English Pronunciation
Lecture 5
(last, but not least)
English "Prosody" or Phrasing
(Putting It All Together)
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English Pronunciation
So far, we have talked about the
SOUNDS of English (individual vowels,
consonants);
We have also talked a little bit about
WORDS (syllables and word stress).
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English Pronunciation
Before we end these lecture sessions, we
must also talk about what happens in
connected speech – that is, when you
put the sounds and words together in
sentences, or utterances.
(an utterance = a spoken phrase)
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English Pronunciation
Course booklet, pages 29-40:
• WORD STRESS (30-34)
• SENTENCE STRESS (35-36)
• NEUTRALIZATION (or WEAK FORMS)
(37-38)
• INTONATION & PAUSE UNITS (39-40)
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English Pronunciation
Prosody
Course booklet, pages 29-40:
(phrasing)
• SENTENCE STRESS (35-36)
• NEUTRALIZATION (WEAK FORMS)
(37-38)
• INTONATION & PAUSE UNITS (39-40)
The non-phonological aspects of pronunciation
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English Pronunciation
WORD STRESS: stressed vowels
As you know, in every English word of
more than one syllable, one syllable is
stressed...
The vowel sound in the stressed syllable is:
• longer
• louder
• higher in pitch
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English Pronunciation
WORD STRESS: unstressed vowels
• The other vowels in the word are (by
definition) unstressed.
• Unstressed vowels in an English word
are often neutralized – their
pronunciation is reduced.
What is the name of the IPA
symbol that's highlighted in
yellow here?
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English Pronunciation
Unstressed Vowels
• Most of the time, an unstressed vowel in
English is pronounced as a "schwa"
• As you saw in the lesson this week,
many English suffixes also contain the
/I/ sound.
-ing
-ain
-est
-ace, etc. (booklet, p. 12)
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English Pronunciation
•banana
•breakfast
•another
•necessity
•occur
•syllable
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English Pronunciation
•banana
•breakfast
•another
•necessity
•occur
•syllable
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English Pronunciation
•banana
•breakfast
•another
•necessity
•occur
•syllable
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English Pronunciation
•banana
•breakfast
•another
•necessity
•occur
•syllable
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English Pronunciation
•banana
•breakfast
•another
•necessity
•occur
•syllable
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English Pronunciation
•banana
•breakfast
•another
•necessity
•occur
•syllable
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English Pronunciation
IMPORTANT!!
• Schwa is NEVER the sound of a
stressed English vowel!
• You will never find schwa in a stressed
syllable.
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English Pronunciation
• Frequently the sound of unstressed English
vowels.
• But NOT ALWAYS!
 hotel
 maintain
 dictate
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English Pronunciation
Now, let's look at...
A group of words,
organized according
to syntactic rules,
that expresses (at
least one) idea.
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English Pronunciation
SENTENCE STRESS:
In normal spoken sentences, certain words
stand out from the others.
Listen – which ones stand out?
In normal sentences, certain words
stand out from the others.
These are the KEY CONTENT WORDS.
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English Pronunciation
SENTENCE STRESS:
CONTENT WORDS are stressed in
normal speech:
•
•
•
•
•
nouns
verbs
Where could he have put that
adjectives
book he was talking about?
adverbs
wh- words (interrogatives)
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English Pronunciation
SENTENCE STRESS:
Unstressed words in sentences tend to be
words that fulfill a GRAMMATICAL
FUNCTION:
•
•
•
•
•
articles
prepositions
pronouns
auxiliary verbs
conjunctions
Where could he have put that
book he was talking about?
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English Pronunciation
SENTENCE STRESS:
These unstressed FUNCTION WORDS
(grammatical words) are frequently
"neutralized":
• the vowel sound is reduced to schwa
• occasionally a consonant sound may even
disappear...
booklet, pp. 37-38
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English Pronunciation
SENTENCE STRESS:
It takes MUCH LESS TIME to say a neutralized
word than a stressed word.
Many function words can take the same amount
of time to say as a single key word:
TIMEWISE,
Sal might have forgotten it.
= Sal forgot.
Booklet, p. 36.
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English Pronunciation
SENTENCE STRESS:
The alternance between stressed and
"neutralized" words gives English its rhythm.
English is called a "stress-timed" language:
word stress is the basic unit of rhythm (for
poetry, music, etc.).
French is a "syllable-timed" language: the
syllable is the basic unit of rhythm (what is the
definition of an alexandrain…?)
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English Pronunciation
SENTENCE STRESS:
Stress-timed rhythm: how many stressed
syllables in each line? (the number of words
or syllables doesn't necessarily matter)
I was 'angry with my 'friend;
I told my 'wrath, my wrath did 'end.
I was 'angry with my 'foe;
I told it 'not, my wrath did 'grow.
(7 syllables)
(8 syllables)
William Blake
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English Pronunciation
PAUSE UNITS:
In spoken language, we don't have
punctuation.
We have pauses, sentence stress, and
intonation, to tell us what the speaker
considers most important.
The chunk of language between two
pauses is called a pause unit. These
are the basic units of spoken language.
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English Pronunciation
PAUSE UNITS:
Most pause units contain only one or two
stressed words.
Sentence stress usually falls towards the
END of an English pause unit.
Intonation usually drops at the end of the
pause unit, as well.
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English Pronunciation
English Phrasing (Prosody)
• We will not have much time to work on
this.
• To be practiced in semester 2, LEA 2,
etc.
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English Pronunciation
RETURN TO CONSONANTS:
-final consonants are (almost) always
pronounced, in English. [Very different
from French!] (booklet, p. 27)
- silent consonants: booklet, p. 28 (you
mmust learn all of these words)
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English Pronunciation
FINAL WORDS:
Pronunciation is a "motor skill" (involving
muscles + brain)
Expertise in making the sounds of English
properly requires:
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English Pronunciation
We are VERY SORRY about all the
technical problems in room 13-114...
they may finally be solved!!
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English Pronunciation
Thank you.
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