English Rhythm and Intonation

Review of Terminology

• Rhythm
• In the utterance below:
• How many syllables total? _____
• How many “beats”? ____

“She would’ve liked to have gone to the movie.”

_ _ _  _ _  _ _ _

• :
• “
• “
• “

Review of Terminology

• Rhythm
• In the utterance below:
• How many syllables total? Eleven
• How many “beats”? Three

“She would’ve liked to have gone to the movie.”

_ _ _  _ _  _ _ _

• Content words:
• “Liked” (verb) / “Gone” (verb) / “Movie” (noun)
• “She” = unstressed because it is a pronoun
• “would’ve” = unstressed because it is a modal verb

Review of Terminology

“She would’ve liked to have gone to the movie.”

_ _ _  _ _  _ _ _

/ʃiy wʊdəv layk tuw həv gɑn tə ðə muwviy/

Review of Terminology

• Intonation
• *At the sentence level*
• Patterns of pitch changes and variations within a phrase or utterance
• Often conveys the speaker’s mood, intentions, attitude
• The variations still follow rhythm patterns (stressed syllables are the ones that receive the pitch changes—overall pitch changes made in relation to the other pitches in the whole phrase or utterance)

Are  you ready yet? 

You can’t  be serious! 

Review of Terminology

• Rhythm & Contrastive Stress

Think about the context of the utterance—what words are probably the most “important” to the speaker? They will likely carry the “beats.” These may sometimes be function words:

• A: “Are you going to the theatre?”
• B: “No, I’m coming from the theatre.”

Contrastive Stress

I did not say you stole my red hat.