A stressed syllable pronounced together with the unstressed syllables forms a
rhythmic group. A sense-group may consist of one or more rhythmic groups.
Changes in the
tempo of English speech caused by the regularity of its rhythm are closely
connected with changes in the length of English sounds, especially vowels.
The characteristic features of English speech rhythm may be summed up as
follows:
1.
The regular recurrence of stressed syllables which results in:
a)
the pronunciation of each rhythmic group in a sense-group in the same period of time,
irrespective of the number of unstressed syllables in it;
b)
the influence of this feature of English speech rhythm upon the tempo of speech and
the length of sounds, especially vowels.
2.
The alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, which results in the influence of
rhythm upon word-stress and sentence-stress.
We see that sentence-stress has one more function: to serve as the basis for the
rhythmical structure of the sentence.
He is 'very
ˎ
busy.
'Why
ˎ
not? It’s a 'lovely
ˎ
day.
'Nick
is a’
'gain on 'business in
ˎ
Moscow.
Contractions Contractions are two words that are combined to form one. Contractions are used
frequently in spoken English and are grammatically correct. If you use the full form of the
contraction in conversation, your speech will sound stilted and unnatural.
Examples
: Contraction Full form I’ll
I will
you’re
you are
he’s
he is
we’ve
we have
isn’t
is not
