forms
Reading prose and poetry
Focus: awareness of tone unit boundaries – emphasis
on pitch loudness and length
