English is a stress-timed language II

Last time I wrote about this, I said we mainly stress nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and that's true.

On the other hand, we usually de-stress function words like prepositions, "helping" verbs or modals, pronouns and articles. In the rhythm of the sentence, the function words usually get a lot less time and their vowels tend to be elided.

However, there are some exceptions. When we use negative contractions such as don't and can't and won't, we stress these negative forms to distinguish them from their positive partners.

I've used upper case to represent strong stresses and lower case to represent unstressed syllables. Look at the pairs below:

i can GO. i CAN'T GO.
can you HELP? i CAN'T HELP.
did you SEE it? i DIDn't SEE it.

Prepositions take on strong stress when they are part of two-word or phrasal verbs, like this:

They DROPPED us OFF at the AIRport an HOur EARly.
I was aSLEEP when the PLANE TOOK OFF.

"But isn't the adverb 'when' stressed in the previous sentence?" you may ask.

WELL, it IS when it's a QUEStion Opener, like THIS:

WHEN did he GO? WHO WENT? WHY did he GO? HOW did he GET THERE?

THAT reMINDS me. deMONstrative PROnouns are ALso STRESSED, like THIS:

i like THESE SHOES but NOT THOSE.
THIS is YOURS, and THAT's MINE.

ONE MORE THING:
we STRESS PROnouns for EMphasis, LIKE THIS:

THESE are MY BOOKS. YOURS are on the TAble.
were you CALLing ME? NO, i was CALLing HER.
JOHN HUMphrey WASn't aGAINST the UNderdog; he was FOR the UNderdog.

This should give you a better idea of English sentence rhythms. Now here's the quiz. How many strongly stressed syllables are in this last paragraph? (Answer: 18)

English is a stress-timed language I

English is a stress-timed language. In other words, the strong stresses come along at regular intervals in a galloping rhythm. The stresses repeat evenly, like the hoofbeats of a fast-moving horse.

This has certain implications for those who are learning the language. One obvious one is that unstressed syllables are elided, sometimes almost to the point of non-existence. In unstressed syllables, the vowel is usually minimized, reduced to an unaccented schwa sound, and that can make these syllables hard for language students to hear.

A second implication, one that can be hard for second language learners to grasp, is that no matter how many unstressed function words and syllables occur between the stressed syllables, the rhythm remains fixed. More syllables between stresses just means that they must be elided more and pronounced faster. If there are no other syllables between the strongly stressed ones, there is enough of a pause between them so that the rhythm remains unaltered.

A further important fact is that in general, nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are the strongly stressed. If these words are polysyllabic, only ONE syllable has strong stress; in fact, the others are elided, as in the word going. The stress is on the first syllable, and the /ng/ is shortened to /n/in rapid informal speech.

To see how this works in practical terms, let's look at a stanza from a poem by the fanciful children's poet Dennis Lee. The strong stresses are in capital letters.

"i WENT to PLAY in the PARK
and i DID'nt GET HOME until DARK
and WHEN i got HOME there were ANTS in my PANTS
and my FAther was FEEDing the SHARK."

As we can see from the stanza above, sometimes there are are a couple of syllables between the strong stresses, and sometimes there are none.

Stay tuned for Part II, where I reveal other parts of speech that get strong stress in certain contexts.