Sentence stress

Sentence stress

Stress and rhythm

The English language is often referred to as stress-timed - stress in a spoken sentence occurs at regular intervals and the length it takes to say something depends on the number of stressed syllables rather than the number of syllables itself. Sentence stress is what gives English its rhythm or "beat".

Example:

UNSTRESSED

STRESSED

prepositions (e.g. to, for)the verb be (e.g. is, are, was) auxiliary verbs (e.g. can, does) articles (e.g. the, an) conjunctions (e.g. and, or) personal pronouns (e.g. you, her)

nouns (e.g. hour, tea) main verbs (e.g. play, wait) adjectives and adverbs (e.g. good, well) questions words (e.g. who, what) contractions with not (e.g. can't, isn't)

VS

Examples:

Leaves on the trees and the sun in the sky; The breeze is so fresh and the grass is so high. Gone is the autumn of yellow and gold. Gone are the nights of the winter so cold. Wake in the morning to blackbrids that sing. These are the things that I love about spring.

(o)OooOooOooO

Exercises 1 and 2:

Odd one out Example: Ooo cinema Wasn't it? Hasn't she? Don't you? 1. oOo tomato Close the door. He told me. I like it. 2. ooO afternoon Does he drive? Were you cold? What happened? 3. oOo December It's opened. They arrived. They listened. Grouping exercise:

Exercises:

Sencence stress - personal pronouns

For every evil under the sun, There is a remedy or there is none. If there be one, try and find it; If there be none, never mind it. There was an old man of Peru Who dreamt he was eating a shoe. He awoke in the night In a terrible fright And found it was perfectly true. There was a young man of Devizes Whose ears were of different sizes; The one that was small Was no use at all But the other won several prizes.

Rhymes and limericks

Sentence stress - Oxford English video

Sentence stress - change of meaning

Sentence stress illustrated (emphasis): Exercise: Video (TikTok) Revision:

References:

Hancock, M. (2003, 2012) English Pronunciation in Use Intermediate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Mańkowska, A., Nowacka, M., Kłoczkowska, M. (2009) How much wood would a woodchuck chuck? English Pronunciation Practice Book. Kraków-Zamość-Rzeszów: Konsorcjum Akademickie Vaughan-Rees, M. (2010) Rhymes and Rhythm. A poem-based course for English pronunciation. Reading: Garnet Publishing Ltd. Pierrel, J. Word Stress Rules retrieved from http://www.wordstress.info/word-stress-exercises/listening-sentence-stress/ Sentence Stress retrieved from https://esol.britishcouncil.org/content/teachers/staff-room/teaching-articles/sentence-stress