Mónica Terluk Let’s suppose you are in a room, and what people in a different room are saying gets muffled.. It is possible that, even without hearing intelligible words or accurate sou
Trang 1Prof Francisco Zabala – 2014 Adapted from Prof Mónica Terluk
Let’s suppose you are in a room, and what people in a different room are saying gets muffled It is possible that, even without hearing intelligible words or accurate sounds, you will detect what language is being used How is this
possible? It may be a question of rhythm
Compare “Ben’s quite fat now,” “Benny is very heavy at present,” and “Benjamin is particularly corpulent presently.”
These three sentences are definitely different in size but similar in duration (i.e time)
1st FOOT 2nd FOOT 3rd FOOT 4th FOOT
(4 stresses / 4 syllables)
Ben’s
(4 stresses / 10 syllables)
(4 stresses / 15 syllables)
How can this be possible? Although this is not scientifically accurate, for teaching purposes we say that English
rhythm tends to be isochronous .`H!rPjq?m?r., that is, beats tend to happen in a regular way All the unstressed syllables in a foot can be crammed together because they generally contain weak vowels
1 Weak vowelscan only occur in weak, unstressed syllables:
a E.g Benjamin
b Sometimes .? may even be dropped: apple !zok., listen !kHrm
2
a Stressed: book !aTj., sit !rHs., look !kTj., win !vHm., wood !vTc
b Unstressed: catching !jzsRHM., added !zcHc., strongest !rsqPMfHrs
c Sometimes ? can replace them:
3 Strong vowels: they are obligatory in stressed syllables They can also be found in some unstressed syllables
a Stressed: time !s`Hl., dollar !cPk?., pronunciation oq?$mUmrh!dHRm
b. Unstressed: activity zj!sHu?sh., context !jPmsdjrs., dialogue !c`H?kPf